The 3rd Global Conference on Sustainable Urban Development, hosted by the UN-Habitat, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People’s Republic of China and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, was held at Tongji SEM on October 28^th and 29th.

The conference was attended by policy-makers from Ecuador, Finland, Nepal, Costa Rica, Qatar, Australia, Kenya, Ghana, Portugal, the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, China, as well as representatives from international organizations, domestic and international cities, research institutes, experts and scholars. Five seminars were held under the theme of “Accelerating SDG Implementation in Cities at Scale”, namely the thematic sessions on “SDG Cities Hub and Practice”, “SDG Cities Deep Dive”, “The Exploration and Development of UMF-Shanghai Adapted Index”, “International Cooperation on Urban SDGs in the Post-Covid Society”, and the ” Urban Finance Seminar-towards a Local Finance Framework”.

Prof. LYU Peiming, Executive Vice President of Tongji University, highlighted in his speech Tongji’s practices and achievements in sustainable development over the years, especially the important contribution of the Tongji team to the Shanghai Manual and the Shanghai Adapted Index. Prof. LYU said that Tongji will continue to promote the deep interdisciplinary integration, bringing together the strengths of various disciplines including civil engineering, architecture and urban planning, transportation, environmental science and technology, artificial intelligence, economics, management and law, to systematically promote the research and practice of sustainable development.

During the meeting, guests from around the world shared their cities’ efforts and challenges faced in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The guests said that achieving the SDGs requires the support of countries, local governments, private institutions and social organizations by sharing resources across borders, seeking support from fiscal and local financial frameworks, and leveraging the role and function of academics including universities. Strategic plans should be tailored to local contexts to localize the global and regional SDGs, in order to accelerate global progress on the UN SDGs.

During the session on “The Exploration and Development of UMF-Shanghai Adapted Index”, Dr. CHEN Haiyun, Chief Expert of the “Shanghai Adapted Index” research team in China and faculty of Tongji SEM, introduced the index system of the “UMF-Shanghai Adapted Index” (SAI), the index selection criteria, the index application and the pilot testing, etc. He said that the team will continue to optimize the participation mechanism of the SAI and welcomes more cities around the world to participate in the SAI system.

The SAI is an international authoritative index for scientific diagnosis and trend analysis of the level of sustainable development performance of global cities based on the UN SDGs in 2030, the New Urban Agenda and the Global Urban Monitoring Framework (UMF), jointly led by UN-Habitat and Chinese experts, with the participation of experts from different countries. Prof. ZHU Dajian and Dr. CHEN Haiyun of Tongji SEM have been involved for many years in the compilation of the Shanghai Manual, one of the most important international public products of World Cities Day.

The event was co-hosted by Tongji University, co-organized by Tongji SEM and the Shanghai Society of Sustainability. (End)