Seoul Metropolitan Government hosted the 2019 International Urban Resilience Forum Seoul on 23-24 September 2019. The Forum aimed to share trends and best practices and to discuss ways to strengthen resilience to disasters and increase sustainable city development.

Under the theme of Enhancing Urban Resilience through Smart Techology, Mr. Kendra Hirata, CityNet Yokohama Project Office’s Director, delivered a key speech on mainstreaming disaster issues within each city to achieve better coordination, make better plans, and ultimately be better decision-makers.

In response to a question on the importance of data for city-to-city cooperation, Mr. Hirata mentioned how data integration helps cities to increased coordination. He added that fully coordinating data still represented a challenge, but that multiple good initiatives are starting to come up, citing some of CityNet’s work in Yokohama, the Philippines and Indonesia as examples.