The mayors of the Nordic countries’ capital cities will get together for a remote meeting on Tuesday, 20 April 2021. The meeting will be attended by the mayors Jan Vapaavuori, Anna König Jerlmyr (Stockholm), Lars Weiss (Copenhagen), Raymond Johansen (Oslo) and Dagur
B. Eggertsson (Reykjavik).
The meeting will cover the state of the coronavirus epidemic in the cities, recovery plans and possibilities for cooperation. The situation will be examined from the perspectives of the culture and events sector, education sector and social impacts, among other viewpoints. The mayors will exchange thoughts and experiences on how the cities can help businesses overcome the crisis and utilise digitalisation to improve services and the day-to-day lives of city residents.
— The population structures of the Nordic capitals are very similar, and we have faced the same types of challenges in managing the coronavirus crisis. This meeting provides an excellent forum for learning from each other’s best practices. Moreover, we intend to look to the future, beyond the crisis. My Nordic colleagues are interested in Helsinki’s plans to develop the city centre. The need to vitalise the heart of the city was strongly present in the drafting of the current city strategy. Along with the coronavirus pandemic, the rapid development of smart traffic and the new opportunities provided by digitalisation highlight the need for concrete measures, Mayor Jan Vapaavuori says.
In addition to this, the meeting will involve discussion about the cities’ climate measures and the UN’s upcoming large-scale climate conference COP26 to be held in Glasgow in November 2021.
— I will be presenting Helsinki’s efforts to arrange local-level reporting related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Helsinki’s first sustainable development report ‘From Agenda to Action’ was submitted to the UN in July 2019, and our second report will be released on 19 May 2021. In this regard, we are among the pioneering cities in the world, alongside New York, and have encouraged numerous other European cities to get involved, Mayor Vapaavuori explains.