In late summer, Minsk students were invited by the City of Bonn and the Minsk Club to attend the 4th Energy Seminar in Bonn. Although these seminar participants came from a city of 2 million, they agreed: "We have underestimated Bonn with its 328,000 inhabitants. Bonn is much more lively, more colorful and more international than Minsk!”

The seminar on "Renewable Energies as a Measure to Combat Climate Change" was held for students of Bonn’s project partner city in Belarus for the fourth time already. This year, however, it was jointly organized by the City of Bonn and the Minsk-Club Bonn e.v. And thanks to the support of Engagement Global / Service Agency Communities in One World, more participants could be invited to attend.

In addition to eight students from Minsk and the surrounding area, the Deputy Director of the Energy Center of the City of Minsk also took part in the one-week program in Bonn. 

The new Metropolitan Coordinating Director Rachel Fousa-Sarpong of Bonn's project partner city Cape Coast in Ghana also paid a visit to Bonn this fall. At Bonn’s House of Nature, which has just been refurbished and expanded, she informed herself about the new interactive educational offers and the links between the exhibition and the accompanying outdoor program.

Cape Coast has a similar environmental education institution: the Biodiversity Centre. It was established as part of a joint cooperative project between the Cities of Bonn and Cape Coast to renature the local Fosu Lagoon. While in Bonn the focus is on the sensual experience of the forest habitat, in Cape Coast everything revolves around the ecosystem of the lagoon. 

October saw the visits of representatives from the two project partner cities of Cape Coast and La Paz, which had been facilitated by the City of Bonn. The delegations participated in a forum on sustainable public procurement, which was organized by the German Development Institute, a Bonn-based think tank. The conference was also attended by a larger delegation from Ghana under the leadership of the Head of the Local Government Service in Ghana, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur, who is a long-time friend of the partnership between Bonn and Cape Coast and who had also taken part in the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the fruitful partnership last year.

The forum was organized in the framework of the ongoing project entitled Municipalities Promoting and Shaping Sustainable Value Creation (MUPASS) – Public Procurement as a Tool for Fair and Sustainable Production.

In times where at least 10% to 20% of the GDP of most countries is generated by public demand, it has long become clear that linking public procurement of goods and services with ambitious sustainability requirements can have a major leverage effect on the transformation towards sustainability.

MUPASS is an international research and dialogue project implemented by the German Development Institute (DIE) in close cooperation with the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

In November, a delegation from Bukhara visited Bonn to find out more about food hygiene and related topics and engage in a professional exchange against the backdrop of a growing hotel and catering industry in Uzbekistan. An extensive program included visits to various caterers and larger restaurants as well as meetings with food inspectors in Bonn. 

A delegation from the Sichuan province government will visit Bonn in December to find out more about the German (dual) vocational training system. A lecture will be given at the Bonn / Rhine-Sieg Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Meetings will also include a discussion with the coordinating officer for municipal training at Bonn’s city administration. 

And in February 2020, a delegation from Minsk is scheduled to visit Bonn. The main focus of this visit will be on the exchange around the topic of "Inclusive City in the Context of Agenda 2030", with the aim of developing concrete joint projects under this headline.

Bonn has maintained friendly ties with Tel Aviv-Jafo (Israel) since 1983. Moreover, the City cooperates with other cities on a case-by-case basis within the framework of special projects. Currently cooperation is taking place in particular with Ramallah (Palestine).

Within the framework of the project "German-Palestinian municipal partnerships" of the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW)/Engagement Global, Bonn and Ramallah have been cooperating in the field of inclusion since 2017. Under this cooperation, a so-called "Garden of Senses" is planned to be built in Ramallah. A delegation from Bonn is scheduled to visit Ramallah in spring 2020. Planning workshops for the implementation of the “Garden of Senses” are to be held in Ramallah, which will involve the local population and will be organized by the City of Ramallah.

In its cooperation with Ramallah, the City of Bonn is also keeping in mind the friendly relations with Tel Aviv. It is planned to visit Tel Aviv on one day as part of the delegation visit and to exchange ideas with representatives of the City of Tel Aviv-Jafo.