Takeaways from the High Level Meeting on the 5 years of implementation of the NUA
Our Statement
Agenda
About the HLM
On Thursday 28 April 2022 the President of the United Nations General Assembly will convene a one-day High-Level Meeting to assess the progress of the implementation of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) at the UN headquarters in New York. The discussion will be centered on member states’ reactions and positioning to the UN SG’s Report on the 5 years of NUA implementation.
Given the historic importance of the New Urban Agenda in terms of the recognition of the Right to the City, the GPR2C and its members will be actively joining this process, calling for an enhanced commitment by member States and key UN agencies for advancing the Right to the City as a driver for promoting social, territorial and environmental justice.
Our Statement
The right to the city as an accelerator for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda
days since the NUA was adopted
countries adopted the NUA
countries have submitted progress reports on NUA
Ahead of the High Level Meeting on New Urban Agenda implementation, we call national governments and relevant UN Agencies, in particular UN-Habitat to:
- Commit to an accelerated implementation of the New Urban Agenda, leveraging the Right to the City as a driver for its implementation in the direction of promoting social, territorial and environmental justice, strongly articulating policies and programmes with the respect of Human Rights obligations and implementation of other global agendas such as the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
- Recognise and support local governments and civil society organizations as key stakeholders for the monitoring and effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda, leveraging and building upon the transformative initiatives and policies being driven by such actors, considering the city as a not-for-profit common good whose management must include the active involvement of the entire social fabric, with a particular focus on the traditionally marginalized groups and communities.
- Put forward a systematic coordination framework between diverse spheres of governments, with civil society representation and the support of multilateral and regional organisms, as well as more clear definition of roles related to the implementation and follow-up of NUA commitment within government bodies.
Committing to NUA implementation through the R2C
As the leadership of member States in concrete progress in NUA implementation has been stagnant, progressive local governments and civil society are setting a course that it is essential to make visible, protect and support. These include both emergency response policies in the framework of COVID-19 response and recovery initiatives, as well as structural policies with a long-term impact in providing alternatives to the current economic and urban development models.
Such initiatives and the strategic areas they reflect are historically tied to the development and implementation of the Right to the City, providing a concrete pathway for the implementation of NUA commitments and other related global agendas. Moreover, they reflect the enormous capacity for mobilization, and multi-stakeholder and multi-level articulation, and also highlight the centrality of care and the feminist approach now growing strongly and explicitly on the agenda of several actors.
Agenda
Under the framework of the High Level Meeting, the Global Platform for the Right to the City, Habitat International Coalition and United Cities and Local Governments are organizing a side event to discuss perspectives and challenges for advancing the Right to the City under the efforts for implementing the New Urban Agenda and beyond.
The event will seek to build upon the mobilization of civil society organizations and local governments that succeeded in securing the inclusion of the Right to the City in the final text in 2016, evaluating and discussing how the last five years have impacted the Right to the City movement and what strategies can be put forward to further advance on securing and implementing the Right to the City in the present and future.
Analysis and debates are expected to address pressuring concerns of the present moment, marked by inertia around NUA implementation, setbacks in regulatory and institutional frameworks, and the convergence of the crises linked to the increasing socio-spatial inequalities, the financialization of key goods and services and the climate emergency.
April 27th, 11h-13h (NYC time), Millennium Hilton New York One UN Plaza
(One Un Plaza, New York, NY 10017, United States)
The event will be in person only, but stay attentive for upcoming debates in May to be held online as to follow-up on the discussions held in May and advance on next steps.
About the HML
Member States will gather in New York for the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on 28 April 2022 to review progress on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda six-years after its adoption at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador.
Member States, local and regional governments, and other constituencies of the New Urban Agenda such as professional associations, grassroots organizations, and business leaders will utilize the platform to highlight policy directions and programmatic initiatives they have been engaged in, and to put forward concrete commitments for the next two years.
The meeting will stream live-virtual, without any need for registration, on UN WebTv and UN Youtube.
