On June 28, the Peer Learning between City Leaders on Urban Innovation Conference co-organized by the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Secretariat of Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation and the Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation was held in Poland.

As the side event of the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) organized by the UN-Habitat, the conference, which aligns with the theme of the WUF11—Transforming Our Cities for a Better Urban Future, aims at boosting the exchange of experience on urban innovation among cities.

The conference was co-hosted by Nicholas You, the Senior Adviser of the Guangzhou Awards and Executive Director of Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation and Sara Hoeflich, the Director of the UCLG Learning Department.

The conference, with Urban Nature-based Solutions at its center, brought together more than 60 business and international organization representatives, experts and scholars, and members of the public who are concerned about the development of urban innovation.
Amanda Lloyd from the Penn Institute for Urban Research, Myriam Chilvers from the ICLD, Maria Mejia as the Lead of the BiodiverCities by 2030 Initiative of Humboldt Institute in Colombia, and the representative of eThekwini (Durban), one of the 4th Guangzhou Award’s shortlisted cities shared their wisdom of urban innovation.

Nicholas You noted that Nature-based solutions (NbS) represent a radical departure on how we should design and plan our cities and how to retrofit our cities to work with the environment. He believes that by discussing and sharing insights of urban NbS, the conference has promoted the rethinking of each city’s relationship with nature, and facilitated mutual learning, capacity-building and experience exchange among city leaders.

On June 27, the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) was kicked off in Katowice, Poland and the event will last five days. Founded in 2001, the World Urban Forum is the most open and inclusive global conference on urbanization convened by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). The theme of WUF11 is Transforming our Cities for a Better Urban Future and all participants will discuss challenges faced by urban areas due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and conflicts.