Ensuring 'Our Urban Agenda' is Heard at UN Habitat 3 [BLOG]

The UN Habitat conferences are meetings of world stakeholders on human settlements that take place every 20 years. The two prior UN Habitat conferences were held in Vancouver, Canada (1976) as Habitat 1, and  Istanbul, Turkey (1996) as Habitat II. The primary idea is that we can not ignore the growth of cities and the attendant challenges, instead we must plan ahead so that those challenges will not take us by surprise and overrun us.

The main issues the UN Habitat conferences consider are defined by the prevailing challenges during the preceding two decades. Key issues discussed at UN Habitat 3 were urban poverty, slums, slum dwellers vulnerable and marginal groups (including women, girl child, disabled persons), socio-spatial exclusion (i.e. segregating the poor from the rich in physical planning), governance, equity and equality, environmental justice, participatory planning, right to adequate housing, security of tenure, slum upgrading and prevention, inclusive finance, informal economy, and climate change (not pronounced in Habitat 2).

Attendees included high-level government representatives (primarily those working on housing, urban governance, and environment), as well as stakeholders from many grassroots organizations like the Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), Women In Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), Huairo Commission (HC); many public and private research and development institutions; donor agencies, and the press.

READ the full SDI Report here: https://knowyourcity.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/SDI-at-HABITATIII.pdf