Sustainable cities and regions matter now more than ever.
They hold the key to the equitable and sustainable future of our societies, our
economy and planetary health. Through a series of bold and visionary actions,
we can collectively grasp that future and make it real, for all people
everywhere.
Today, more than half the world’s 7.3 billion people and around
three quarters of its economic output (over $50 trillion) are in urban centres
of all sizes. These concentrate most new investments and most new jobs and so
also most opportunity. Between now and 2030, almost all the growth in the
world’s population (over one billion people) is expected to be in urban areas –
mostly in Asia and Africa – and humanity expected to be nearly 70 per cent
urban by 2050. Yet, close to 70 percent of greenhouse gases emissions come from
urban consumers. 1 billion people live in slums or informal settlements with
high levels of overcrowding, mostly no piped water connection and poor access
to sanitation, drainage, waste collection, clean energy, education and
healthcare. As indicated in the Issues Brief on the topic of Sustainable Cities
and Human Settlements that the UN Technical Support Team produced for the 7th
Session of the SDGs Open Working Group (held in January 2014), ‘60 per cent of
the area expected to be urban by 2030 remains to be built, indicating that the
shape of future cities must be guided proactively. If current trends hold,
cities in the developing world with at least 100,000 people will expand up to
three times their present size. Policymakers need to adopt a wider view of
cities’ use of space and resource footprints and to connect local development
with global impact to achieve long-term urban sustainability. (…) Rapidly
growing cities will have to be even more innovative than those in the past in
terms of how they take advantage of the efficiencies and innovation from
agglomeration within an increasingly resource-confined environment. Slowly
growing cities in the developed world also have their part to play in reducing
per capita resource use and emissions, in many cases by retrofitting existing,
obsolete infrastructure and promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption
and production.’
The Report of the Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on the
Post-2015 Development Agenda stated that ‘cities are where the battle for
sustainable development will be won or lost.’ It also highlighted that ‘cities
are the world’s engines for business and innovation. With good management they
can provide jobs, hope and growth, while building sustainability.’ Urbanization
is also linked to poverty reduction.
The urban future, which will be so characteristic of the 21st
Century, holds unprecedented transformative potential for humanity in terms of
greater equality, social cohesion, economic growth and improved environmental
outcomes. All these are central aspects to several ongoing post 2015 UN
processes – from the sustainable human development agenda and the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), that will be adopted in September and now includes
proposed SDG11 for ‘Making Cities and human settlements inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable’; to the ‘New Urban Agenda’, which is the focus of
the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development Habitat III in
2016. Equally important is the synergy and interrelation with the discussions
on the Data Revolution; the refreshed Hyogo Framework for Action for Disaster
Risk Reduction to be agreed in March; the new Financing for Development
agreements expected in July, and the much-awaited new global climate action
framework for adoption in December.
As the international community embarks in a new negotiation
phase towards these policy-making milestones, this event will be organized by
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in collaboration with UN
Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Global Task Force of Local and
Regional Governments in Post 2015 Development Agenda Towards HABITATIII, The
Group of Friends for Sustainable Cities, and the World Urban Campaign, facilitated
by Communitas Coalition for Sustainable Cities and Regions in the New UN
Development Agenda, with the generous support of the Ford Foundation.
Our panel of urbanisation practitioners, associations of local
& regional governments and UN Member States will take stock on what are
these ongoing post 2015 processes doing to empower sustainable urbanisation
outline. This discussion session will also be the opportunity to outline key
aspects that require further political discussions and technical support in the
coming months if we are serious about reinvigorating the global commitment to
sustainable urbanization and territorial development as a driver for
sustainable human development.
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