Eurasia Local Governments Congress will take place in the City of Cheboksary

The high level meeting is organized by the Eurasian section of "United Cities and Local Governments" in conjunction with the Cheboksary administration and with the organizational support of the UCLG World Secretariat, UN-Habitat and the Association of Volga Region Cities.

During the plenary session “Towards Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals” participants will share their experience in implementing the SDGs in their cities and regions. In addition, delegations will present their successful urban projects at the special exhibition dedicated to the SDGs.

Maimunah Mohd Sharif, UN Under-Secretary-General, Executive Director of the UN-Habitat Program will take part in the event. It will be the first visit to Russia for a high-ranking guest.

"Eurasia Local Governments Congress is a platform where local and regional leaders exchange their experience and best practices on the SDGs implementation. We are honored that this year UN Under-Secretary-General will visit the Congress. It will raise the event to the new level and draw great attention to the problems of the SDGs implementation in Eurasia", said Rasikh Sagitov, Secretary-General of UCLG-Eurasia.

It should be noted that on October 5 the General Assembly of UCLG-Eurasia will take place. Within the framework of the General Assembly a new President, Vice-Presidents and the executives of UCLG-Eurasia will be elected for the period 2018-2021. The same evening, members of the Association of Volga Region Cities will discuss transport reforms.

"The city of Cheboksary is developing in a creative and intellectual way. We have no sea, no oil, no gas. We are growing due to minds of our citizens. We hope that the experience of Cheboksary will be useful to the participants of the Congress. We will do our best to hold the event at a high level", said Alexey Ladykov, Head of the city of Cheboksary.

An important part of the Congress is a training seminar for employees of municipalities and associations of local authorities, which will be held for two days in a format of round tables on the SDGs localization. Special attention will be paid to alignment of cultural strategies with the SDGs.

The aim of the training sessions is to prepare specialists who will explain the essence of the SDGs to the local and regional authorities. Learning modules are developed by UCLG in partnership with UNDP ART and UN-Habitat. The main speakers of the sessions are Sarah Hoeflich, Programme Manager of UCLG, an international expert on urban development and Jordi Pascual, Executive Director of the Committee on Culture of UCLG.

Please be aware that UCLG-Eurasia invites to submit candidacies to host Eurasia Local Governments Congress in 2021. The deadline for application submission is July 31, 2018.