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Embedding Strategic Learning in Local Governments

Irmak Ekin Karel, Elina Järvelä, Rusudan Zhozhadze

2023 Collaboration & Communication English Organisational Culture & Governance

Innovation in municipalities is often tangential and sporadic, happens in siloed projects, and fails to create systemic effects. Under the Portfolio Journey of the EU-funded Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG), CHÔRA and the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub have partnered to test something different: Embedding strategic innovation capability and practices at the heart of municipalities’ operational models across eight cities in Eastern Partnership countries.

We believe innovation works best when treated as a capability embedded in the organization it aims to support and enables the continuous generation of learning from implemented experiments and projects — figuring out what works and what doesn’t work to address complex social issues in an iterative, dynamic way so that municipalities can learn their way into change. In this session, we will share our insights about what worked and where we met with challenges. You will also hear directly from our partner municipality, Batumi City Hall.”

Irmak Ekin Karel

Strategic Change Designer & Cities Co-lead / CHÔRA

Ekin is a strategic change designer and facilitator that helps social systems make decisions about themselves. Well-versed in critical, design, and systems thinking practices, Ekin loves connecting the dots, mapping out complex problem and agency dynamics, and generating actionable intelligence. She is passionate about bringing multiple stakeholders around the table to design interconnected strategic actions that foster systemic change.

Ekin co-leads CHÔRA’s cities work. For the past three years, she has managed strategic innovation projects with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and local governments across the Balkans, Caucasus, and Latin America. She was deeply involved in co-developing the UNDP Agorà City Transformation Stencil, a template-like portfolio design framework that fifteen cities have used to create transformation portfolios.

Ekin holds a BA in Political Science and an MSc in International Development Studies. She is fluent in English, German, Spanish, and Turkish.

Elina Järvelä

Strategic Designer / UNDP

Elina Järvelä is a Strategic Designer at UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub Innovation Team and currently coordinates a strategic innovation practice around portfolio design and management for UNDP country offices and partners aiming for transformative change in the region of Europe and Central Asia. She holds a MSc in Environmental Sciences and has over 15 years of experience in international development covering environment, systems innovation, and innovative financing. In the past she has also worked for local and national governments and for the Innovation Fund Sitra in Finland.

Rusudan Zhozhadze

Head of department / Batumi City Hall

Rusudan is a lawyer, since 2015 she has been working in Batumi City Hall in various leading positions, and since 2021 she has been leading the Municipal Policy Department. The areas of her activities are: Development and implementation of municipal political strategies, action plans and municipal programs in areas such as environmental protection, sustainable urban transport, municipal waste management, local economic development, introduce of innovative and complex approaches in the municipal services, citizen involvement, public-private dialogue.

Currently, she is leading the process of an elaborate municipal transformation portfolio within the framework of the EU UNDP M4EG program, for developing a startup ecosystem in Batumi.

Embedding Strategic Learning in Local Governments
Irmak Ekin Karel, Elina Järvelä, Rusudan Zhozhadze

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