Voices of Mutirão
Empowering Communities and Cities through Capacity-building
Our cities are alive and constantly evolving. Every day, we see changes that make them more sustainable, inclusive and vibrant. Sometimes these changes are small, like neighbours planting a community garden or painting murals to brighten the streets. Other times, they are larger, like building new partnerships, expanding access to services or creating safer, greener public spaces. Together, these actions contribute to more liveable and equitable urban futures.
This year, the competition connects with the spirit of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 30), hosted under the Brazilian Presidency. COP 30 has embraced a Global Mutirão, a word rooted in the Tupi-Guarani language that means collective effort toward a single goal, as its symbol.
It is about creating a chain of action that links neighbourhood initiatives to city plans, city plans to national strategies and national strategies to shared global goals. Capacity-building is key in supporting and driving these transformations. Whether it happens through peer-to-peer learning, community education learning by doing when planting, painting or taking part in other local initiatives, capacity-building develops the competencies people need to shape their own cities.
We are looking for your stories. How are you and your partners working together to transform your city through capacity-building? Are you training, educating or organizing neighbours to address local challenges and create global opportunities? Are you helping your city become more sustainable, more equitable or more liveable?
We invite you to share these inspiring efforts through a 60-second video pitch. Show us how capacity-building and education are driving change where you live and how your initiative is part of the wider Global Mutirão, a collective effort to turn everyday urban transformation into global climate action.
To confirm participation, each participant will have to share their video pitch and story and fill out the related short questionnaire through the Transformative Urban Coalitions website.
Deadline is 23:59 CEST on 24 October 2025.
Your video pitch should bring the spirit of the Mutirão to life, the collective effort that links neighbourhood initiatives to city plans, city plans to national strategies and national strategies to shared global goals.
We invite you to pitch your capacity-building initiative in 60 seconds. Tell us about the action, idea or project that is helping transform your city or community. Share how it empowers people, strengthens collaboration or builds knowledge and skills to create a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient place to live.
Your video pitch must:
- Be no longer than 60 seconds.
- Showcase a collective effort for capacity-building and highlight the people, partnerships and actions driving change.
- Show how your initiative connects to the bigger picture by explaining how it contributes to a stronger, more inclusive and more climate-resilient city and how it links to global action.
- Inspire others to act by sharing why this transformation matters and how it empowers your community.
- Be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. However, all entries must include English subtitles. If adding subtitles is not possible, participants must provide a high-quality transcript of the original video.
- Be accompanied by a short-written story (100–150 words) that briefly describes the initiative and its impact.
Only minor modifications to the videos will be accepted (e.g., basic editing, cropping, light adjustments, subtitles) and must be clearly indicated in the description. Videos that appear overly processed or heavily produced may be disqualified at the judges’ discretion. Submit your video here!
Read about terms of conditions.
Awards and Recognition
The Transformative Urban Coalitions partners will publish the results of the video contest in November 2025 through all partners’ social media channels.
- Best video pitch: A payment of 800 USD
- Second best video pitch: A payment of 500 USD
- Third best video pitch: A payment of 300 USD
Best videos
The best videos will be showcased at the 7th Capacity-building Hub, at COP 30 in Belem, Brazil.
Winners will also receive exclusive access to an online capacity-building training focused on Transformative Communication, designed to strengthen their communication skills and amplify the impact of their work.
This video pitch competition is an initiative of Transformative Urban Coalitions, led by United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), World Resources Institute – Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities (WRI) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), in collaboration with the Paris Committee on Capacity-building. With the support of the International Climate Initiative of the German Government, we aim to spotlight positive urban transformations and inspire collective action toward a more sustainable future.