The United Nations invited Uttar Pradesh's, Noida and Greater Noida to become a member of its initiative which aims to create 25 model cities across the world that will be fully compliant with the sustainable development goals by 2025.

• The twin-cities in Gautam Buddh Nagar district, adjoining the national capital, have been selected in the "University City" category ahead of Mumbai and Bengaluru, which were also under UN consideration for the initiative as the only invitee from India.
• Overall 25 cities across the world have been selected in five categories by the UN Global Sustainable Development Goals cities initiative
• In the “University City” category, Noida-Greater Noida will be competing with elite university cities such as Cambridge, Palo Alto and Heidelberg.
• Schatz highlighted that the SDG cities initiative will lead to an "unprecedented inflow" of global knowledge, resources and capacity building into Noida and Greater Noida via various UN agencies, partners and corporate supporters.

Related Information

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
• SDGs is a set of 17 “Global Goals” with 169 targets covering various sectors like health, education and climate change among others.
• The SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which started a global effort in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty.
• The objective was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world.
• These 17 Goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals while including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities.