World Cities Day: Valuing our communities and cities
The designation of 31st October as World Cities Day by the United Nations General Assembly, has paved the way for reshaping global urbanization to foster cooperation within international community and strengthen our resolve to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
Serving as the nuclei of human activities, cities are home to around 55 per cent of the world's population. The introduction of technological interventions into urban operations promises a dynamic shift in the sustainable development discourse to cater to the growing populations, while aiming to overcome key socio-economic and environmental challenges.
Embracing a collaborative and participative human-centric approach to urban development has supplemented the adoption of technologies to establish smart cities and improve quality of life across various dimensions. This has cemented the role of cities as hotbeds of innovation and crucial drivers for the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
As the world moves towards the new smart city paradigm, UN initiatives such as the United for Smart Sustainable Cities have identified the intertwining of technology and utilization of collective human intelligence as the most relevant factor for the success of any smart city endeavor.
To celebrate World Cities Day and strengthen the collaboration between cities, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UN-Habitat will be signed on 31 October 2020.
This trailblazing step reinforces the ITU and UN-Habitat’s global commitment for sustainable urbanization in keeping with their quest for smart sustainable city transformations.
