Cities contributing to the New Urban Agenda through international cooperation

The event aims to present innovative approaches and programmes on sustainable and integrated urban development as promoted by the European Commission and other partners such as the Inter-American Development Bank and to identify common agendas and networking opportunities between EU and non-EU cities. Based on the experience and know-how of the European Union project World Cities (associating cities from EU, Canada, China, India and Japan) and the city network URBELAC (EU-Latin America and Caribbean), the event will promote learning and will identify approaches that can be shared on innovative solutions to sustainable urban development, including governance issues. The event will present as well the possibilities for international cooperation offered by the new programme for the period 2016-2019 on International Urban Cooperation (IUC), which is financed under the EU's Partnership Instrument and seeks to contribute to improved international urban diplomacy and increased decentralised cooperation, firstly, through the promotion of actions on sustainable urban development and, secondly, through the Covenant of Mayors. Under the first component, local authorities in the EU will cooperate with their counterparts in North America, Latin America, China, South-East Asia, India and Japan. It is expected that at a significant number of cities will be supported in developing and implementing local action plans and the Covenant of Mayors Climate Action Plans.