United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon has nominated Mr. Joan Clos, a former mayor of Barcelona as the next head of UN-HABITAT. If the nomination is approved by the General Assembly, he will serve a four year term as the head of the agency.

The United Nations has designated the first Monday of every October as World Habitat Day with the intention of drawing attention and reflect on the state of our towns and cities, and the universal basic right to adequate shelter. The theme this year: "Better city better life" coincides with that of the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the host city of this year's global celebration.

The United Nations has designated the first Monday of every October as World Habitat Day with the intention of drawing attention and reflect on the state of our towns and cities, and the universal basic right to adequate shelter. The theme this year: "Better city better life" coincides with that of the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the host city of this year's global celebration.

On the 30th July, the deadline for the 2011 Metropolis Award's nominations ended.  The participation was a huge success. 27 cities have taken part presenting a total of 43 projects. Metropolis welcomes the participation of all the candidate cities and now it is up to the jury to decide which are the winning projects.

The Awards will be presented at the gala dinner hosted by the President of Metropolis at the 2011 Cairo Congress.

The Partnership for Urban Innovation: Global Conference 2010 brought together 276 invited participants from 27 countries to Shanghai, China to explore the nature of urban partnerships. At the conference, many projects were highlighted from mobility, urban planning, real estate, social innovation, technology platforms, applications and decision enabling spaces to illustrate the great i

The first meeting of Metropolis' Commission 1 was held in Paris on 28th and 29th June 2010.

The workshop had as its title « Open spaces : peri-urban agriculture, water and biodiversity » and by means of many presentations on the subject, a discussion of the various relevant issues was proposed.

The deadline to submit project entries for Metropolis Awards has been extended until July 30th, 2010, so that all the cities have more time to participate in this 4th edition of Metropolis' Awards.

Projects must be submitted both in PDF through our e-mail and a printed version by mail at our address:

Metropolis' Secretariat-General

C/Avinyó 15, 3ª planta

08002 Barcelona, SPAIN

During the next Metropolis Board of Directors meeting, which will be held on Friday 8^th October 2010 in Barcelona the hosting city of Metropolis Board of Directors 2012 will be chosen.

From here we encourage all the active member cities to send their application to the Metropolis Secretariat General, by means of a letter of intention, before 31^st July 2010 by sending a Fax to (+34) 93 342 94 66 o by e-mail: metropolis@metropolis.org

Women Friendly City Project (WFCP) of Seoul is recognized as the best practice at the 2010 United Nation's Public Service Award. The project won the first place among Asian-pacific nominees in the category I: Improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the public service. The representatives from Seoul join in the 2010 UN Public Service Day- Award Ceremony and Forum to be held in Barcelona from 22 June to 24.

A preparatory meeting of the Global Fund for Cities Development (FMDV) founding general assembly will be held on 24^th and 25^th June 2010 in Istanbul, in order to present the project in its entirety to the members of Metropolis and to the other local authorities who have expressed interest in the approach.  The preparatory meeting will also make it possible to agree on how the structure will operate and on the commitments that the local authorities will be led to make as members.