The symbolic handover of the e-cars to the Mayor of Bonn, Iván Arias, took place on February 3, 2023. The first of the vehicles built in Bolivia was put into operation at a public ceremony. Greetings from the Mayor of Bonn, Katja Dörner, were read out at the ceremony by the German ambassador on site, José Schulz.

For both mayors, the start of their respective terms of office at the end of 2020 and mid-2021 was strongly influenced by the pandemic response. Iván Arias had already identified the pandemic response and the climate crisis as important topics on the municipal agenda in an initial meeting with the Mayor of Bonn. Katja Dörner was therefore particularly pleased that the common concern to achieve climate neutrality now also plays a key role in the current project to strengthen the health sector and that emission-neutral mobility will now be used in the future: "Bonn and La Paz are standing together to work together for the climate and the well-being of the people in our cities."

This project was made possible by funding from the Municipal Corona Solidarity Package of Engagement Global's Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW). The funding program enables German municipalities to support their partner cities in strengthening their infrastructure after the pandemic.

The project is embedded in the implementation of the "Medico en tu casa" (doctor in your house) concept, which was introduced in La Paz to establish and professionalize decentralized outpatient healthcare.

The Bonn SDG Partnership Conference kicked off on Monday, September 26, 2022, in the Old Town Hall. For the first time, the three-day conference brought together representatives from the European partner cities of the city districts as well as from non-European partner cities.

The aim of the conference, entitled "Building Bridges between Cities in Europe and Worldwide - Joining Hands for Localizing the SDGs", was to exchange expertise, discuss joint project ideas for the local implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and initiate further networking between the partner cities. The focus was on personal exchange between the partner cities and the city of Bonn, which has been severely restricted by the pandemic over the past two and a half years. The conference was intended to give new impetus to this cooperation and the city partnerships.

Representatives from Bonn's project partner cities Bukhara (Uzbekistan), Cape Coast (Ghana) and La Paz (Bolivia) as well as from the partner cities of the Bonn city district, Oxford (UK) and Opole (Poland), are also taking part. The city of Ramallah (Palestine), with which Bonn has been cooperating for several years, is also taking part in the conference, as are the various twinning associations.

From June 20 to July 1, 2022, Chengdu University offered interested students an online seminar on the Bonn composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The course with the English title "Bonn and Chengdu: Beethoven as trademark" took place as part of the Summer School at Chengdu University and examined the question of Beethoven's role as a cultural "mediator" between Germany and China. Dr. Hannes Jedeck, himself a musicologist and sinologist, led the seminar from the German side.

As the topic of "Beethoven" apparently aroused greater interest than expected, the seminar, which was initially limited to 15 people, was ultimately opened up to 80 students from Chengdu University. The demand was simply too great. The Chinese coordinator of the program, Lianlian Gao, explained this as follows: "For us, Beethoven is an international landmark. In China, almost every student knows his famous '9th Symphony' or the piano piece 'Für Elise'."

For two years, the coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on personal contacts within the framework of Bonn's city and project partnerships. Mayor Katja Dörner has now welcomed guests back to Bonn. Her counterpart Ernest Arthur and his colleagues Abdul-Razak Mac-Abubakar (Metropolitan Planning Officer) and Richmond Yeboah (Investor Relations and Press) from Cape Coast, Ghana, visited the Lord Mayor in her office on Tuesday, May 31, 2022.

After a brief exchange on the current key issues in Bonn and Cape Coast, they signed the City of Bonn's guest book. The Mayor of Bonn also invited the guests to the planned SDG conference of the partner cities in Bonn in September.

In February 2022, the first learning lab also took place in Cape Coast as part of the "Urban Natural Assets" project. The City of Cape Coast's participation in the ICLEI Africa project came about through the mediation of the City of Bonn. The aim of the project is to strengthen the climate adaptability of cities, particularly through nature-based solutions, and thus protect biodiversity in urban areas. In these activities, the two partner cities can build on previous collaborations as part of the Fosu Lagoon restoration project:  https://cbc.iclei.org/una-resilience-cape-coast/ (opens in a new tab)

A visit by the Ghanaian partners to Bonn and Düsseldorf is planned for the end of May 2022 as part of the NRW - Ghana municipal exchange program. This first face-to-face meeting after almost three years (the last visit to Bonn took place in September 2019) can hopefully be used as a basis for further revitalization of the cooperation.

The generally difficult and tense situation made cooperation very difficult. Due to the new elections and subsequent change of familiar employees, contacts with the municipal level had to be reestablished. In January 2022, the two Mayors of Bonn held their first (online) meeting to get to know each other. Both mayors are leading their cities towards climate neutrality and expressed their willingness to continue working together, including within the framework of @ICLEI and the @EngGlobal climate partnerships.

In a further video conference with the new people responsible for international work, the desire was expressed to work together on the topic of health in addition to the existing focus areas of renewable energies, waste management and recycling as well as environmental education. It is currently being examined whether and in what form cooperation and financial support is possible here.

Mayor Ivan Arias took office in La Paz in May 2021. Mayor of Bonn Dörner was particularly interested in his extensive expertise in participation processes. The new mayor of La Paz warmly invited Ms Dörner to the Bolivian project partner city.