Habitat3 – The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development – took place in Quito, Ecuador, from October 17 – 20, 2016, and launched the New Urban Agenda (NUA).
The New Urban Agenda consists of 175 paragraphs that outline global standards for the future of urban sustainable development in all human settlements, guiding for the next 20 years the efforts of a wide range of actors: nation states, city and regional leaders, international development funders, United Nations programmes and the civil society.
Many different organizations gave their statements during Habitat III:
Statement by Comités Populares rumbo a Hábitat III
“Los movimientos urbanos, campesinos, indígenas, feministas organizados y reunidos en la ciudad de Quito en el marco del Foro de la Resistencia a Hábitat III, en el Encuentro Latinoamericano de Comités Populares: Declaramos nuestro repudio a los procesos golpistas y autoritarios que recorren América Latina, particularmente los recientes golpes ocultos bajo las formas institucionales que se dieron en Brasil, Paraguay, Honduras, entre otros…”
Read the complete statement here.
Statement by Foro Resistencia Hábitat III
“La especulación a ultranza, fundamento de la nueva economía global, tiene en las ciudades su motor de crecimiento. Los procesos de urbanización se presentan como inevitables y las agendas oficiales se fundamentan en esto para enmascarar como las ciudades se han convertido en mercancía, objetos de deseo para la acumulación de capital. Esto nos ha conducido a ciudades más segregadas e inequitativas, reproduciéndose la violencia sistemática de un sistema patriarcal, racista y xenófobo. En este modelo, el acceso a los servicios se ha convertido más en un privilegio que en un derecho…”
Read the complete statement here.
“I start by celebrating the adoption of the Right to the City in the Vision of the New Urban Agenda and we congratulate the strong and serious engagement of national governments during the negotiation process of the New Urban Agenda. Likewise, I also recognize and congratulate the fundamental contributions brought by the global civil society and local governments during this two-year process. This Conference represents the most important landmark of this process where States have come together and committed with addressing the challenges faced by our cities, villages and human settlements across the globe…”
Read the complete statement here.
Statemente by Habitat International Coalition
“Since Habitat II, our Members have witnessed an acceleration of gross housing and land rights violations, including violent forced evictions and land grabbing across the globe. These have been made worse by the global financial crisis, with large banks and equity investors reshaping our cities in a neoliberal, market-driven pattern, exacerbating disparities and warping the housing rights vision advanced at Habitat II. As a result, we see instead mass displacement and growing inequality in and around cities across the planet, with private interests driving vulnerable people from their homes and lands. These “urbanization” phenomena are related to mass displacement from rural areas in many countries, where large corporations and investors are buying up or leasing land and dispossessing people from their homes and sources of livelihood, echoing the serious crime of population transfer…”
Read the complete statement here.
“Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
our international working group was formed in reaction to the fact that Habitat III did not discuss the reasons and disastrous consequences of the financialisation of all goods which constitute our local and planetarian habitat. During the past two decades the transformation of housing, land, water, urban development, infrastructure etc. in globally traded financial assets has caused an intensification of the global crisis of housing and local livelihoods, of the ecology, of global and national economies and of democratic governance at all levels. After the housing and mortgage crashes in 2008 millions lost their homes, and we are far away from solving the causes and consequences of the crashes…”
Read the complete statement here.
Statement by the World Assembly of Local And Regional Governments
“We, local and regional governments from across the globe, representing the populations of metropolises, peripheral cities, intermediary cities, regions, rural areas, and small municipalities, are gathered at the Second World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments, convened by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments and our local government associations, for the Third UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) to celebrate…”
Read the complete statement here.
