At the Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Countries on Sustainable Development 20228 held in Costa Rica from March 7-9, 2022, issues related to sustainable urban development, human settlements and the New Urban Agenda were addressed. Two main programs are "Interregional Cooperation for the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda (NUA)" and "Building Urban Economic Sustainability during and after Covid-19".
Effective implementation
Building a governance structure and establishing a supportive framework
The action plan aims to stimulate action and provide a basis for plans and activities that focus on the contribution of affordable housing to the sustainable development of cities after the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of climate emergencies. This includes conducting exercises to assess the coherence, relevance and relevance of urban policy in the context of existing international agendas, namely the NUA and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in the context of wider national development plans and policies. This forum discussed developments in the region, including national reporting, voluntary local reviews, progress on commitments made at APUF-7 and the collection of relevant case studies contributing to the thematic pillars of the Future of Asian and Pacific Cities report.
This framework supports the planning of the urban territory, giving priority to climate adaptation and mitigation in all phases of the process. The initiative puts people at the heart of the smart city vision, especially women, girls, people with disabilities and marginalized groups. The development of the NUP was recognized during the feasibility phase as vital for guiding efforts towards achieving sustainable urban development and for the localization of the NUA.
34 www.unescwa.org/sites/default/files/event/materials/un-habitat_escwa_state_of_the_lebanese_cities_2021_web.pdf on housing and transport to help formulate the Lebanon NUP and develop national housing and transport strategies.
Planning and management of urban and territorial spatial development
It includes a component for the participatory management and conservation of the Banco National Park, on the outskirts of the city.35 In the LAC region, urban mobility is considered one of the main sectors driving a major push for sustainability, a combined and coordinated set. of policies aimed at transforming the region's development model. The recovery of the COVID-19 epidemic is an opportunity to implement the 'big push' in the mobility sector due to the importance of cities in the region's economy, the urban needs caused or accelerated by the pandemic, the increasingly ambitious energy transition . - The missions of local and national governments, and the social impacts of better connected cities. Its ultimate goal is to drive a regional transformation of mobility systems, through the desire for cleaner mobility patterns.
Long-standing environmental (green and blue infrastructure), mobility (affordable public transport and electric vehicles) and culture (museums and cultural heritage) efforts are integrated through the city's spatial planning. Adopting a territorial approach to sustainable development based on multi-level participation and inclusion is essential to strengthen the capacities of local and regional authorities, promote SDG localization and implement the NUA in the Arab region. Good practices in the region promote territorial spatial development by establishing urban observatories to provide urban knowledge needed for evidence-based urban planning, management, monitoring and decision-making.
The Amman Urban Observatory (AUO) is part of the GAM organizational structure and is responsible.
Promoting green, climate resilient and healthy cities, including through
In 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, ESCAP produced a discussion paper titled Future of Asia and the Pacific Report: Transformative Pathways Towards Sustainable Urban Development – post Covid-19.44 This paper adds a focus on urban health to the framework that is developed in the future of Asia and the Pacific Cities” Report (2019).45 The project Building Urban Economic Resilience During and Post-COVID-19 in the Asia-Pacific Region included four cities in Pune (India), Hoi An (Vietnam), Subang Jaya (Malaysia) and Suva (Fiji). Qatar47 has witnessed a major shift towards green buildings in the context of promoting green development. 44 ESCAP (2020) Future of Asia and the Pacific Report: Transformative Pathways Towards Sustainable Urban Development – post Covid-19 (link).
The Qatar Green Building Council (QGBC), affiliated with its Qatar Foundation, was established in 2009 to involve and engage all sectors, stakeholders and the local community to support green environmental issues and the shift to green buildings. The project on "Building urban economic resilience during and after Covid-19" is implemented in three cities of the Arab region: Alexandria (Egypt), Beirut (Lebanon) and Kuwait (Kuwait). It helps cities and their local governments become more economically resilient by drawing a baseline for their performance on urban economic resilience and designing recovery plans that address the challenges identified in these areas.
The project generates knowledge products, including Regional Policy Advocacy for Building Urban Economic Resilience during and after COVID-19 in the Arab Region, as well as tools to assist global, national, sub-national and local communities in urban achievement. economic sustainability.48.
