Only in China, among the five cities worldwide

[Fuzhou Evening News] On the afternoon of October 28, Fuzhou along with Brisbane in Australia, George Town in Penang, Malaysia, Kampala in Uganda and Salvador in Brazil won the first Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities (Shanghai Award) held at the Meet-the-World Lounge in Shanghai. Being the highest accolade that the United Nations Human Settlement Programme grants for sustainable development in cities, the award this year went to five cities worldwide, among which Fuzhou was included as China’s sole city.

Why can Fuzhou get the trophy? In a nutshell, credit is given to the city’s  “tremendous changes”, which were not accomplished overnight but attributable to a guiding blueprint and unremitting efforts. Fuzhou was China’s first city to launch a 20-year development plan, as Comrade Xi Jinping, who was working in Fuzhou in the 1990s, personally organized the compilation of the Economic and Social Development Strategic Plan of Fuzhou for the Next 20 Years and oversaw the implementation.

Over more than three decades, Fuzhou has continuously explored the ways to sustainable development and rolled out a package of integrated solutions that were effective, innovative and transferable, leading to fundamental changes in the cityscape.

In the awarding ceremony, key words such as the sustainable development strategy for green economy and digital economy, the renovation of its urban drainage system in an innovative manner and the construction of a green, low-carbon and ecology-friendly city with 1,000 parks reverberated through the venue and explained the main reasons why Fuzhou was honored with the award.

Fuzhou’s outstanding practices and achievements in promoting sustainable development, which the award commended, have marked remarkable progress on human settlement and were included by the Urban Best Practices, an online repository of inspiring breakthroughs on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda.  (Xie Xingxing, Sun Man and Jiang Yachen)