UCLG World Organization and Sections are continuing to organize programs on intermediary cities (i-cities), which are expected to host 50% of the world population in 2030. As one of the regional preparatory meetings on the way to I-Cities World Forum to be held on 5-7 July 2018, in Chefchaouen, Morocco; I-Cities MEWA Regional Forum, took place on 21-22 September 2017, in Nevşehir, a model i-city of the MEWA Region; with a wide participation and a comprehensive program.
UCLG I-Cities Forum has been organizing four-day workshops to map the projects that will be run in the model i-cities, to ensure that the potential of the i-cities is valued at an optimum level. Following the first session of these workshops in March 2017, in Chefchaouen, a model i-city of the Africa Region; a similar work was carried out in Nevşehir on 1-4 February 2018. Firdaous Oussidhoum, Coordinator of UCLG I-Cities Forum, Borja Iglesias, Member of UNESCO Chair in I- Cities and Global Urbanization, Salim Korkmaz, UCLG-MEWA General Coordinator, and Tuğçe Karataş, Project Officer, participated in the workshop together with municipal staff of the planning and project departments.
During their opening speeches on the first day of the workshop; Yusuf Kaya, Deputy Mayor of Nevşehir, Ms. Oussidhoum and Mr. Korkmaz, stated that this workshop would support Nevşehir to determine its priority areas and would surely contribute to the international recognition of Nevşehir.
In the first two days of the program; more than 300 plans and projects of Nevşehir in the last period and in the near future, were classified under capitals such as economic, social, cultural, environmental and human; and were colored separately under these 5 capitals to be spotted on the Nevşehir map. On the third day, the plans and projects were examined one by one, and were linked to the related Sustainable Development Goal, among 17 of them. Following this work, technical visits were organized to the leading projects, and the experts carried out on-site inspections in these sites. On the last day, a preliminary presentation of the classification and mapping work was presented to the municipal staff. The program ended after a short session, in which the municipal staff of Nevşehir shared their dreams and projections on the ideal city they would like to see in 2030.
The next step is to translate the classification and mapping work into a reference document, in view of the data received, and through graphics and maps. You can find the document prepared after the similar workshop held in Chefchaouen, on the UCLG web site.
