Urban Solutions: Learning from cities’ responses to COVID-19’

Urban Solutions: Learning from Cities’ Responses to COVID-19

UNESCO Cities Platform Online Meeting

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UNESCO Cities Platform brings urban stakeholders together to discuss the future of cities

Cities are profoundly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby raising fundamental questions about sustainable and symbiotic urban development. The multidimensional nature of the pandemic has left an indelible mark on the outlook of the cities and has led to rethinking cities’ development in different dimensions - social, cultural, economic, and environmental. Being at the forefront, cities have played a central role in the global response to the ongoing pandemic.

The UNESCO Cities Platform (UCP) composed of 8 UNESCO city Networks and Programmes from all its fields of expertise - education, culture, nature and social sciences, and communication and information, have a comprehensive and transversal approach to the Organization’s work in the urban context for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In this framework, through the online meeting, UNESCO Cities Platform will bring together a diverse set of urban actors - including mayors, local policymakers, professionals and practitioners, NGOs, international institutions to support city decision-makers in mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and work towards building sustainable and resilient cities of tomorrow.

The meeting will include three debates and a special session on sustainable tourism. The debates will be structured around interconnected themes that focus on cities’ actions during the different stages of the pandemic, namely:

E-Debate 1: Cities’ Responses to Covid-19 / 1:40 - 2:25 PM CET

Cities have been at the forefront of the pandemic, and have provided multi-dimensional responses to allow their inhabitants to better respond and adapt to the outbreak. During the acute phase of the emergency, cities led the way in implementing national or regional regulations and guidelines at the local level. The session aims to understand the key common challenges faced by cities during the pandemic and their immediate responses, financial assistance and capacity development (civil society initiatives, government responses, etc.). Thereby, it seeks to share good city practices and understand lessons learnt for better preparedness for future emergencies.

Moderator

List of speakers

E-Debate 2: Learning from Early Recovery / 2:25 - 3:10 PM CET

More than 4 months after the global outbreak of the pandemic, many cities around the world have started easing measures and working towards early recovery. Cities are often in the lead for translating deconfinement rules into practical measures adapted to local needs. By doing so, they also start moving towards new adaptive measures to resume their activities, that often admits restrictions. Guiding these actions is usually a need for returning to normal, giving inhabitants’ perspective, allowing people to safely meet and come together. This can be particularly challenging for cities. Whereas the acute phase—often in the form of a lockdown—focused on the cities’ inhabitants, deconfinement also reignited a cities’ central role within a broader region, drawing workers and commuters, but also students, shoppers, visitors and tourists for example. The panel will seek to illustrate how cities have implemented measures to initiate recovery, including, enabling the restart of the local economy and tourism, devising ways in which cultural and educational institutions can be mobilized, engaging with youth and enhancing mobility. It will consider the challenges of balancing the response for cities’ inhabitants with the need to cater to a broader region. In all of this, cities have also started thinking about recovery in a way that would make their cities more resilient, greener and more sustainable.

Moderator

List of speakers

E-Debate 3: A More Resilient Future: Imagining the Cities of Tomorrow / 3:10 - 3:55 PM CET

As cities manage their immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic and are looking ahead to plan and resource long-term recovery efforts, there is an opportunity to transform cities in meaningful ways that not only protect vulnerable people from immediate threats but also build resilience for the looming climate crisis and other emergencies. This work must be guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, Goal 11 ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.’ Other complementary elements may include, use of new technology such as big data and Artificial Intelligence, socio-economic demographics including gender-disaggregated data, consultancy studies, technical and administrative assistance, global inter-city collaboration. The panel will discuss how the current crisis can be seen as an opportunity to rethink the way we live in cities, the symbiosis between cities and their inhabitants, the role of physical and virtual urban public spaces, and thus to design the cities of tomorrow. Cities are redefining their identity and priorities. It will consider how cities can rethink their urban policies to strengthen their risk preparedness and response capacity, and become more resilient by making cities smarter, greener, more inclusive and resilient.

Moderator

List of speakers

Special Session: Transformative City Tourism / 3:55 - 4:40 PM CET

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, it has had an unprecedented impact on travel with the closing of virtually all destinations worldwide. Tourism was a major source of growth, employment and income for many of the world’s developing countries with over 1.5 billion people crossing international borders in 2019. Yet, millions of jobs in the travel and tourism sector are being lost every day and up to 120 million are under immediate threat.