2024 Year in Review for Welcoming Cities

2024 was a terrific year for Welcoming Cities, we were joined in the network by 10 new members, continued to connect with our international partners, including setting up peer to peer connections. released two publications,

1. Membership Growth: 

• The network grew by 10 new councils in 2024, with increases across various states:  
  • Victoria: 1 
• • Queensland: 2 
• • New South Wales: 5 
  • South Australia: 1  
• We end the year with 94 members, covering over 53% of the Australian population, with around 40% of councils in regional areas.

2. Network support: 

• Welcoming Cities spearheaded the launch of two new publications
  • Stories of Welcome – Vol. 5, and 
  • Guidelines for Inclusive Public Aquatic Facilities.
• Ongoing initiatives like the Mayoral Alliance for the Pacific and work on Guidelines for Regional Growth have further reinforced Welcoming Cities’ role in promoting integration and support.
• Welcoming Week- in our third year of welcoming week we are seeing consistent growth of the initiative with over 70 events across Australia. 
• Increasing our research and analysis capacity, having created more than 10 community insights reports for local councils. 
• The Welcoming Cities Awards for Change have gained momentum, with more entries and increasing recognition for councils and individuals contributing to social cohesion.

3. Accreditation: 

City of Darebin (VIC) became the first council to achieve Excelling Accreditation. Although there was only one application submitted in 2024, there is strong interest in accreditation in 2025.

4. International Engagement:  

• Welcoming Cities launched an international networking program for members, two Australian councils connected with counterparts in the USA.  
• NSW Coordinator Turkan Aksoy represented Welcoming Cities at the Welcoming Communities (NZ) Hui.
• We continued our regular engagement with Welcoming international.