With one third of the winners coming from the Commonwealth, CLGF is delighted at today's announcement by Bloomberg Philanthropies of the 15 successful cities of the Global Mayors City Challenge. 

Congratulations to all the worthy winners, which includes:

• Freetown, Sierra Leone;
• Kigali, Rwanda;
• Kumasi, Ghana;
• Rourkela, India; and
• Wellington, New Zealand

The 15 winning cities named today come from 13 nations on six continents and collectively represent more than 30 million residents. They were selected from among 50 Champion Cities that spent the past four months working with residents to rigorously test and refine their projects. Read below a brief description of the winning projects from our Commonwealth cities.

• Freetown, Sierra Leone: Create a vibrant new digital marketplace supporting tree maintenance and the urban canopy using digital technologies
• Kigali, Rwanda: Introduce a smart-waste system that improves sanitation and water quality in the city
• Kumasi, Ghana: Address waste-management and youth unemployment crises by training young people to install toilets
• Rourkela, India: Provide cold-storage units to women co-ops to empower female food vendors, reduce food waste, and increase access to fresh foods
• Wellington, New Zealand: Create a “virtual twin” of the city that helps residents to better understand climate change impacts, promoting resident action.

The competition was launched in 2021 and seeks to highlight and support the most promising urban innovations to come from the pandemic. The 15 winners will be awarded one million dollars, in addition to technical support and coaching over three years to bring their ideas to life. The winning ideas address one or more of four current issue areas in cities including economic recovery and inclusive growth; health and wellbeing; climate and environment; and gender and equality. 

CLGF Secretary-General, Ms Lucy Slack, said: “CLGF is delighted that so many Commonwealth cities have been selected as winners of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors City Challenge. I would like to congratulate all the winners. With rapid urbanisation across the Commonwealth, we believe that cities hold the solution to sustainable development, and initiatives such as this help to highlight innovative approaches to shared challenges." 

In addition, the other winners are: Amman, Jordan; Bogotá, Colombia; Butuan, Philippines; Hermosillo, Mexico; Istanbul, Turkey; Paterson, New Jersey, USA; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Rochester, Minnesota, USA; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and Vilnius, Lithuania.

About Bloomberg Philanthropies

Bloomberg Philanthropies invests in 941 cities and 173 countries around the world, focusing on five key areas for creating lasting change: the Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation, and Public Health. 

For more information, please visit bloomberg.org or Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Global Mayors' Challenge.