Incheon’s Yeonsu-gu will host the fifth International Conference on Learning Cities, which kicks off next week with an aim to reinforce the capacity of city authorities and relevant stakeholders to create, adapt and improve their lifelong learning policies for health education and resilience. 

The international event will take place Oct. 27-30 at Songdo Convensia under the theme “From emergency to resilience: Building healthy and resilient cities through learning.”

Some 2,200 guests will attend the four-day conference both physically and virtually, including former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and officials representing 193 UNESCO member countries and 229 Global Network of Learning Cities member cities from 64 countries.

A separate exhibition, titled “The 2021 ICLC Global Citizen Lifelong-learning Expo,” also will take place with 159 booths under nine themes from Oct. 29 on the sidelines of the conference.

The ICLC is a biennial conference organized by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning aimed at promoting lifelong learning at a local level for sustainable development.

The South Korean gathering comes at a critical juncture with a goal to exchange knowledge on global health education in cities, their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and actions to improve resilience in the face of future crises.

“Yeonsu-gu aims to provide a platform for discussion on harmony and coexistence of mankind for participating lifelong cities which are overcoming the pandemic era,” the organizing committee said in a statement.

The Yeonsu Declaration on healthy, green and inclusive learning cities will be adopted as a result of the ICLC 5. 

By Ji Da-gyum and Lee Hong-seok 
(dagyumji@heraldcorp.com) (gilbert@heraldcorp.com)