A two-day meeting of elected officials and partners to reinvent local governance in Northern Benin.

Montereau continues to expand its international reach. Following its twinning with Souassi, Tunisia, in 2025, the city has just approved a new twinning agreement with Yalova, Turkey—its seventh overall.

The Sudbury City Council approved both requests from Gateway Casinos, which had sought financial support for the construction of an intersection and a road. On Tuesday, council members voted in favor of a recommendation from city staff that the City agree to provide $5.6 million in financial support to Gateway Casinos to fund the road infrastructure projects.

According to the Minister of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Employment Promotion, who is responsible for vocational training, the numerous support programs for businesses must now be better aligned with national priorities.

This year, the Sister City Committee is hosting a group of fifty people (seventeen families) from Mancha Real from August 9 to 15.

On the occasion of the celebration on August 9 of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the Congolese government, through the Minister of Justice, Human Rights, and the Promotion of Indigenous Peoples, Aimé Ange Wilfrid Bininga, issued a statement in which it highlighted the importance of this year’s theme chosen by the United Nations: “Honoring Indigenous Midwives: Preserving Life and Well-Being.”

Fifty-eight years of Franco-German friendship were celebrated in the Béthune Valley during a warm reunion among friends of the sister city committee.

In Switzerland, long summer evenings often go hand in hand with littering in parks. The IGSU reports that littering is caused by factors such as alcohol, anonymity, and an environment that is already polluted.

In response to the growing impact of climate change on farms, the Beninese government is strengthening its measures to protect farmers. On Friday, August 7, 2026, in Cotonou, 561.8 million CFA francs in compensation were allocated to rice and cotton farmers affected by yield losses during the 2025–2026 growing season. This concrete response confirms the growing importance of agricultural insurance in Benin.

Members of the Kilmacow (Ireland) sister city committee arrived in Saint-Thurien (Finistère) for a visit from July 25 to August 1, 2026. On Sunday, the twinning committee and the municipality organized a ceremony at the community center to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the twinning.

In response to security challenges and the rise of disinformation, the NGO Acra is organizing a capacity-building workshop for journalists on August 4 and 5, 2026, in Ouagadougou. As part of the Pense Libre project, this session will focus on conflict-sensitive journalism, combating disinformation, the responsible use of social media and artificial intelligence, and more. Through this initiative, the organization aims to contribute to higher-quality news coverage and strengthen the media’s role in promoting social cohesion and peaceful coexistence in Burkina Faso.

At the fishing pier in Kafountine, a town located in the northwest of the Bignona department (south), dozens of women carry on—amid the heat, smoke, and fishy odors—a trade that is as grueling as it is essential to the local fishing economy: smoking fish. Thanks to expertise passed down from generation to generation, they derive most of their income from artisanal fish processing, even as they expose themselves to health risks on a daily basis.

After several years of supporting the development of volunteer-based community organizations in its area, the City of Marseille and the LPO Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur signed a multi-year partnership agreement in 2025 to better understand, protect, and promote the region’s natural heritage.

Residents and students in La Pocatière can now take advantage of a bike-sharing service. The project has finally come to fruition. Electric bikes have been available since last week.

Togo is strengthening its system for ensuring the quality of products sold within its borders. Following the Cabinet meeting held on Thursday, July 30, 2026, the government issued a decree establishing a national mechanism to assess the compliance of domestic and imported products before they are placed on the market.

The Locminé Sister City Committee welcomed its counterparts from Medebach for a visit marked by friendship and cultural exchange.

The Minister of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Action, Lydie Pongault, presided over the ceremony on July 29 at the headquarters of the Single Social Registry in Brazzaville to award certificates of completion to young people who had completed training as part of the Social Protection and Productive Inclusion of Youth (PSIPJ) project.

From June 22 to 30, 2026, the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) organized, as part of the ETHISSA project co-funded by the European Union, a training program focused on the digitization of educational programs. This initiative helped strengthen the partner institutions’ skills in designing and implementing online courses in bioethics.

For nearly twelve years, the Argentré–Romania Association has been participating in a sister-city program with Reviga (Romania). And this year is no exception. From August 26 to 31, 29 Romanians will be hosted by families who were themselves hosted in Reviga in August 2025.

After three months of pilot operation, the platform has registered more than 14,000 job seekers and more than 5,000 companies offering nearly 300,000 job openings.