Amman Municipality with its project “Amman is listening” and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality with its project “Pay-it-forward” became two of the fifteen winners of the Bloomberg Global Mayors Challenge 2021. The municipalities, which made it to finals out of 631 candidates and won the competition after a five-month reviewing process, provided creative and innovative solutions to critical problems about health, well-being, equality and development.
As the problems regarding provision of services such as food and health were experienced be some of the communities in Amman during the pandemic, a new interactive, participatory, open-data system has been created for the future possible crises. With the project “Amman is listening”, the citizens can notify the municipality about lack of services immediately, so that instant or long-term solutions are generated aimed at infrastructural or service-based problems. Thereby the city will be more prepared to upcoming possible emergencies.
With its one-year-old project “Pay-it-forward”, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality aims at payment of the utility bills of low-income families. The project matches the ones who wants to provide financial support with the ones with financial needs anonymously and functions as a social aid platform. With this project, besides creating a social and economic solidarity network, a reduction in the effects of urban poverty is expected.