Kenji Ogiwara, Mayor of Nagano City and Chrisopher Pablo, TDLC Team Lead
As urban challenges become more diverse, a broader range of knowledge and skills are required to create livable cities. TDLC has been in dialogue with multiple Japanese cities to explore the potential of tapping their experience and knowledge and inform urban programs of the World Bank.
On February 25, the TDLC visited Nagano City to meet with Mayor Kenji Ogiwara and Deputy Mayor Daiki Matsuyama. Located in the heart of Honshu, Nagano is a compact city with a population of about 360,000, but it is known worldwide as the host of the Winter Olympics in 1998. With its mature urban infrastructure and culture, and rich nature endowments, Nagano City has much to offer as a livable city to learn from for World Bank client countries.
TDLC Team Lead Christopher Pablo introduced TDLC’s knowledge sharing activities and had a constructive exchange of views on urban development with the mayor and deputy mayor. The meeting agreed to proceed with discussions on specific future collaboration, including potential hosting of a Technical Deep Dive in Nagano in the near future.
Christopher Pablo and Haruka Miki from TDLC (left side), Daiki Matsuyama, Deputy Mayor of Nagano City