A speech by Dr. Kadir Topbas, President of United Cities and Local Governments and Mayor of Istanbul

Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation is an important start for local and regional leaders. In this fast-developing world, the majority of the population lives in cities. Cities thereby have become the center of innovation and the driving force for development.

The Guangzhou Award represents a gesture of recognizing the efforts made by local and regional governments in advancing innovation. This award serves to effectively facilitate inter-city understanding and communication and help us search for common solutions to our common challenges in this era of globalization where countries are increasingly interconnected. 

As the largest organization of cities and local governments in the world, UCLG has a membership of local governments and organizations from over 140 countries and regions. Our main task is to create better conditions to serve the people by facilitating mutual learning and exchanges, and in the meantime, bring the experience of local governments onto the international political stage for discussion and emulation. 

United Cities and Local Governments has made consistent contribution to promoting sustainable development, creating more job opportunities, advancing cultural equality and managing program development, which is a great driver for the development of international political agenda. We have accumulated abundant experience and have undertaken persistent effort in the hope of helping shape a better future for all communities in the world.

As we often say, what is real is not as beautiful as what is ideal. We must take proactive action to blaze a new path to development.

Moreover, the Guangzhou Award also encourages us to further innovate and attract new partnerships. We hope that all of the winning cities and nominated cities can establish long-term friendly relationships, for only in this way can we find new thinking and solutions and collectively tackle challenges. 

We wholeheartedly hope that the Guangzhou Award, which is launched under the auspices of UCLG and the Metropolis can win full recognition and respect from the international community.

Hereby, I congratulate Guangzhou and its government officials on incepting this innovative initiative. And I sincerely thank all of the organizers and participants.