World Cities Day is celebrated on 31 October every year across the world. The main goal for celebrating the day is to promote the successes of urbanization or address specific challenges resulting from urbanization.
HISTORY
By resolution 68/239, the United Nations General Assembly announced 31 October as World Cities Day. It was established on 27 December 2013 by the United Nations General Assembly in which they decided to celebrate 31 October as world cities day. It was first celebrated in 2014 in Shanghai, China, organized by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.
In 2014, UN-Habitat launch Urban October to highlight the world’s urban challenges and engage the international community towards the New Urban Agenda.
The observance day ties in with Sustainable Development Goal 11, which formulates the ambition to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable – underlying the relevance of UN-Habitat’s mission.
In October 2016, Un celebrates the 3rd Global celebration of world cities day held in Quito, and on the 3rd celebration, the UN adopted a new framework that will help towards sustainable urban development by rethinking how cities are planned, managed, and inhabited.
THEME
The general theme of World Cities Day is Better City, Better Life, while the day was celebrated every year with a new sub-theme.
The theme of world cities day 2021 is “Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience.”