Vienna, Austria, 24 June 2026 – Positioning cities as key drivers of sustainable industrial transformation, UNIDO convened a dedicated side event at the UCLG World Congress to advance urban innovation and accelerate its translation into scalable, real-world solutions.
Organized in partnership with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the session gathered representatives from cities, international organizations and innovation actors to explore practical pathways for moving from policy dialogue to deployment for sustainable urban and industrial development.
The event forms part of the growing UNIDO–UCLG partnership, which brings together UNIDO’s mandate on inclusive and sustainable industrial development and UCLG’s global network of local governments. It builds on the momentum created in Xi’an, China, in 2025, where the two organizations convened their flagship events—Bridge for Cities and the UCLG World Council. The collaboration is now moving towards formalization through a Memorandum of Understanding currently under development.
The dialogue featured a panel discussion with city leaders and partners, including Zhang Rui, Executive Vice President of the Xi’an People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (China); Milka Areba, Councilor of Mombasa (Kenya); and Javier Ayala, Mayor of Fuenlabrada (Spain), who shared practical experiences in addressing urban development challenges and scaling innovative solutions.
Emphasizing the need for tangible local impact, Milka Areba noted that “Mombasa welcomes the UNIDO–UCLG partnership through ScaleX and Bridge for Cities as a means to deliver practical solutions, mobilize investment and scale successful innovations across cities and regions.”
A central focus of the session was the Global ScaleX Alliance for Cities, presented as an operational mechanism to support cities in deploying and scaling innovation. The initiative aims to aggregate demand across territories, reduce institutional costs and facilitate cross-city learning—addressing key barriers that often prevent promising solutions from moving beyond pilot stages.
Participants also explored the concept of Innovation Scaling Corridors, which allow cities to test, adapt and replicate solutions through shared infrastructure and coordinated implementation. The Western Balkans corridor was highlighted as a first pilot, demonstrating how cities can move from concept to execution through targeted innovation sourcing, piloting and knowledge-sharing.
As part of the session, UNIDO launched the advanced paper “Innovation Scaling Corridors: Building the Shared Infrastructure Cities Need for Green and Inclusive Industrial Transformation”, which sets out how the Innovation Scaling Corridors framework empowers cities to drive industrial transformation through innovation, partnerships and coordinated policy action. The publication highlights a critical gap: cities are already acting to orient industrial transformation that addresses local challenges —through procurement, zoning, and investment decisions — but they lack the infrastructure to sustain and scale their impact beyond individual pilots. While deployment infrastructure is often too costly to build alone, cities can leverage global collaborative platforms, such and the Scale X Alliance, to build shared infrastructure to accelerate sustainable development and strengthen resilience.
More information can be found here: https://scalex.unido.org/
Bridge for Cities was highlighted as a key political platform connecting municipalities, national governments and partners, enabling strategic alignment around shared urban-industrial priorities. Discussions at the UCLG World Congress also looked ahead to Bridge for Cities 2026, to be held in Vienna, Austria, from 28 to 30 October under the theme “AI & green innovation: powering a sustainable future”. The upcoming edition will serve as a key milestone to consolidate the ScaleX Alliance, showcase pilot results and mobilize broader engagement from cities and partners worldwide.
The session concluded with a call to action for cities, partners and innovation actors to join the Scale X Alliance’s pilot phase, strengthen collaboration and accelerate the deployment of scalable urban-industrial solutions.
For more information, please contact:
Adnan Serić – Global ScaleX Alliance for Cities
Kanishka Raj Rathore – Bridge for Cities
