In order to promote the Belt and Road Alliance of Urban Environmental Health that is from the ANSO Associations, achieve the goal of providing learning and training opportunities for researchers in the B&R countries and improve their training quality of postgraduate courses in environmental science and technology, the B&R Training Course of Sustainable Development and Environmental Health co-organised by the Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Alliance was held in Xiamen from November 30th to December 5th. The training course invited more than 10 professors of IUE-CAS, Professor Jose Lobo of Arizona State University and Mr. Ivan Ho Bee of Malaysian Biotechnology Industry Group to give both online and offline lessons.

Academician Yong-guan ZHU delivered a speech at the opening ceremony with a warm welcome to the participants. He hoped the training course would bring benefits in sustainable urban development although most of participants cannot actually meet with each other in Xiamen. He emphasized that the current pandemic is a demonstration that people need to work together to fight against any uncertainties in the future. The training course would be a platform not only for prompting friendship and collaboration, but also for sharing expertise and experience in developing sustainable cities. He also introduced that CAS and IUE has learnt lessons from many developed countries with the rapid urbanization in China, and it is a pleasure to share the knowledge and experience through the training course. In order to build a bright future, it is important to cooperate, learn with each other and become collaborative partners.

The participants from more than 10 countries in Asia and Africa were introduced in detail to ANSO and the Alliance during the training course. Besides, there were many excellent presentations, including Urban ecosystem and sustainable development, Achievements and challenges of China's Urbanization - from the perspective of material metabolism, Urban Health and Well-being in the Complexity Era, Evaluation of spatial accessibility from urban community to public service based on multiscale and multisource data, Theory and practice of ecological infrastructure construction based on land senses ecology, Theoretical frameworks for understanding cities and history of urbanization, Technology and demonstration of low carbon city construction and energy planning, etc. with nearly 1700 views on the live platform.

The training course relied on the Alliance with its research and development technologies, pilot demonstration projects, scientific and technological achievements and successful experience in urbanization and sustainable development, environmental health and other fields. It strengthened regional cooperation, enhanced the exchanges between China and the B&R countries in the field of urban development and environmental health and learnt about their technical needs for urban environmental health and population health risk management. It is also beneficial to promote the application and promotion of China's new theories and advanced technologies in the B&R countries, and further expand and strengthen scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation between ANSO and the B&R countries.

The training course is one of the tasks planned by the B&R Alliance of Urban Environmental Health. The Alliance is committed to making such trainings regular and branded in the future, so as to increase the influence and appeal of the Alliance and ANSO in the scientific community and decision makers of urban development in the B&R countries.

Resource: Chen Minrong.   Zhong Chuyue

The Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences