The cross-border Mayor's Summit was an excellent event.  I noted on Facebook Sister Cities International added 29 new photos to the album: All Mexico-US Sister Cities Mayors' Summit — with Mayor Ron Nirenberg in Guadalajara, Jalisco.   one published report noted: one report "¡Qué gran éxito! Nearly 300 participants, including 60 US and Mexican mayors and locally elected officials from 70 communities, came together in Guadalajara for our Mexico-US Sister Cities Mayors' Summit last week from February 15-17.  The sessions were stimulating, relevant, informative, and challenged key issues: innovation, economic integration, climate change and resilient cities, technology, immigration, education, local government role in the urban agenda, trade and safety, and more! The summit ended with the signing of a Guadalajara Sister Cities Declaration by mayors and representatives from all of the host cities!"  

In the opening Mayor’s Panel, it was urged:

-          Creating links – not waiting for politicans to make decisions – continue to build relationships (San Antonio founded 300 years ago when it was part of Mexico.   Guadalajara was celebrating its 476th anniversary during the summit)  

-          STIMULATE conversations  - EDUCATION is very important for building business and trade relations.

During the Guadalajara Mayor's Summit, I had a conversation with the Chief Resilience Officer from El Paso, Texas   [http://www.100resilientcities.org/cities/el-paso/ ] (learning that Can Tho, Vietnam is one of the 100  - a sister city of my city - Riverside, California).   The 100 Resilient Cities is an initiative supported by the Rockefeller Foundation which is supporting the new urban agenda for building in resilience into our planning efforts.

Another good thing coming out of the summit due to the 100 resilient cities efforts is the potential for developing linkages to programs like being offered by Columbia University https://www.arch.columbia.edu/news/180212/center-for-resilience

Members of this platform don't need much convincing of the importance of including discussions of resilience into planning for development.   I hope I have added some added-value in terms of knowledge and learning....