The international agenda of the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, began today, October 10, with her participation in a series of events in the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam. The first of the Mayor’s engagements was a meeting with the director of the Institute for Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, Kenneth Heijns, with whom she discussed sustainable mobility issues to apply to the structure of Bogotá-Region.
During the meeting, which was also attended by representatives of the electric bicycle company Cargoroo and the Delft University of Technology, the possibility of future collaborations focused on the urban cycling industry, the 2023 Car Free Day, and the creation of innovative ideas to improve the use of motorcycles.
Following this meeting, the Mayor's Innovation Studio workshop, organized by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Foundation and the Aspen Institute, was held. This session was held to analyze the main urban problems and find innovative solutions for them from a local level.
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Some of the main topics that were presented in this workshop were the engines of change for the development of economic specializations of the participating cities, and opportunities for positive impact in the future, a conversation that took place with internationally recognized experts such as the director from LSE Cities and professor of urban studies Ricky Burdett.
The relevance of Bogotá at the international level was praised in a meeting with Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, who announced the news that the Colombian capital’s District Care System has been recognized with an award as one of the best social innovations in the world.
Here is a tweet in which the mayor, Claudia López, refers to the recognition received because of the Care Blocks in Bogotá:
Las #ManzanasDelCuidado de @Bogota han sido premiadas como una de las mejores innovaciones sociales del mundo!
— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) October 10, 2022
Han ofrecido +200.000 servicios de descanso, lavandería pública, escuela bici, educación, trabajo y otros apoyos a las cuidadoras mientas cuidamos a los que ellas cuidan pic.twitter.com/NkK2N3DvKn
However, the main event on the agenda in Amsterdam was the plenary session of the Bloomberg CityLab, the quintessential meeting of city leaders and the brightest minds in urbanism and urban planning, economics, education, art, architecture, public sector innovation, community development, and business.
In this space, Mayor López participated in a panel called 'Cities in the Age of Protests' together with the Mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, to review the cases of social unrest that both cities have experienced.
"Social discontent has social causes, and we have to recognize those causes," said the Mayor in an invitation to engage in dialogue with the young people who are leading change in cities and who are requesting new opportunities from the protests.
For her part, the Mayor of Washington emphasized the need to understand the position of citizens who take up situations of injustice such as the attack on George Floyd that occurred last May 2020.
"As mayors we must protect the services that we are responsible for, and safety and public order that we are responsible for, but as human beings we also have to feel the pain and grief that people in our country felt," Bowser said.
The following is a tweet from the mayor about her participation in the Bloomberg CityLab 2022:
En #CityLab2022 estamos alcaldes y equipos de innovación de 40 ciudades para compartir y aprender soluciones en temas como cambio climático, salud pública, bici movilidad y seguridad y gobernanza en tiempos de crisis.@Bogota compartió su trabajo con migrantes, mujeres y jóvenes. pic.twitter.com/fz0GZ0woWb
— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) October 10, 2022
Finally, the event concluded with an invitation from Mayor López to think about the development of public policies from the perspective of caring for both citizens and democracy. "Only people who have been respected and cared for can take care of democracies," she explained.
Mayor López’s international agenda will continue in Korea, where she will have a series of meetings with Korean investors to present megaprojects in which Bogotá is advancing and will also participate in the C40 cities network summit.
