The Congress of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) selected Izmir as the host of Culture Summit to be organized in 2021 by the union. Izmir received thumps up from all criteria and left Kazan, Russia and Merida, Mexico behind.

Izmir Metropolitan Mayor Tunç Soyer personally attended to the UCLG Congress organized on November 11-15, 2019 in Durban, South Africa and successfully completed the process applied based on “Culture for Everywhere and Everyone” concept. In 2021, participants, who are senior professionals in the field of culture, will come to Izmir from all over the world and several cultural activities will be organized in the city. Last three meetings of UCLG Culture Summit were organized in Bilbao, Spain; Jeju, Korea and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) sees culture, cultural diversity and tourism among the essential steps of Sustainable Development and, for promoting these essential steps, it collects proposals through a competition among its members for organizing a Culture Summit biennially after an open invitation and then selects the city to host this summit. 

After a long process started with Habitat II Conference organized in Istanbul in 1996; METROPOLIS – World Association of the Major Metropolises joined UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments), IULA (International Union of Local Authorities) and FMCU – UTO (World Federation of United and Twinned Towns) and these organizations merged under the roof of “World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments”. UCLG is one of the world’s largest unions covering local governments and cities.