Dear Partners,

This is our last newsletter for 2015, which has proven to be a productive year for the world’s learning cities. We hope that 2016 will see the continued development of comprehensive lifelong learning policies and programmes, not only at national levels, but also at local levels: in the cities, towns, villages and communities where implementation happens. We are confident that you will continue to make a major contribution to enhancing lifelong learning. As the UNESCO GNLC continues to grow and become more influential, we warmly invite you to join the Network and to work with us to increase your city’s impact both at home and abroad.

We will begin this newsletter with an interview with Mr Nader Imani, CEO and Head of Business Field Education at Festo Didactic, about the role played by lifelong learning and education in water and waste-water management.

We will then give you an overview of the 3rd Shanghai Forum on Lifelong Learning, which focused on the theme of monitoring and evaluating learning cities.

We are also pleased to share the call for expressions of interest in hosting the 3rd International Conference on Learning Cities.

You can then read about the great strides made by Brazil in developing learning cities. Mr Raúl Valdés-Cotera, Senior Programme Specialist at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, recently attended learning city events in Brasilia and São Paulo, where he had the chance to learn about some of the country’s recent developments and future plans.

After that, our newsletter moves to Cork, Ireland’s second-largest city and one of the country’s main economic hubs, which was presented with the UNESCO Learning City Award in 2015. Find out how the city celebrated this achievement.

To conclude, we warmly welcome Larissa (Greece) and Hangzhou (China) to our UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities and give you some brief insights into their work.

We are very proud of the progress we have made in 2015. This progress would not have been possible without your dedication to advancing lifelong learning policies around the world. We welcome the new year with the knowledge that there is still a lot to be done and that our success depends on our ability to effectively communicate and collaborate with our partners.

From everyone at UIL, we wish you a wonderful year ahead!

Yours faithfully,

The UNESCO GNLC Coordination Team

Keep us up to date on your city’s news by emailing us at learningcities(at)unesco.org.