Habitat III - What's the big deal?
In the next four days I will be attending the United Nations Habitat program conference in Quito, Ecuador - Habitat III as a Policy Analyst dispatched by Global Learning Opportunities from the Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. I will be blogging about the development of the New Urban Agenda. The outputs of the analysis will be published at the Global Policy Journal, as well as, the GLOSS website.
Habitat III is the major conference convened by the United Nations, which has in it's core as an aim the betterment of human life and well-being. Formally known as the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development it will take place between the 17th and the 20th October 2016. This is the third such conference following the Vancouver 1976 and Istanbul at 1996. The twenty years cycle aims to re-think and re-evaluate the current commitment by political actors towards sustainable urban development. The Habitat III Conference will produce a non-legally binding document called the 'New Urban Agenda' which will set the strategy in urban and rural development around the world.
What is unique this time around is the focus on implementation and the involvement of civic and business stakeholders alongside the national governments. In the next five days discussions will be primarily concerned with how to ensure that the core policies in the New Urban Agenda will be followed through.
I will be following three distinct strands of policy - Urban Governance, Smart Cities and Urban Culture and Heritage. In the core of the Agenda is the increased role of local and sub-national authorities in collaboration with their national governments. It is at that scale that urban strategies will have to be implemented in order to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. I will be looking at how implementing technology and working towards Smart City solutions can reorganise local government and its structure. I will also be looking at the importance of Urban Culture as means of regeneration and Heritage as an important factor in the emerging rapid urbanization.
You can follow my live updates on twitter.