The City of Dakar Honored in Guangzhou Award 2014

Last Friday, 28 November 2014, the Guangzhou Awards were handed to the winning cities from five continents.

The award, launched in 2012 by UCLG, Metropolis and the City of Guangzhou, celebrates urban innovations from different parts of the world and takes place in China.

In this edition, urban innovative initiatives by Antioquia of Colombia, Bristol of the UK, Christchurch of New Zealand, Dakar of Senegal, and China’s Hangzhou have won this year’s Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (Guangzhou Award).

The City of Dakar, the only African city in the competition, impressed the award judges by its Municipal Finance Program. To finance this project, Dakar decided to access capital markets making it not only the first city to do so in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa), but also one of the few cities in a developing country to do so without the benefit of full guarantees from central government.

The five winning cities were selected from 259 submissions by 177 cities from 57 countries and regions. The Technical Committee, an international panel comprising 11 urban practitioners and scholars, selected the 15 finalists and the winners of the Guangzhou Award.

For more information about the winners and the Guangzhou Awards of 2014, you can check out the award website here.