A Global Strategy for Cities

Representatives from local government, businesses, nonprofit groups, cultural institutions, and nonprofit groups are invited to join this three-hour session to:

Learn processes and tools for developing a global strategy that engages and coordinates leading institutions throughout a city toward collective action

Garner insights for navigating the extensive list of urban networks to ensure effective global engagement

Workshop ideas and solutions amongst peers and return home with new partners, resources, and guidelines to improve local outcomes and operational capacity

Today's most pressing global challenges around which the Sustainable Development Goals are framed have a distinctly urban face. Fortunately, cities also hold the keys to the most effective solutions. They have the concentration of resources—business and investment, education and research, civic and leadership, and cultural and creative—to wield outsized influence over global political, social, economic, and environmental issues and help lead in the global effort to achieve the SDGs. Cities are urban laboratories for developing sustainable practices, implementing inclusive policies and smart infrastructure, and adapting to disruptive technologies.

Yet there is no consistent framework for how cities can operationalize a citywide effort—that includes universities, the business community, cultural institutions, NGOs, artists, youth, and government—toward effective and comprehensive implementation of partnerships to achieve determined goals. Most institutions regularly engage in simultaneous but disconnected efforts, and they do so in isolation from one another. There is no coordination nor overarching plan. And given the sheer volume of activity, cities are missing valuable opportunities to maximize limited existing resources.

Facilitators:

Michele Acuto, Director of the City Leadership Initiative, University College London

Kris Hartley, Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne

Juliana Kerr, Director, Global Cities, Chicago Council on Global Affairs

This session will be conducted in English.