The ICLEI World Congress 2021 – 2022: The Malmö Summit

The ICLEI World Congress 2021 - 2022 is a year-long experience, hosted by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the City of Malmö, Sweden

The ICLEI World Congress 2021 - 2022 is a year-long experience, hosted by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the City of Malmö, Sweden. ICLEI’s triennial gathering offers multiple opportunities to connect throughout 2021 – 2022. One of them is The Malmö Summit on 11-13 May 2022. It offers the possibilities to exchange with and inspire one another on the best practices in local sustainable development and learn first-hand from the City of Malmö’s wealth of sustainability initiatives.

Program overview

The ICLEI World Congress 2021 – 2022: The Malmö Summit will feature three days of rich and engaging sessions, divided into the following overarching categories:

Strategies towards a climate-neutral future

These sessions will explore the efforts needed in our cities, towns and regions in order to  move towards a climate-neutral future, specifically looking at:

• Technological approaches
• Fostering behavior change within the community

Strategies towards resilient and healthy communities in harmony with nature

These sessions will investigate cutting-edge discussions in building resilience capacity in our cities, towns, regions and communities, making them healthy homes both for people as well as for nature:

• What makes a city healthy for both its citizens and its urban ecosystem? 
• Which aspects need to be considered and prioritized to better interconnect (human) health and sustainable local development?

Strategies towards equitable and inclusive communities

These sessions will look at the cities and communities we are aiming to live in from two different perspectives:

• What are equitable & whole-of-society approaches to local sustainable development? How can local and regional governments ensure participatory approaches and stakeholder engagement and effectively bring on board all members of their communities, capturing  the multitude of perspectives and voices that enrich the cities, towns and regions in which we live?
• What are inclusive cities and communities? What aspects need to be considered and prioritized to better interlink (human) health and sustainable local development?

In order for cities, towns and regions to achieve these objectives, key enablers for action need to be leveraged. The Malmö Summit will give special attention to two of those enablers: Sustainable finance and Innovation.

Financing sustainable development means bringing all actors along the investment chain behind the SDGs to respond to the crisis in the short-term and rebuild over the long-term for a more resilient and sustainable future. We need to use financial reserves to implement a greener and more resilient recovery, avoid SDG washing and align global finance with the Sustainable Development Goals. Our sessions will look at this topic from two main perspectives:

• Climate and nature finance
• Sustainable procurement

New/innovative approaches for addressing urban sustainability are needed and our ICLEI Network can already cover a wide range. The sessions under this area will show that innovation is a process of trial, failure and success, looking at innovation through two lenses: 

• Innovation in sectors
• Innovation in policy and governance approaches

MOBILE WORKSHOPS: BRINGING SUSTAINABILITY TO LIFE

On Thursday, 12 May 2022, thirteen Mobile Workshops the City of Malmö will be organized especially for the ICLEI World Congress 2021-2022: Malmö Summit. Participants will explore and learn first-hand about the innovative solutions and approaches that the City of Malmö has implemented to advance its own sustainable development.

To learn more and register, go to worldcongress.iclei.org