As cities become home to more and more of the world’s population, the challenges which they must face broaden and intensify. Environmental, social, economic and health issues become more pressing, while the capacity to intervene and coordinate responses to these issues is tested increasingly. After two decades of action by the EU and the OECD to promote ‘learning cities’ as an approach for addressing these challenges, various other networks and movements have evolved: Green Cities, and Healthy Cities, for example. 

How to make sense of these overlapping yet separate approaches? Who knows what works? This event will involve a panel which will focus on the role of city authorities, HE institutions, NGOs and business in addressing urban challenges. It will draw on work undertaken in the PASCAL International Exchanges amongst learning cities, and engage with Economic, Green, Social and Health themes. While the panel will introduce the themes, audience participation will be central, exploring opportunities for new partnerships amongst these stakeholders in Melbourne. This event is a precursor of the EU Centre’s conference in Hong Kong, Cities Learning Together: Local Communities in the Healthy and Sustainable City (http://www.rmit.edu.au/eucentre/conferences/clt). A selection of the pre-reading being prepared for the conference will be distributed in advance to those people who confirm their attendance.

Speakers

Elizabeth Ryan, Deputy Director of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme

Peter Kearns, Director, Global Learning Services Australia

Robbie Guevara, President, Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), lecturer at RMIT University

All Welcome

Please RSVP to [email protected] by Friday 25 October for catering purposes