October 31 Marks World Cities Day

World Cities Day is celebrated on 31 October each year.

The day aims to raise awareness about global urbanization and push for global cooperation in sustainable urban development.

As with World Habitat Day, a global celebration is held in a different city each year and the day focuses on a specific theme, according to the UN.

This year’s global celebration is planned in Shanghai, China under the theme "Act Local to Go Global."

"We want to bring different partners and diverse stakeholders together to share their experiences and approaches to the local action, what local action worked and what is needed to empower local and regional governments to create greener, more equitable and sustainable cities," said UN.

It also noted that local action is critical to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. UN-Habitat has been at the forefront of SDG localization since the very endorsement of the 2030 Agenda.

Since then, UN-Habitat has been working to advance SDG localization by providing technical expertise to partners across the globe, leading the development of cutting-edge research, capacitating local and regional governments on SDG localization, and strengthening the voice of local governments and local actors within the main international and UN-led fora on SDGs.