The UCLG-MEWA Executive Board and Council Joint Meeting will be hosted by Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality. The two-day meeting will be attended by mayors, co-mayors and administrators from nearly 30 metropolitan municipalities, both national and international.

Hosted by the Metropolitan Municipality, the Joint Meeting of the Executive Board and Council of the United Cities and Local Governments Middle East and West Asia Regional Organisation (UCLG-MEWA) will be held on 23-24 October. The meeting, which will bring together local government representatives under the theme of ‘Local Diplomacy: Building the Urban Future’ at the Diyarbakır Wyndham Garden Hotel, aims to strengthen cooperation and coordination in the region. The meeting will be attended by mayors, co-mayors and administrators from nearly 30 national and international metropolitan municipalities.

Opening speeches

At the opening of the meeting, Serra Bucak, Co-Mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, Dr. Mehmet Duman, Secretary General of UCLG-MEWA, Ahmet Metin Genç, Co-President of UCLG-MEWA (Turkey) and Mayor of Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality, Tayseer Abu Sneineh, Mayor of Hebron and UCLG-MEWA (Palestine), UCLG (Spain) Secretary General Emilia Saiz, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor and UCLG Vice President Ahmet Akın, Konya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor and 2023-2024 UCLG President Uğur İbrahim Altay,  The Hague Mayor and UCLG (Netherlands) President Jan Van Zanen  and Diyarbakır Governor Murat Zorluoğlu will speak. 

Following the opening speeches, the meeting will continue with the UCLG-MEWA Executive Board and Council Meeting. 

Sessions will be held

During the meeting, sessions will be held over two days on ‘UCLG-MEWA City Diplomacy and Local Governance Committee: Inter-City Cooperation’, ‘High-Level Dialogue: The Social Impact of Global Agendas’, "Voluntary Local Review (VLR): Assessing Global Agendas‘, ’UCLG-MEWA Smart Cities and Urban Mobility Committee: Urban Transport in the MEWA Region‘, and ’UCLG-MEWA Smart Cities and Urban Mobility Committee: Resilience and Smart Solutions in Cities". 

You can access the programme of the UCLG-MEWA meeting via the link below.