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Consistent with HIC’s advocacy priorities in global forums and processes such as the recent World Urban Forum (WUF 13), the Coalition’s messages to the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) this year emphasize (1) states’ binding habitat-related human rights obligations applicable to sustainable development, (2) civil society’s meaningful policy-relevant participation across the System, and (3) restoring the 2030 Agenda’s attention to preventing and remedying forced eviction, which states rejected when negotiating the Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, a decade ago.
At this late stage in the 15-year pursuit of the 2030 Agenda’s 17 SDGs, states and the Major Groups and Other Stakeholders (MGOS) are taking stock of lessons learned from the experience of country-specific experiences. This year’s HLPF takes a stock of lessons from pursuing SDGs 6 (water & sanitation), 7 (energy for all), 9 (resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation), 11 (inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements) and 17 (global partnerships & cooperation).
HIC interventions
On Monday, 6 July, Joseph Schechla, HIC-HLRN coordinator, joined the multi-stakeholder session on “Redefining Sustainable Cities,” where he reminded allies of the development agenda’s unfinished business of preventing and remedying forced evictions, which deepen poverty and impede sustainable development. The next day, Joseph Schechla participated in the special event on “Water at the Heart of the Rio Conventions: From Commitments to Action,” which formed one of many activities related to the habitat human right to water.
The Women’s Major Group invited HIC’s representative to join the panel on “Sustainable Development without Gender Justice: A Feminist Lens on SDGs 6, 7, 9 & 11” to address lessons from SDG11 efforts. Joseph Schechla, raised the persistent practice of forced eviction and, more generally, displacement, including that induced by climate change, with their specific deprivation of affected women. He reminded participants of the preventive function of international law safeguards for a lawful eviction that, especially in the context of looming climate change-induced resettlements, can avoid turning affected cities into urban conflict zones.
Joseph cited the global monitoring efforts of the HIC-HLRN Violation Database and noted the dire situation of over 54 million displaced persons of the southwest Asia/North Africa region awaiting entitled reparation. He stressed the need for the UN Development System to reconsider forced eviction as a priority barrier to development and the need to quantify and remedy impacts. However, the lack of such data makes the problem invisible, and the lack of data should not be an excuse not to report on 2030 Agenda implementation efforts. He observed how the lack of reliable data as often is the reason states give for not reporting on SDG 5.a, which call for women’s equitable access to, use of, and control over land and productive resources.
On 8 July, HIC joined a closed session of eminent participants entitled “From Dakar to Abu-Dhabi and Beyond: Strengthening Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement in UN Water Conferences.” The workshop-format event produced recommendations for the German Foreign Ministry in supporting stakeholder participation in UN Water development processes.
Combining the HIC priorities of habitat rights and meaningful civil society participation, HIC-HLRN joined Brot für die Welt, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation in a special event to envision meaningful participation of civil society, including youth, in the emerging consultation mechanism ahead of the December 2026 UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi. The session proffering models and specific recommendations for a permanent stakeholder engagement mechanism for such new thematic inter-agency cooperation platforms as UN Water, UN Oceans and UN Energy.
HIC’s presentation reflected on the experience with UN Habitat’s stalled stakeholder-engagement process and the good-practice of the Civil Society and Indigenous People Mechanism for relations with the Committee on World Food Security (CSIPM).
HIC also joined a joint civil society statement on touristification and the expansion of temporary rentals, led by the Global Observatory on Short-Term Rentals. The statement warns that the rapid growth of short-term rentals and touristification is accelerating housing commodification, displacement and forced evictions in cities worldwide. It calls on governments to regulate short-term rental platforms, protect residents from displacement, and reaffirm housing as a human right rather than a financial asset, highlighting these measures as essential to achieving SDG 11 and advancing the right to adequate housing.
Deep dive into SDG11
The HLPF’s dedicated session on SDG11 this year was especially poignant, as it preceded by only a few days the mid-term review of the New Urban Agenda. And UN Habitat’s Executive Director Anaclaúdia Rossbach kicked off the panel discussion to refocus needed efforts on housing for the ever-growing urban populations of the world, especially in the Global South.
Aging populations, green building, the experience of Voluntary Local Reviews of city efforts to advance SDG achievement were among the subjects raised by MGOS interventions. FAO spoke of the importance of urban agri-food systems in the pursuit of sustainable and resilient cities.
Some states used the Forum to articulate their visions of SDG11 implementation. For example, Brazil expressed the axiom of treating housing as a human right and SDG11 as a social justice project.
Morocco presented its considerable progress in low-cost housing production, which contrasts with that country’s unmentioned dispossession and destruction of housing, land and plunder of natural resources in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara. Israel’s statement to the plenary was characteristically impertinent, promoting its integrated housing and urban development policies, while all plenary attendants surely realized that the settler colony has been perpetrating anti-Palestinian large-scale democide and urbicide for eight decades.
Urban warfare was the subject of an exchange of dueling remarks by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations about the warring parties’ reciprocal attacks on each other’s cities. That dialogue exemplified the link between SDG11 and the all-but-forgotten 2030 Agenda’s para. 35, committing states to more-effective measures to end war and occupation.
The MGOS colleagues emphasized urban planning to accommodate the growing population of order persons, green building, and the need for supporting farmers and strengthening urban and rural community linkages.
However, with the exception of MGOS reference to the forced displacement of Roma in Europe and in Ivory Coast, none of the panel experts, state delegations or MGOS raised the plight of forced eviction or the related correction needed to remedy that omission in the global development agenda. The deafening silence on that priority makes HIC’s messages all the more indispensable.
