Walking the Talk of Holistic and Inclusive Urban Development: Lessons from SymbioCity on four continents

Walking the Talk of Holistic and Inclusive Urban Development: Lessons from SymbioCity on four continents

Local Governments have a key role in implementing the New Urban Agenda (NUA) and Agenda 2030. Both SDG 11 and the NUA emphasize the importance of working with a holistic, integrated and inclusive approach to urban development. But how can the ambitious principles of the agendas be turned into practice at local level, and what do they mean in the daily life of local politicians and civil servants?

SymbioCity is a holistic and inclusive approach to sustainable urban development. Since 2010, SymbioCity has been used as a supportive tool for cities in different countries around the world with the overall ambition to improve living conditions for citizens.

This networking event will focus on the local implementation of SDG 11 and the NUA principles of holistic, integrated and inclusive development, and discuss the experiences of turning these into practice through SymbioCity.

Experiences and reflections from cities in four different continents (Trans Nzoia -Kenya, Apartadó -Colombia, Probolinggo - Indonesia, Helsingborg –Sweden), which have applied the SymbioCity methodology in their work, will be in the spotlight during this event and serve as illustrative examples on what the success factors and the acute challenges are in relation to the effective implementation of the NUA at local level. From this perspective, the cities will also reflect on what strategies to use in order to tackle existing and future urban challenges.

Further, UCLG will provide a global outlook by discussing what are generic local challenges and success factors and what is context specific in terms of achieving change. Finally, the event will also open for an interactive discussion with the audience with the ambition to generate recommendations and inspiring examples.