The fifth UNESCO International Conference on Learning Cities was a “great success” despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, its chief organizer told the Korea Herald.

The four-day international event began on Oct. 27 and was held at Songdo Convensia in Yeonsu-gu under the theme of “From emergency to resilience: Building healthy and resilient cities through learning.”

“I believe the fifth international conference on learning cities was a great success thanks to the city of Yeonsu … I must say that it was quite a challenge because of the international sanitary situation,” David Atchoarena, director of the UNESCO institute for Lifelong Learning, said during an interview at Yeonsu-gu District Office on Tuesday.

Yeonsu-gu is the first South Korean host city for the International Conference on Learning Cities, which has been organized by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning biennially since 2013.

Despite ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, around 2,000 people from 229 cities in 64 countries virtually attended the conference, in addition to another 200 in-person participants from South Korea and 24 other countries.

Atchoarena highlighted that this year’s conference discussed “very important” topics, including lifelong health education and the development of resilient cities, in a timely manner, considering the global epidemiological context.

“I think that this conference was in a way very special, compared to the previous ones, because of this agenda and because of a particular context in which it was taking place.”

The goal of the conference was to facilitate exchange between participants of their experience and knowledge on health education in cities, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and actions to enhance the resilience of cities and citizens vis-a-vis global crises that could happen in the future.

“It was, I think, a very important moment to reflect on the experience but also on the strategies that cities have been deploying to solve this crisis and to protect their citizens from the pandemic as well as to use this experience as a way to make the cities and the citizens more resilient,” Atchoarena said.

He went on to say that the conference was held at a critical time where cities play a leading role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by providing health care support as well as health and well-being learning opportunities.

Especially in the pandemic era, lifelong learning is a key instrument to help citizens have a better understanding of health, make informed choices and ensure access to health care and protect themselves from epidemic diseases.

“I think that one of the important lessons that we learn from the COVID-19 is that lifelong learning can actually save lives. And cities have been really at the forefront to promote lifelong learning initiatives that contribute not only to the well-being of the population but also to protect the lives (of citizens).”

Atchoarena also pointed out that the location made this year’s conference “very unique” given that South Korean cities have been playing an “important role” in providing online health education by harnessing advanced technology.

The conference also adopted the Yeonsu Declaration, which states the commitment of participating cities to promote programs for health education and health literacy for all ages and build healthy and resilient cities through lifelong learning.

Meanwhile, during the four-day international event, host city Yeonsu-gu was picked as a district to open the head office for the Alliance for Asia-Pacific Learning Cities at a session held on the sidelines of the UNESCO conference. Ko Nam-seok, mayor of Yeonsu-gu, was appointed as the first secretary-general of APLC.

By Ji Da-gyum (dagyumji@heraldcorp.com)