The Fifth UCLG ASPAC Congress will be held in Taipei from 3 to 6 September, ten years after UCLG ASPAC’s inaugural congress in Taipei, which gives it a particular historical significance.

With more than 1,000 members, United Cities and Local Government (UCLG) is the largest local government organization. United Cities and Local Governments Asia-Pacific (UCLG ASPAC), of which Taipei is a member, is the biggest of UCLG’s eight sections. The highlight of the first day of the Congress will be the Mayors’ Forum, which will see the participation of Lung-Bin Hau, Mayor of Taipei City, and more than 10 other leaders from major cities around the world, including Yasutomo Suzuki, Mayor of Hamamatsu, Mike Robbins, Provost of Stirling and Brenda Halloran, Mayor of Waterloo. During this year’s Congress, Taipei City will also sign a Letter of Intent with the City of Waterloo, Canada. Together with agreements with Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, this will form a Global Triangle of Intelligent Communities, which will strengthen cooperation in building the smart cities of the future.

Under the congress’s overall theme of An Adaptive City—Embedding Design in City Governance, four plenary sessions will be held on the second day (4 September) on the topics of the Development and Application of the Smart City, Adaptive City Design in Motion, the Development Trend of Green Transportation and How to Construct a Zero-Waste, Recycling Society. Discussions will include policies that Taipei is currently promoting, such as the YouBike public bike-share scheme, recycling projects and waste-reduction practices.

During the same period a special exhibition, Taipei City-Design and Diplomacy, will take place in the FE Eco Ark Pavilion at the Taipei Expo Park. The exhibition will feature the 16 core projects of the 2016 World Design Capital to be held in Taipei and other themes such as the Velo-city Global 2016, the 2017 Taipei Summer Universiade and the city’s policies on city diplomacy, environmental protection and investment.

For more information, please visit the official website.