WeGO Expands Partnership to the Middle East By Signing MoU with Annual Investment Meeting

SEOUL – WeGO and Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) solidified partnership with an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) through a virtual signing ceremony between the Secretary General of WeGO, Jung Sook Park, and the President of Annual Investment Meeting, Dawood Al-Shezawi.

The Annual Investment Meeting is a leading investment platform in the Middle East that creates global investment opportunities, addressing the fundamental challenges that cities and nations are being confronted with in terms of economic development and discussing investment trends and strategies that can be utilized to maximize the potential of every business, country, and region to boost economic diversification.

With this MoU, WeGO, and AIM will strengthen and confirm the partnership by establishing arrangements for working together and outlining specific areas for involvement, such as promotion and support in regional development, opening dialogue in search of solutions through the Annual Investment Meeting platform, and involving diverse stakeholders in WeGO’s priority programs. 

“It’s our pleasure from UAE as the headquarter of AIM to have this partnership with WeGO. WeGO is a well-known organization in smart sustainable cities and we really admire the work you have done over the 13 years to establish a network of more than 200 members. We are altogether aiming to enhance smart and sustainable city methodologies through AIM. As one of the pillars of AIM, sustainable, future, smart cities have been in development for over 4 years. Sustainable cities are critical to us as we are working to promote all the elements of sustainable smart cities so we look forward to activating this partnership to join hands and to promote your agenda and objectives to the rest of the world.” said President Al-Shezawi.

“I believe that WeGO’s efforts and initiatives will nicely complement AIM towards fulfilling its goals. The collaboration between WeGO and AIM will create great synergy to make our cities into sustainable smart cities. AIM is a leading investment platform in the Middle East and Africa. WeGO has strong partnerships among the Asian region promoting sustainable smart cities. Solution providers, city authorities, and funds are important. AIM will complement WeGO’s projects and strategies to have promising projects and the WeGO family welcomes the joining of AIM .“ said the Secretary-General.”

At the AIM 2023, WeGO will create opportunities to share urban challenges and create momentum for collaboration in implementing smart and sustainable smart city projects. During WeGO’s participation at the AIM 2023, a workshop, “WeGO – Citizen Engagement in Smart Sustainable Cities” and a high-level session, “Constructing Visions for the Future of Smart Cities” will be organized between May 7th to May 10th in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

About WeGO

The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO), is a membership-based international association of local governments, smart tech solution providers, and institutions committed to the transformation of cities into smart sustainable cities through facilitating public-private partnerships (PPP). WeGO was founded by 50 member cities in 2010 as the World e-Governments Organization, hence our acronym. In response to the evolving concept of smart cities, WeGO expanded its vision and mandate at the 7th General Assembly (2017) and its name to the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization. WeGO’s Secretariat is based in Seoul, Korea, and has regional offices in East Asia (Chengdu, China), the Mediterranean (Beyoglu, Turkey), Africa (Abuja, Nigeria), Middle East & North Africa (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Latin America (Cuenca, Ecuador), and Central Asia (Almaty, Kazakhstan). As the leading platform on smart city development, WeGO’s mission is to share knowledge and good practices in e-Governance; strengthen administrative efficiency and transparency; advance digital capacity; facilitate civic involvement; bridge the digital divide and inequality; and promote cooperation solidarity among cities and local governments around the world.

WeGO serves for its members as their international platform to improve the quality of life, innovate in the delivery of public services, and strengthen regional competitiveness.

Press Contact:
Name:  Jin Hwang
E-mail: jin.hwang@we-gov.org
Phone: +82-720-2931