We are particularly interested in the collaborations with the UN Habitat and the Habitat University Network in the following two areas.
1. Developing Implementation Strategies for Sustainable Urban Tourism – Target 8.9 of SDGs
The Open Working Group (OWG), which was established by the United Nations General Assembly, released proposals for its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This included Target 8.9 – “By 2030 devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism, which creates jobs, and promotes local culture and products” – as well as Target 12.b. The UNWTO defines sustainable tourism as: “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, by addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” Shoin University’s Department of Tourism and Culture, along with other university departments, has been working on a wide variety of projects in line with the concept of “sustainable tourism” in Japan and beyond. We are particularly interested in collaborating with your network in the following two areas. First is the measurement of environmental, economic and socio-cultural impacts of urban tourism development. Second is the design and implementation of urban tourism policy in order to achieve a suitable balance between each company’s profits and the wider economic, social and environmental goals of the city. We are particularly interested in applying our expertise to cities in the Asia and Pacific Region.
2. Measuring and Promoting Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable Cities – Goal 11 of SDGs.
The Zero Draft of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) includes Goal 11 – “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. The adoption of SDGs will require a huge burden of collecting, organising, storing and analysing data in this area. Shoin University helps to compute indicators in order to measure progress toward SDGs at local, regional and national levels. The university is also interested in the further disaggregation of this data on the basis of sex, age, ethnic background, race, geographic location, income and disability, among other variables, with the aim of monitoring and accelerating the progress of SDGs.
Moreover, we aim to contribute to the promotion of inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities across the world. In terms of safety, our hometown, the city of Atsugi, was designated an “International Safe Community” by the World Health Organization in 2010. The university and its departments are currently contributing to the further improvement of community safety measures in Atsugi and are interested in sharing our experience with the rest of the world. For example, the Department of Nursing is contributing to the promotion of mental and physical health especially among the elderly community in the area, while Takayuki Fujimaki (Department of Applied Psychology) and its student group, Lynx, are participating in a Safety Patrol program and promoting traffic safety and crime prevention in Atsugi and its surrounding areas.
In inclusivity, the Department of Intercultural Communication has been long committed to the establishment of a more inclusive environment for foreigners in the Atsugi area; in sustainability, Hiroshi Takiguchi (a policy researcher and a former chair of Atsugi’s Environmental Council), Shigeyuki Ito (a political scientist, economist and a former director of Club of Rome Japan), Haruo Ishibasi (an economist) and Osamu Kawaguchi (an accounting researcher) are working on the issue of the city’s environmental accounting; in resilience, Hiroaki Matsuura is currently working on a project to create Japan’s version of the Resilience Capacity Index with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) of the Cabinet Office. We believe that our expertise and experience in the field of safe, resilient and sustainable cities can help to create more inclusive, safer, more resilient and more sustainable cities in Asia and beyond.
