Year 2006 Number I1 Metropolis News · General Secretariat www.metropolis.org
English Version
 Conclusions of the last Metropolis Board of Directors
Meeting
 Summary of Standing Commissions and training
activities
 New appointments
 Metropolis website upgrade
 Calendar of meetings
Metropolis to elect a new
President on December 16
Board of Directors Meeting
Summary Toronto 2006
Joan.Clos
will step down
after..eight
years as head
of Metropolis
following
appointment
as.Minister
of.Industry,
Trade..and
Tourism..for
the..Spanish
Government.
The President of
Metropolis, Joan
Clos, has called
an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors to
select his successor as head of the World Association of
Major Metropolises.
The 22 members of the Metropolis Board of Directors
will meet in Paris on December 16 to hold this important
meeting.
Joan Clos, who has been President of Metropolis since
1998 and Mayor of Barcelona since 1997, was appointed
Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism by the Spanish
Government on September 9, 2006.
Jordi Hereu has replaced Joan Clos as Mayor of
Barcelona and has reconfirmed Barcelona’s strong
commitment to Metropolis.
Joan Clos has been President of Metropolis between
1998 and 2006.
Summary
The Board of Directors meeting in Toronto was held on
June 16 under the presidency of Gérald Tremblay, Mayor of
Montreal and Executive Vice-President North America and
Treasurer of Metropolis. President Joan Clos was unable to
travel to Toronto due to an important referendum taking place
in Catalonia.
Board of Directors participation was high, with over 80%
of the metropolises represented at the meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting two new active members
were unanimously voted in: Frankfurt and Manchester.
With regard to the Activity Reports, a detailed assessment was made of the period since the last Board of Directors
meeting in Berlin in 2005.
The six Metropolis Standing Commissions for
the 2006-2008 period (C1 on Eco-Regions, C2 on
Financing of Services and Urban Infrastructures, C3 on
Comprehensive Neighbourhood Regeneration, C4 on Urban
Mobility Management, C5 on Metropolitan Performance
Measurement, and C6 on Water Management) warranted special attention, and each of their respective coordinators (Michel Vampouille, Paris Ile-de-France; Amara
Ouerghi, Montreal; Helena Maria Gasparian, Sao Paulo;
Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, Berlin; Julien Hill, Melbourne-Victoria,
and Marcela Velasco, State of Mexico) made a presentation.
Three of these groups (C1, C2 and C4) held their first
meetings in Toronto. C3 held it first meeting in Sao Paulo
(March 2006) and C5 within the framework of the World
Urban Forum in Vancouver, which took place just a few days
after the Toronto Board of Directors meeting.
The presentation of the C5 report was chosen as the moment
to pay a warm tribute to Tanzib
Chowdhury, who together with Mary
Lewin, served as joint Coordinator
of the Metropolis Commission On
Tanzib Chowdhury
(1968-2006)
Performance Measurement. Tanzib
Chowdhury, who worked with UN-Habitat, died on April
11th in a fatal car accident near Mombassa, Kenya.
With regard to training activities, the Board approved
the proposal put forth by Amara Ouerghi, Director of the
Metropolis International Training Institute, to work with the
Training Center for Local Authorities and Civil Society Leaders
(CIFAL Atlanta). Following this, Vice-President of the World
Bank Institute, Frannie Leautier, reported good prospects
for the work developed between the two institutions in the
area of metropolitan governance. Lastly, Amara Ouerghi
presented the distance learning pilot project, a strategic
commitment aimed at significantly increasing the number of
students at the Institute. The Board approved the proposal.
In the area of technical assistance, Josep Roig, Secretary
General of Metropolis, reported on the waste management
assistance programme for Puebla. The Mayor of Antananarivo,
Patrick Ramiaramanana, requested technical assistance for
cleaning up the Andriantany Canal. The Board of Directors
gave its support to both projects.
Francine Senécal, Coordinator of the Women’s Network of
Metropolis, gave a very positive assessment of the network’s
progress and expressed her desire to see it become a
permanent commission.
As for international activities, Josep Roig underscored
the collaborative efforts between Metropolis and UN-Habitat,
UNACLA, ICLEI and the US Conference of Mayors.
The Board of Directors first approved the 2005-2006
Activity Report and then the 2005 Financial Report,
presented by Amara Ouerghi, Treasurer of Metropolis.
Debate then got underway on the 2006-2008 Action
Plan. In the first place, Janine Haddad and Jacques Bailet
made recommendations on the Bank of the Cities project
headed by Paris-Ile de France.
