The 3rd Guangzhou Award was handed out to the cities of Songpa-gu (South Korea), Qalyubeya Governorate (Egypt), Boston (USA), Copenhagen (Denmark), and La Paz (Bolivia), at a ceremony held on the evening of Dec 7.

The city of Yiwu (Zhejiang, China) won the prize of "Special Mention Initiative" while the winning city -- Bolivia's La Paz also won the title of "Online Popular city". After fierce competition, all the winners were announced by the organizing committee at the City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (Guangzhou Award). 

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (Guangzhou Award) is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

The Awarding Ceremony was a grand celebration for all involved, with the audience enjoying artistic performances highlighting the combination of Chinese and Lingnan Culture with Guangzhou elements, while appreciating excellent practices in urban innovation.

About 1,400 guests were present at the ceremony, including Ren Xuefeng, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee; He Zhongyou, deputy governor of Guangdong; Song Jingwu, vice-president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries; Mpho Parks Tau, UCLG President and President of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA); Josep Riog, Secretary General of UCLG; and Felip Roca, Secretary General of the Metropolis, as well as mayors of sister cities Bristol (UK), Linköping (Sweden), and Genoa (Italy).

Winning Cities

Boston, USA: Youth Lead the Change-Youth Participatory Budgeting

This initiative empowers youth to decide on how to use $1 million on the ministry budget every year. Use has come up with ideas and they determine the priority for spending and deciding in a democratic manner, on which project to implement. After a first unsuccessful submission in 2014, the Boston team went back to the drawing board, refined its strategy, expand its activities to other cities not only in the USA but abroad such as Baku in Azerbaijan.

This submission is very relevant to the sustainable development goal as well as to the New Urban Agenda. Although the concept of Participatory Budgeting comes from Brazil and the South. The city of Boston has viewed on its practice to engage use in policy dialogue to increase use engagement in civic affairs, and above all to cultivate long-time commitment in public affairs at a time when so many people feel that no one listen to them.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Climate Resilient Neighbourhood

This project best demonstrates innovation in the future-resilience, and sustainability of its city with green climate change principles at the street level with the scale of solution at the urban level, creative urban design, protection of the habitat environment from natural disaster, and the creation of new pedestrian-friendly, ecosystems for storm water control and improvement of local quality of life.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

Across the world the freedom of the street has been stolen from us, particularly from the young, the poor and women in many societies by the increasing domination of the motor car. This is made worse by an attitude that the pedestrian should be subservient. But the fight back is beginning and the La Paz zebra project is a wonderful example of how to deal with this very serious challenge with great humor and understanding. We were particularly impressed by this entirely innovative approach to changing citizen behavior while hugely benefiting young people at risk by giving them a real purpose and a longer term benefit of encouraging them into further education and into work. Sometimes the best things in life are simple-and it is one of them. And this people-oriented approach to creating more civilized streets makes it easily replicated or adapted as it is being across Bolivia and will be across the developing and developed world.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

This initiative also relates to eight different SDGs from ending poverty all the way to combating climate change. Also it relates to some very important objectives proposed by the New Urban Agenda.

The strong combination of community involvement, and the differentiated roles of private, public and community sectors have made this incredible project, deserving this Award. This is an important way of involving an informality community and also embracing and facing the incredible difficulty of managing one of the biggest challenges many cities around the world are facing-how to deal with and how to manage urban solid waste.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

Songpa-gu, South Korea: Songpa Solar Nanum (Sharing) Power Plant

Our cities are the beating heart of civilization. We rise to challenges more nimbly. The nations are closely connected with our citizens. Climate change with rising sea levels, dramatic storms, disruption to food supplies and extinguished species, are the biggest challenges for our generation.

The project deals with energy poverty helping elderly energy poor households. It thinks globally and helps be on the boundaries of the city, on the boundaries of Korea. This project exemplifies sustainability has resilience co-benefits and it has already replicated in other cities. Congratulations to Songpa, Solar Nanum initiative.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7. 

Special Mention Initiative

Yi Wu, China: Promoting Social Cohesion and Integration through Foreign National Trade Mediators

More and more foreigners come to China for living, tourism or business, which gives rise to an increasing number of disputes involving foreign and domestic traders. Yiwu People's Mediation Committee for Foreign-related Disputes is the first of its kind in China and provides great value of reference to Chinese cities confronting with the same problems.

The City of Innovation Awarding Ceremony of the 3rd Guangzhou Award is held in Guangzhou on Dec 7.