NEWS
       

Sustainable development and peace at the heart of UCLG Executive Bureau & World Council

From November 5th to 7th, representatives from metropolises, intermediate cities and regions all over the world joined the UCLG Executive Bureau and World Council meetings in Madrid. These events took place along with the celebration of the 2nd World Forum on Urban Violence and Education for Coexistence and Peace. Here you will find the highlights of the participation of Metropolis in these events, day by day.

Sunday, November 4

  • A gathering of the Secretaries General of all UCLG sections took place one day before the official opening of the events, seeking to draw the new common paths in 2019 and find ways to advance the commitment on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from local and regional perspectives.
  • In order to prepare the next Metropolis Board of Directors meeting, which will take place on April 6, 2019 in Montevideo, Nelson Fernández, Director of International Relations of Montevideo and Metropolis Regional Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Thomas Honeck, in representation of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and President of Metropolis, as well as a team of our Secretariat General (Octavi de la Varga, Federica Biondi and Teresa Oliver), met to define how our statutory program could benefit from being organized in the framework of the next UCLG Executive Bureau, UCCI Executive Bureau and the 3rd UCLG Culture Summit (the latter to take place in Buenos Aires).

Monday, November 5

  • At the UCLG Financial Committee, our Secretary General presented the proposal of the new system of Metropolis membership fees, which was broadly accepted by present members and by the rest of UCLG sections.
  • At the UCLG Statutory Committee, highlight was given to the forthcoming electoral process that will be concluded in November 2019 at the 6th UCLG World Congress, in Durban, with special mention to a new call to the organization’s Presidency.
  • Octavi de la Varga met with Ramón Javier Mestre, Mayor of Córdoba, to sign the collaboration agreement of one of our new Pilot Projects that will start in 2019: Participatory Democracy. Led by Córdoba, this Metropolis Pilot Project will promote direct exchanges with technical staff from the cities of Barcelona, Madrid and Montréal.
  • The first meeting of the Metropolis Governance Committee took place with the representation of Berlin (Presidency and Regional Secretariat for Europe), Guangzhou Guangzhou (Copresident and Regional secretariat for Asia and Pacific), Montevideo (Copresidency and Regional Secretariat for Latin America) and the Secretariat General team. A first draft of the new Metropolis statutes has been examined by the group. The document will go through revision in February 2019, during the next UCLG Retreat in Barcelona, and its final version will be submitted to the approval of the Board of Directors meeting in Montevideo.
  • The Metropolis SG team met with the delegation from the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guanzghou Municipality (Mr Tu Hongze, Deputy Director-General and Ms Guou Jialin, Officer) to discuss the organization of the Metropolis World Congress 2020 in Guangzhou and finalize the details of our association’s participation at the forthcoming 2018 Urban Innovation Conference.
  • The 2nd World Forum on Urban Violence and Education for Coexistence and Peace was inaugurated with a ceremony that counted on the participation of Manuela Carmena, Mayor of Madrid, Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona, and Gabriela Firea, Mayor of Bucharest. Among other prominent speakers, these Metropolis female leaders spoke about their different approaches on peace management and also shared some personal perspectives.

Tuesday, November 6

  • During the UCLG Executive Bureau meeting, members were encouraged to join the Cities for Adequate Housing Declaration. The participation of local governments in the Global compact for migration, as well as in the localization of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and of the global climate agenda, was also discussed during the session. Finally, Octavi de la Varga explained the priorities for Metropolis in 2019, and so did the rest of UCLG sections.
  • At the UCLG World Council, Councilor Adrien Pieters from the eThekwini Municipality (Durban) shared the status of the preparations for the 6th UCLG World Congress. Another highlight was the presentation of the next steps of work towards the publication of the fifth edition of the report of the Global Observatory on Local Democracy (GOLD V), which in 2019 will bring, once more, a full chapter with the most up-to-date information about metropolitan areas, with the collaboration of Metropolis.
  • Our Secretary General met the delegation of Mashhad, led by the Vice-chairman of the Mashhad City Parliament, Mr Hamid Movahedizadeh, to acknowledge the long standing collaboration of the Municipality of Mashhad as a Metropolis member since 1992, and discuss future ways of participation and leadership.