Secondly, Josep Roig explained the project to create a
study group on the Trends in Metropolises Development,
already included in the 2006-2008 Action Plan approved
at the Berlin Congress. However, the Board of Directors
decided to suspend the 2007 budget allocation for this
project.
David Miller, Mayor of Toronto, Patrick Ramiaramanana, Mayor of
Antananarivo, Gérald Tremblay, Mayor of Montreal, Chris
Johnson, Director of Sydney 2008, after the press conference.
Thus, the Board passed the 2007 Budget and
Membership Fees. The only change made was to shift the
resources originally earmarked for analysing the evolution
of the metropolises to the area of Technical Assistance.
Lastly, the Board members were notified about
pre-candidates for hosting the 2009 Board of Directors
meeting. The final decision, however, will not be taken until
the Antananarivo meeting in 2007.
Following this last item, Acting President of Metropolis,
Gérald Tremblay, thanked all of the Board members
for their participation and congratulated himself on the
success of the Toronto meetings.
The Board of Directors Meeting.
Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments
(UCLG), Elisabeth Gateau, invited Metropolis members to the
UCLG World Congress to be held in October 2007 in Jeju,
South Korea.
Next, the Mayor of Antananarivo gave a rundown of the
provisional programme for the 2007 Board of Directors. Chris
Johnson, Director of Sydney 2008, revealed a few details on
the 9th Metropolis Congress.
The Secretary General of Metropolis provided a general
assessment of the main activities dealing with the exchange
of information, transfer of knowledge and member communication and campaign. He also took the occasion to present
the “Study on Metropolitan Regions”, which analyses 52
metropolises around the world.
View of Toronto
Comission 2: Financing of Urban
Services and Infrastructures Meeting
The Commission 2 on
Financing Infrastructures and
Services, led by Montreal, held
its work from June 14 to 16
2006 in Toronto. Approximately
120 people representing
22 metropolises took part
in this work. On June 15, the
delegates of member metropolises attended the presentations of 12 case studies of cities
(Toronto, Abidjan, Guangzhou,
Brampton, Halifax, Barcelona,
Bamako, Vancouver, Brussels,
Montréal, Buenos Aires and
Teheran), and of the project of
Bank of Cities. On June 16, the
representatives of multilateral
and international institutions
(World Bank and Inter-American
Development Bank) and of
the private sector made their
presentations. A round table
joining together representatives of various financing
related domainsconcluded
these days of exchanges.
The participants to the
roundtable (Gérald Tremblay,
Mayor of Montréal, Moussa
Badoulaye Traore, Mayor of
Bamako, Enrique Peña Nieto,
Governor of the State of Mexico,
Frannie Léautier, Vice-President,
World Bank Institute and William
Spurr, President, Bombardier
-Transport), according to their
different points of view, recalled
the importance of the private
investment in the public
infrastructures. It was stated
on several occasions that the
public-private partnerships were
not the solution to all management and financing problems,
that each project is unique and
specific to a given context and
that the PPP formula cannot
meet all types of needs.
In the closing session,
Mayor Tremblay pointed out the
importance of the Millennium
Development Goals, insisting
on the urgency to fight against
the poverty in cities and thus to
preserve the human dignity.
For further information,
please contact Amara Ouerghi,
Coordinator of Commission 2:
amara.ouerghi@cum.qc.ca
Comission 1: Eco-regions
Meeting
Commission 1 Meeting.
On June 15, 2006 the
first meeting of Commission
1 on Eco-regions was held
in Toronto with some 40
delegates present. 17 cities
were represented from 12
different countries.
Michel
Vampouille,
Vice-President of the Île-deFrance Region, responsible
for Environment, Sustainable
Development and Eco-regions,
chaired the meeting. The
city of Toronto, the Secretariat
General.of.Metropolis
Barcelona, representatives
from international organizations, UNESCO, ICLEI-Local
Governments for Sustainability
and experts from different
countries were also present.
During the meeting the member cities had the opportunity to present, compare and
analyse their experiences.
Commission 1 continues
implementing the exchange
of experiences and technical
training among Metropolis
member
cities
with
regard to the concept of
“eco-region” and its main
themes: governance, management of green spaces
and sustainable tourism.
The second meeting of
Commission 1 will take place
in Paris in September 2007.
For further information, please
contact Marie Giorgi, Project
Manager of Commission 1:
m.giorgi@areneidf.org
Commission 2 Meeting. Foreground, Georgina
Pozo, State of Mexico.
