The photo shows Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and other participants of the 2019 World Cities Summit Mayors Forum

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 28, 2020 at 05:50
2 min read
By AFP Indonesia

A photo showing Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan in a group photo has been shared in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim that he had been named as the world’s best governor. The claim is false; the photo shows Anies and other participants of the 2019 World Cities Summit Mayors Forum (WCSMF) in Colombia; the forum did not select anyone as “the best governor”.

This photo has been shared more than 400 times since posted on Facebook on January 17, 2020.

It shows a group photo with Anies marked in the front row by a blue circle and a blue arrow pointing to him.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

Screenshot of the misleading post

The Indonesian-language text across the top of the photo translates to English as: “DR. Anies Rasyid Baswedan is named as the world’s best governor. Indonesian people should be proud there is still a great leader in Indonesia.”

The same image has been shared here, here and here on Facebook and here and here on Twitter.

The claim is false.

A reverse image search on Google found that the photo was tweeted on July 11, 2019 by the Agency for Cooperation and Investment of Medellin and the Metropolitan Area (ACI Medellin). The organisation describes itself as “an entity of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin," which is the Colombian city that hosted the WCSMF event.

During the first session of #WCSMF, the mayors from all around ? discussed how to strengthen social and institutional trust, the challenges they have faced in their cities and how the public, private and academic sectors have articulated to solve social problems #WCSMF2019 pic.twitter.com/iQLvKxRUA2
— ACI Medellín (@acimedellin) July 12, 2019

The tweet says: “During the first session of #WCSMF, the mayors from all around (globe emoji) discussed how to strengthen social and institutional trust, the challenges they have faced in their cities and how the public, private and academic sectors have articulated to solve social problems #WCSMF2019”.

Below is a comparison screenshot of the picture in the misleading post (L) and the original photo (R):

Comparison screenshot of the picture in the misleading post (L) and the original photo (R)

The World Cities Summit Mayors Forum is an annual event for world mayors and city leaders to discuss challenges and best practices in urban management, according to its Singaporean-based organiser, the World Cities Summit.

The 2019 forum was held from July 10 to July 12, according to the summary of its program here. Anies was one of the speakers in the forum, as shown by this World Cities Summit tweet on July 13, 2019.

Apart from Anies, other Indonesian city leaders, such as Jambi Mayor Syarif Fasha and Bontang Mayor Neni Moerniaeni, were also among the 54 mayors and city leaders invited to Medellin.

However, there is no mention of “best governor award” or anything similar in the World Cities Summit’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

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