Mayors Challenge

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge is a global competition that inspires city leaders to rethink and radically improve how they serve their residents. In 2021, OCI partnered with the Government Innovation Team to carry out a real-time impact evaluation of the experience of cities that developed bold ideas in response to COVID‑19, with an emphasis on city resilience, public health, economic recovery, gender equity, and environmental sustainability. Recognizing the significant investment that the Bloomberg Team made in all participating cities, OCI’s evaluation focused on the impact on competing cities who ultimately did not win the competition. We followed up with cities at 6 and 12 months after the completion of the Challenge to understand the medium to longer-term impact of participation. OCI is currently evaluating the 2025 Mayors Challenge, which focuses on bold and innovate ways that cities can improve core services such as water and sanitation, disaster preparedness and public safety.