Training on Urban Infrastructure
Maintenance
The Metropolis International Institute organised from June 14 to 17,
in Toronto, a seminar on
maintenance of infrastructure. This seminar had the
following main objectives:
provide
practical
information; refresh knowledge;
master techniques; get to
know
new
innovative
approaches;
link
with
professional experts and
elaborate
infrastructure
maintenance
strategies.
19 participants representing
nine
metropolises
(Abidjan, Abomey, Bamako,
Cotonou, Kinshasa, Mexico,
Montreal, Moscow, Toronto)
benefited from this formation which related to the
following elements: planning,
design, maintenance, rehabilitation, costs, cycles of life
and optimization methods.
Participants during the Study Tour to Toronto
Union Station.
Comission 4: Urban Mobility
Management Meeting
Commission 4 Meeting.
This year’s annual meeting of Commission 4 “Urban
Mobility Management” was held
in Toronto on June 15, 2006. The
main topic of the meeting referred
to “Mobility and Social Cohesion”
with a strong emphasis put on
gender issues in transportation. This choice of topic was
based on the Berlin Declaration on
Sustainable Urban Mobility adopted in 2005 and further discussions
between the members of the
Commission. The conference
was attended by representatives
from 16 cities and also included members of the Metropolis
International Women Network
The President of the Commission,
Inge-borg Junge-Reyer, Senator
for Urban Development in Berlin,
opened the meeting by outlining the importance of the
chosen subject. She stated
that in order to participate in
urban life, people need to be
mobile, and enabling mobility of
all people in the city is therefore a
prerequisite for an active,
cohesive
society.
These
opening
remarks
were
followed by a number of
keynote
speeches
that
explored the subject further
and gave detailed information
on the kind and extent of the
various issues related to the
overall topic in the cities.
Furthermore,
two
panel
discussions allowed for all
participants to share in the
discussion, exchange opinions
and learn from each other’s
experiences. On the day
following the Commission’s
meeting, participants were
also able to attend the
ssion of Commission 2 and
consider the possibility of creating
further synergies between the
work of the two Commissions.
The conference documentation
will soon be made available on
the Metropolis homepage,
and a CD-Rom containing
all presentations and further
important information can
also
be oredered from
Commission 4.
For
further
information,
please contact Cornelia Poczka,
Coordinator of Commission 4:
cornelia.poczka@senstadt.
verwalt-berlin.de.
New appointments
From Metropolis we would like to congralulate Theodoros Bechrakis, Mayor of Athens; Seoung-hyo Park, Mayor of Daejeon; Hussain Nasser
Lootah, Director General for Planning of Dubai Municipality; Kim Moon Soo, Governor of Gyeonggi Province; Oh Se-Hoon, Mayor of Seoul,
and Kristina Axén Olin, Mayor of Stockholm.
METROPOLIS WEBSITE UPGRADE: We are pleased to inform you that the Metropolis website has been upgraded. We invite you to visit it at:
www.metropolis.org
CALENDAR OF MEETINGS
NOVEMBER 2006
Date
Name
Venue
Organized by
Further information
22-25
21st Annual General Meeting
Manchester
Eurocities
http://www.eurocities.org/
main.php
29-1 Dec.
Cities Alliance Meeting
Washington DC
Cities Alliance
www.citiesalliance.org
29-1 Dec.
Forum “Higher Education, Research and Knowledge”
Paris
UNESCO
www.unesco.org/education/
researchforum
29-1 Dec.
12th Mercociudades Summit
Morón
Mercociudades
http://www.mercociudades.
org
1-3
Megacities International Conference 2006
Guangzhou
Megacities
www.megacities.nl
4-6
Cityscape 2006: The 5th International Property Investment &
Development Event
Dubai
Cityscape
www.cityscape-online.com
5-7
International Forum on NEPAD and African Municipalities (FINEM 2006)
Yaoundé
Hearafryca
jcmvodo@hearafryca.org
5-9
83rd Congress of Cities and Exposition of the National League of Cities
Reno
National League of
Cities
www.nlc.org
15-16
Metropolis Extraordinary Board of Directors Meeting
Paris
Metropolis
www.metropolis.org
20-25
World Social Forum 2007
Nairobi
World Social Forum
www.forumsocialmundial.
org/ve/Ingles
24-28
World Economic Forum
Davos
World Economic Forum
www.weforum.org
DECEMBER 2006
JANUARY 2007
Secretariat General: Avinyó 15 08002 Barcelona (Spain) Tel (+34) 93 342 94 60 Fax (+34) 93 342 94 66 e-mail: metropolis@bcn.cat
www.metropolis.org
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