The Conference Secretariat has now written to all participants to say that the 2^nd International Conference on Learning Cities held in México City in September was a resounding success.  This conference builds on the work of the first conference held in Beijing in 2013, in particular,

• The Beijing Declaration, and
• The Key Features of Learning Cities.

The Mexico conference also came shortly after the adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015. Of particular relevance to Learning Cities are Goals 4 and 11, which are:

• Goal 4 - "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all."
• Goal 11 - "Make inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities."

The conference was held against a background of great concern about global instability - wars, the migrant crises, inequality, concerns over climate change, health issues, etc. These issues were on the minds of many of the presenters as they talked about how they were using the learning city approach to work towards a better community life and a more peaceful world. Some of the speakers (e.g. Mayors of Larissa, Greece and Katarina and the Secretary General of Adult Education from Serbia), stressed these times of precarity, and huge levels of unemployment in the face of austerity, alongside an urgent refugee crisis and the need to be creative in our envisaging of sustainable learning cities as saving them money and helping the most disadvantaged.

French Philosopher, Mr Gilles Lipovetsky, argued that learning cities have greater objectives than other ideas such as smart cities.  Smart cities are economic and school-centric whereas learning cities have a broader humanitarian and social perspective. At the heart is the social and cultural dimension to the inclusion of all. Lipovetsky noted that currently learning cities do not place enough emphasis on the cultural and artistic dimension. He placed a strong emphasis on artistic and cultural training programs for those youth who are alienated from society, as a way of re-engaging them.  The final México Declaration does add this artistic element and among other things recommends that youth be included as an active and meaningful stakeholder in the creation of learning cities.

The outcomes from the México Conference are described in the following text of an email sent by the  Conference Secretariat (16 October):

Dear Participant of the 2^nd International Conference on Learning Cities,

We are writing to express our heartfelt appreciation for your valuable contribution to the Conference and for helping to make it such a resounding success.

During the Conference, the Drafting Committee prepared a draft statement on sustainable learning cities, which was adopted by all participants on the final day of the Conference. We have now finalized the  Mexico City Statement on Sustainable Learning Cities (1), which you will find attached to this email.

Also attached you will find the Guidelines for Building Learning Cities (2), which are included in the publication Unlocking the Potential of Urban Communities: Case Studies of Twelve Learning Cities.

We hope that these two documents will help you to develop strategies that promote the building of sustainable learning cities, and we would ask you to disseminate them in your networks.

In addition, we are pleased to share the Conference highlights (3) and the presentations given during the Conference. These can be found on the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) website: (http://learningcities.uil.unesco.org/home).

Finally, we would be very interested to hear about any actions taken in your city to follow up on the Conference.

Yours faithfully,

The Conference Secretariat