NEWS

         

Metropolis enters the era of New Urban Agenda (NUA) and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) along with its member cities, partners and supporting institutions. This is the most exciting timing for Metropolis to engage globally and assist member and non-member cities with various urban policies and implementation tools to achieve the objectives of 2030 SDGs. During the formal negotiations of the NUA and Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings, Metropolis lobbied among UN members and advocated for Urban Innovation as one of the fundamental tools in achieving the overall objectives of 2030 SDGs – No one is left behind.

The Metropolis member city and Regional Secretariat of Asia Pacific, Guangzhou, led the Metropolis global campaign of Urban Innovation and Local Communities. The third edition of Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation, 2016, was dedicated to New Urban Agenda and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

The Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation celebrates the achievements of global cities in pursuing the local ingenuity and innovation to cater for local urban challenges. The Guangzhou Awards act as a global exchange platform for cities and institutions to share their ideas and promote the city to city exchanges, ie Metropolis Cities Solidarity. During 2016 and third cycle the Guangzhou organising committee received over 300 valuable submissions from all over the world. The submissions were evaluated by 15 member’s technical committee in Bogota (posar link al webpost que vem fer a Bogota) to select fifteen cities for next phase. The fifteen shortlisted cities were invited to Guangzhou to present their submissions in person before an eminent panel of jurors carefully selected from all over the world. The process of evaluation and moderation of jury panel was conducted by UN veteran and one of the most prominent global urban expert Mr Nicholas You. Metropolis international manager and head of Metropolis Asia portfolio, Ms Agnes Bickart, coordinated the global taskforce of Guangzhou Urban Innovation.

The Jury commended all the fifteen shortlisted cities for their exemplary initiatives and willingness to exchange and collaborate with other cities. It encouraged all shortlisted initiatives to re-submit their initiatives in the next cycle of Guangzhou Awards with progress, improvements and further learnings, which can be exchanged with other cities of Metropolis and other partners.   

The Jury, host institutions in China and Hon Mayor of Guangzhou expressed their gratitude to Metropolis and other partner institutions in furthering the global objectives of Urban Innovation and Local Communities in reaching the 2030 SDGs. This Metropolis led initiative underlines the unique forward-looking dimension of the Guangzhou Award as an important contribution in learning from local responses to global challenges and complimenting the global urban agenda, including the 2030 SDGs, the Paris Agreement on climate change and New Urban Agenda.

During next few months Metropolis, Guangzhou city government and other international partners will work together on preparing a schedule of Metropolis capacity building workshops in each of the fifteen cities and online learning literature and training modules to compliment the objectives of Guangzhou led Urban Innovation and Local Communities. Mr Sunil Dubey will coordinate this process with Metropolis Secretariat, Guangzhou and CPAFFP. There will be a dedicated session and a workshop on Urban Innovation during the XII Metropolis World Congress in Montreal during June 19 – 21, 2017 (posar link Congress website).  The Metropolis capacity building and global training modules open new opportunities for member cities, institutions and private organisation to partner with Metropolis in strengthening the urban policies and local level implementation of NUA and 2030 SDGs.

Metropolis delegation for Guangzhou Awards 2016 was headed by Mr Henri-Paul Normandin from Metropolis presidency, Montréal. The delegation included Mr Felip Roca, Secretary General, Ms Agnès Bickart, Head of Metropolis Asia Pacific portfolio, Mr Sunil Dubey, Senior Advisor, Mr Octavi de la Varga, Executive director of Metropolis, Mr Alain Brissette Senior Consultant, and Ms Clemence Gaborieau, MBA Partnership Development,   from XII Metropolis Congress Secretariat, Montréal. The delegation met with Hon Mayor of Guangzhou, Vice President of CPAFFP, Secretary General of organising committee of Guangzhou Awards 2016, Director, Metropolis regional secretariat of Asia Pacific and representatives of Guangzhou foreign office during 5 – 8 December 2016.

Guangzhou Awards 2016 winners:

• Boston, USA: Youth Lead the Change - Youth Participatory Budgeting
• Copenhagen, Denmark: Climate Resilient Neighbourhood programme
• La Paz, Bolivia: The La Paz Zebras - a citizen culture project on road safety
• Qalyubeya, Egypt: Integrated community-based solid waste management system
• Songpa-gu, Korea: The Songpa Solar Namun power plant

Members of the jury of Guangzhou Awards 2016:

1.  
2. Prof Yu Keping, Dean, School of Government, Peking University, China (Chair)
3. Mr Nicholas You (Moderator of Jury panel)
4. Ms. Celia Wade-Brown, Former Mayor of Willington, New Zealand,
5. Ms. Beate Weber-Schuerholz, Former Mayor of Heidelberg, Germany,
6. Mr. Alioune Badiane, Former Director of UN-Habitat Program Division,
7. Mr. Silvio Barros, Former Mayor of Maringá, Brazil,
8. Mr. George Ferguson, Former Mayor of Bristol,
9. Mr. Cecil Steward, Dean Emeritus, University of Nebraska College of Architecture (US),  
    

For more information on the Guangzhou Award, please contact Agnès Bickart  abickart@metropolis.org