This year’s World Urban Forum 2024 in Cairo gave the department of International Urbanism various options to share, learn and network. With the slogan “It all starts at home, it all starts locally, it all starts together, it all starts now!” the WUF12 reflects the departments approach. We were particularly eager to hear and engage in the two tracks “SDGs” and “Voices from the cities’’.
The department co-organized and participated in two sessions: 1. “Learning from Community Voices, Universities, and Knowledge Processes – Experiences across Africa.” where Prof. Dr. Mohamed Salheen, Ain Shams University in Cairo and Tapiwa Maruza, Namibian Housing Action Group shared our experiences as part of the SDGs GoGlocal! team. And 2. “Cities and their twins around the globe” at the German pavilion where the city of Stuttgart showed how we localize SDGs. One aspect that was particularly highlighted was the strong cooperation that the department has with the City of Stuttgart particularly with regards to grounding the SDGs on neighbourhood level. Prof. Dr. Astrid Ley and Prof. Dr. Mohamed Salheen explained how academia and IUSD as a double degree master program particular support in strengthening the partnership between Cairo and Stuttgart as twin cities.
Lastly, we were happy to meet so many of our cooperation partners across the world as well as IUSD students and alumni and PhDs from the last 13 years and to see how they today work in municipalities, international organizations, research and practice all around the globe and engage as change makers in sustainable city making.
