About

Marmara Urban Forum / Marmara International Urban Forum (MARUF) is Turkey's first national urban forum.

Marmara Urban Forum (MARUF) is a biennial international urban forum organized by Marmara Municipalities Union. The key motto of MARUF, which was held for the first time in the Istanbul Congress Center on October 1-3 2019 with the participation of 250 speakers from 25 countries and 5540 participants, was established as “Cities Developing Solutions”.

MARUF21 was organized as a virtual event on the theme of “Re-Think, Co-Act” in 2021 in cooperation with 113 partners. It gathered more than 500 speakers and 8000+ viewers from 52 countries in over 100 sessions. This year, MARUF23 will be held on 4-7 October 2023 in Istanbul Congress Center to bring together urban thinkers around passionate debates on how to make cities more livable, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive. It will gather all stakeholders including professionals from cities, national, regional and local governments, private sector, NGOs, universities and other stakeholders that play a crucial role in the design, transformation and governance of cities. The forum will host plenary sessions, roundtables, workshops, serious games, ideathons, networking events, exhibitions, field trips, side events, cultural events, booths, film screenings and various other events for 3 days.

UN-Habitat, Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, ICLEI, Eurocities, Energy Cities, CDP, WRI, WWF, UNDP, UITP, WeGO, NALAS as well as many other NGOs, municipalities, universities, think-tanks, development agencies are among the partners of MARUF.

MARUF targets to create a basis for sharing knowledge, experience and opportunities between public and private sectors, non-governmental organizations, universities, local governments and other relevant stakeholders, and to evaluate different approaches on urban services and urban management in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Combining local and international knowledge and experience in order to contribute to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, MARUF opens up issues for discussion along with alternative aspects of the debate.

Aims

MARUF aims to find alternative ways for discussing urban issues to contribute to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. In collaboration with all stakeholders at local, regional, national, and international levels, MARUF aims at:

• Analyzing economic, political, social, and ecological impacts of urbanization on humans’ lives and cities
• Raising awareness on safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urbanization approaches
• Contributing to the transformation of cities to make them more livable and equitable
• Seeking solutions to the challenges that cities face and multiplying good practices at the global scale
• Discussing how to strengthen the role of cities and local governments in case of emergency situations and global challenges
• Developing information flow and networks among cities and city-regions