Dr. Clos Speech for 2017 World Cities Day

Your Excellency Wang Menghui, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development,

Honorable Mayor of Guangzhou,

Excellences,

It is my honor to join the celebrations of World Cities Day in Guangzhou.

On behalf of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, I would like to thank you for hosting the global observance of World Cities Day 2017.

I would also like to congratulate the government of China for their continuous commitment in supporting World Cities Day since the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

For the United Nations, celebrating World Cities Day in China is not coincidence, but a choice.

Never before in the history of mankind have we witnessed such a rapid growth in global urbanization, especially in China.

China’s urbanization is an empirical demonstration of the contribution of well-planned urbanization to prosperity, development and to the new urban paradigm shift introduced by Habitat III.

This why, we are also very delighted today to celebrate in China the first anniversary of the New Urban Agenda, adopted in Quito, Ecuador, one year ago.

The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, celebrated last week, revealed China’s firm commitment to urbanization, climate change, among other key issues.

The dual process of industrialization and urbanization in China has driven an unprecedented process of growth, innovation and job creation.

The Chinese urban policy of distributing qualitative urbanization to the interior of the country is commendable to balance the natural tendency to urbanize in the coastal areas.

This policy is improving development and prosperity chances to all the regions of China and the commitment in the next years to further urbanize rural areas, goes in the same positive direction.

The commitment of China to address some of the externalities of the urbanization process that have appeared, mainly in relation to its environmental challenges, are also commendable, as stated by President Xi last week in his relevant speech, reiterating the Chinese commitment in leading climate change action.

Urban initiatives emerging in many Chinese cities in relation to electric mobility are important examples in the good direction to address contemporary issues relating urbanization and climate change.

Electric buses, electric cars, as well as electric motorbikes and bikes are not only contributing to make China a leader in these sectors, but also very soon, this commitment is going to translate its effects into the improvement of the urban environment.

The same can be said about the advancement in solar, wind and other renewable energies that can supply the energy requirements of cities at the same time that positions China as technology leader in these innovative sectors.

This year the theme of World Cities Day focuses on innovative governance and the concept of open cities.

Here we can advance towards a deeper and more detailed analysis of urban innovations where we are convinced that China can also contribute very much, not the least because China is planning to continue its urbanization process at a big scale, since there are plans to further improve urbanization with several hundred million people.

As the world economy is moving towards a knowledge based service economy, the role of cities is, if anything, increasing consistently.

This is why the UN has been able to raise the global profile of urbanization and cities in Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda.

World Urban Forum 9 in Kuala Lumpur, in February 2018, will be the next important event to continue the global discussions about urbanization and sustainable development.

Urbanization is indeed a process that affects human society in sensitive issues such as peace, migrations, terrorism, development, global financial stability （subprime market mortgage）， climate change and others.

This has required a paradigm shift from not only focusing on the ailments of urbanization but moving towards recognizing the potential of good and sustainable urbanization as a means to create prosperity and decent job opportunities.

Far from being a problem, urbanization it can and should be part of the solution.

Happy World Cities Day

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