SHRDC
Scaling up Seoul knowledge and resources to the global agenda
On 2nd and 3rd November, the Seoul Human Resources Development Center (SHRDC), together with the Seoul Metropolitan Government, organized its international annual forum and showed what the headquarters for Metropolis Training have achieved through the training courses organized during this year, sharing Seoul's policies in sustainable mobility, sustainable housing, urban regeneration and climate change.
Among the 64 participants invited by Seoul, our members presented during the forum how useful the training courses from SHRDC have been for their day-to-day work. Antonio Ramírez, from Mexico City, explained that his team is seeking to apply some practices learnt at the Water Management Training Program, such as restoration of water cycle and climate change prevention. The representative from Kathmandu, Suman Adhiakri, in turn, told that they are trying to adapt locally the practices that they got to know from Seoul and other cities in the world at the Solid Waste Management Training Program, such as the production of purified water from the garbage.
At the opening remarks of the Forum, the Metropolis Secretary General, Octavi de la Varga, highlighted that improving the performance of metropolises is one the strategic objectives of our association, and that strengthening urban capacities is a key action line to achieve it. “Learning and capacity building are crucial assets for city leaders and officials to better manage the different dimensions of their cities and metropolitan areas”, he declared. Azza Sirry, the director of the Housing and Building Research Center (HRBC), which represents one of the Metropolis regional training centers, in Cairo, reinforced this statement, underlining the important role that Metropolis has been playing to strengthen capacity building in cities.
Chang Beom Kim, from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, gave a keynote speech named “Policy-sharing with Cities around the World”, which showcased the huge development of the city of Seoul in the last 50 years. Another highlighted presentation at the forum was “Seoul’s efforts for sharing policy experiences: achievements and future agenda”, made by the Urban Research Center of Seoul Housing and the new policy approach of Mayor Park Won-Soon to offer community housing that fit the resident’s needs.
The forum was also the occasion to bring together representatives from three Metropolis regional training centers: not only was the HRBC from Cairo present, but also the International Scientific Cooperation Office from Mashhad (ISCO), and the París Region Development and Urban Planning Institute (IAU). They held meetings in Seoul with the Metropolis Secretary General, and the Project Leader for Learning, Hélène Jourdan, and the Manager from the Global Learning Team of SHRDC, to work together towards the planning of our 2018 training programs, and for the alignment of the training strategy with the Metropolis Action Plan 2018-2020.
In addition, the Metropolis Secretariat General representatives met with the President of SHRDC (Mr Chang), the Director of SHRDC (Mr Won), the team leader of the Global Learning team (Mr Youn) and the Manager of the Global Learning Team (Ms Lee). Seoul reiterated its interest to continue as the headquarters for the Metropolis International Training Institute.
