Experts representing state and municipal bodies, scientific communities, national commissions for UNESCO from Moldova, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine will come together for a meeting in Balti town on January 28-30 to consider creating a Sub-regional Coalition of the Cities against Xenophobia and Discrimination in Eastern Europe, Info-Prim Neo reports. The coalition will aim at promoting and supporting the cultural variety, tolerance, peace, security, economic prosperity and social unity in urban areas, a communique from Moldova’s National Commission for UNESCO says. The meeting’s participants are to adopt the Action Plan designed to ensure conditions enabling the urban residents (regardless of race, origin, nationality, ethnicity and religion) to keep and defend their individuality, freedom, quality, dignity and rights. This will improve Moldova’s image abroad and will contribute to the popularisation of the positive legal, social, cultural and educational results achieved in the area, the communiqué says. The meeting will be attended by representatives of the UNESCO Paris-based Secretariat, the UNESCO Moscow Office, the International Union of Local Authorities and the United Towns as well as by mayors of Moldovan towns, scientists, representatives of national minorities and religions. The creation of the European Coalition of Towns was initiated by UNESCO and supported by the Fourth European Conference of Cities for Human Rights (December 2004, Nurnberg) and by the International Union of Local Authorities and the United Towns (May 2004, Paris). Sixty-seven towns from 15 European countries including Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, Stockholm, Riga, Saint-Petersburg, Madrid, Geneva and others have joined the Coalition so far. Experts predict that the increase in urban population density in the next 100 years will be accompanied by expanding migration processes and this fact will make the need for combating xenophobia and discrimination more acute.