GUD:
METROPOLITAN ECONOMIC STRATEGY, SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION, AND INCLUSIVE
PROSPERITY
Global Urban Development
(GUD) is a worldwide non-profit organization founded in 2001, consisting of a
rapidly growing network of more than 600 dynamic and well-known urban leaders
and experts in 60 countries. GUD has offices in Barcelona, Beijing, Belo
Horizonte, Curitiba, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Porto Alegre, Prague,
Rehoboth, San Francisco Bay Area, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and Washington,
DC. We conduct education, research, and action to promote policy ideas
that help generate more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive urban
development throughout the world.
GUD’s goals are for all
people everywhere to live and thrive in peace with each other, and for all
people everywhere to live and thrive in peace with nature. To further
these goals, we publish the state-of-the-art GUD Magazine on our
website, www.globalurban.org, and we engage in projects in partnership with a
wide variety of international organizations. GUD operates under three
major themes: Innovation and Prosperity, Sustainability,
and Inclusiveness.
Global Urban Development
was founded on three basic ideas. The first idea was to acknowledge that
for the first time in all of human history, the world is now becoming an urban
world. According to the UN, more than half of the people in the world are
now living in cities and towns as of 2007. Therefore, the majority of the
world’s population is now urbanized. This occurrence is all the more
remarkable because in 1950 only one-third of the world’s population was
urbanized, and yet by the end of this century, two-thirds of the world’s
population will be urbanized. Many people are alarmed by this trend,
seeing it as a major problem.
GUD, on the other hand,
believes that everyone should adapt to changing times by working together to
solve the urban challenges rather than turning our backs on them or trying to
reverse these powerful urbanizing trends. Since urban economic activity
is more productive and innovative and produces both more jobs and higher
incomes, GUD advocates using rapidly increasing urbanization as a resource for
improving the standard of living and the quality of life both for urban and
rural residents alike.
The second idea is that
all people and communities have much more in common than the differences
between us. Thus we do not divide the world into irreconcilable
differences, such as the standard division between “developed” countries and
“developing” countries. GUD includes every person and community equally
in our policy debates and program initiatives. This explains why
GUD works very closely with the UN on several different initiatives, including
the Community Productivity Project (CPP), in partnership with the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Human Settlements
Program (UN-Habitat), and Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), designed to
make significant progress in researching and identifying new and better ways to
reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals related to environmental
sustainability, poverty reduction, gender equality, public health, and global
development partnerships.
The third idea is that
Global Urban Development stands for practical action to accomplish visionary
goals through broadly inclusive and sustainable solutions. We do not seek
to divide people into greater conflict between “winners and losers” or “haves
and have-nots.” Our approach is to unite people through education and
consensus-building in order to identify and implement “win-win” solutions where
all can successfully become winners and where every person, family, and
community can achieve long-term peace and prosperity, health and
happiness.
GUD is organized into
participatory program committees based on values-oriented themes such as Analyzing
Global Urban Development, Building Gender Equality, Celebrating
Our Urban Heritage, Envisioning Sustainable Futures, Facing the
Environmental Challenge, Generating Sustainable Economic Development,
Improving Global Health, Inclusive Economic Development: Treating
People and Communities as Assets, and Metropolitan Economic Strategy:
Advancing Innovation, Prosperity, and Quality of Life.
GUD is a global
innovator in sub-national sustainable economic, business, employment, and
community development, for states and provinces, regions and districts, cities
and counties, towns and villages, and neighborhoods and communities.
GUD’s Metropolitan Economic Strategy and Sustainable Innovation framework is
now widely accepted worldwide, including by major international agencies such
as the United Nations, World Bank, and Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD).
Currently GUD is working
on Metropolitan Economic Strategy and Sustainable Innovation in Brazil. We are
advising the Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais
(FIEMG) and the State Government of Minas Gerais, the
Federation of Industries of Rio Grande do Sul (FIERGS) and the State Government
of Rio Grande do Sul, and the Federal Government, including the Brazilian
Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI).
Please read GUD’s two recent Brazil reports, Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainable Innovation: The
Third Wave of Industrial and Urban Economic Growth for Minas Gerais (October 2012) and Local and Regional Economic Development Opportunities
Related to the Implementation of the Sao Jose do Norte EBR Shipyard in Rio
Grande do Sul (December 2012).