Note to Correspondents

WORLD MAYORS TO MEET AT UNITED NATIONS TO ADVANCE INNOVATIONS

IN URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING, 13 MAY

Mayors and representatives from major world cities will meet to consider how better infrastructure planning could help achieve sustainable urban development, on 13 May at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Municipality officials and policy makers from cities around the globe will discuss practical solutions and share their experiences on improving cities and local governments’ capacities for planning, implementation and management of physical infrastructure networks.  They will also discuss planning for soft infrastructure like health care and education.  Participants include officials from top world cities such as Cape Town, South Africa; Curitiba, Brazil; Jakarta, Indonesia; New York, United States; Melbourne, Australia; and Rosario, Argentina.

The Conference on Sustainable Urbanization in the Information Age:  Role of Infrastructure will also share innovative information and communications technology models for sustainable urban planning, as well as knowledge on how to bridge the digital divide in the area of sustainable urban design and planning.

Global warming and climate change pose serious threats to all nations, as rapid urban population growth is particularly affecting developing countries.  The meeting aims to address these challenges by calling for better sustainable planning for urban growth.  The Conference will look at practical political and physical design approaches with which to foster sustainable development in urban areas and the role of infrastructure and information and communications technology in achieving the goals of smart growth.

The Conference is the second in a series of conferences sponsored by the United Nations, American Institute of Architects, and the Regional Plan Associations on sustainability in the information age.  The first conference, held in New York in spring 2008, brought together professionals, academics, policymakers and politicians from both the executive and legislative branch to discuss what should be done to improve the environmental impact of cities.

The Conference is jointly sponsored by UN-Habitat, DESA’s Division for Public Administration and Development Management, the Global Alliance for ICT and Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA-GAID), the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter, the Regional Plan Association, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and the Forum for Urban Design.

For more information, please visit http://www.un-gaid.org or contact Enrica Murmura of UNDESA-GAID, tel.: +1 212 963 5913, e-mail: murmura@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record