Financing the implementation of the New Urban Agenda
UNECE and the Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) have partnered with local and national government and academia to develop a pre-feasibility study on the integrated development of five informal settlements in Bishkek, with a total population of 75,000. beneficiaries. This is particularly important in the UNECE region, as local authorities in the region do not always have structural communication channels and governance frameworks that guarantee participatory planning and decision-making. The recent ECLAC platforms, including the Urban and Cities Platform of Latin America and the Caribbean,49 the SDG Gateway,50 COVID Observatory51 and.
It also enables them to benefit from peer learning opportunities, comparing strategies, policies and plans in different countries and cities in the region. In the ESCAP region, the Penang Platform for Sustainable Urbanization is an important forum for sharing knowledge and building partnerships related to municipal financing as well as other aspects of NUA implementation. The Asian Development Bank also plays an important role in catalyzing finance in the region, as demonstrated by its commitment to provide $2.5 billion annually for urban infrastructure projects from 2020 to 2024.
Air pollution is at crisis levels in many cities in the Asia-Pacific region and must be addressed alongside efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Strengthening capacities to promote sustainable urbanization
In the ESCAP region, partners have played a significant role in encouraging countries in the region to produce voluntary national reports on NUA. In October 2021, at the 2nd Regional Partners Forum @Quito +5, partners discussed progress on the implementation of NUA across the region and learned more about reporting the implementation of urban agendas. ESCAP was the first regional commission to include a review of VLRs in the formal intergovernmental segment of the Asia Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development, and has also developed an e-learning portal, the VLR Journey58 to provide tailored guidance on VLRs.
Following the launch of the regional VLR guidelines in October 2020, the City of Subang Jaya in Malaysia applied the guidelines to develop its own VLR, which was shared at the 2021 High Level Political Forum (HLPF). Subang Jaya's efforts, along with other Malaysian cities conducting their first VLRs were also recognized in the country's second VNR report. Other cities including Dhulikhel (Nepal), Singra (Bangladesh), Naga (Philippines) and Nakhon Si Thammarat (Thailand) are completing their first VLRs.
In support of the capacity building efforts, ESCWA translated the "Illustrated Handbook on the NUA".
Use of technology to support sustainable urban development
Recently, there has been greater involvement in the preparation of the national report; Indonesia has since submitted its national report and Thailand is in the advanced stages of drafting it. Following the seventh Asia Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-7) in 2019, a need was identified to provide cities with guidelines for developing VLRs. ES-CAP, together with the Penang Platform for Sustainable Urbanization (PPSU) developed the Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines on Local Voluntary Reviews57 as a practical framework for local policy makers to review progress on the SDGs.
57 www.unescap.org/resources/asia-pacific-regional-guidelines-voluntary-local-reviews 58 https://vlr.unescap.org. 59 https://unhabitat.org/ar/the-new-urban-agenda-illustrated 60 https://learn.unescwa.org/course/urban-development. Indonesia's third VNR report accommodates results of the VLR report and notes how the process was encouraged by the integration of SDGs in the mid-term development planning of the city government.
To build capacity in urban monitoring, ESCWA, in collaboration with UN-Habitat, organized the first regional webinar on NUA and its urban monitoring framework in 2021.
Agree – An AI-based solution to support partici- patory urban planning in Afghanistan
Digital solutions can have a major impact on improving the efficiency of such data management, and the use of social media can improve community awareness of effective solid waste management (SWM) approaches through recycling awareness programs.
Facilitating engagement and participation of development partners
- The New Urban Agenda as accelerator of global
- Growing importance of cities and local authorities
- Progress and challenges of advancing an incremental and
- Recommendations for
In 2021, cities, city networks and other stakeholders provided their views on the RAP and shared how they contributed to sustainable urban development through adequate, safe and affordable housing in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and in light of the climate emergency. In the Asia-Pacific region, there has been a range of activities and events to support the follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda (NUA). The NUA, and its follow-up and evaluation, provide opportunities to better understand and implement the urban and territorial dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Accordingly, ESCWA is creating evidence-based practical guidelines for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and related. In addition to their reporting role, VLRs are strong facilitators of the SDG localization process worldwide. ESCWA is also supporting the development of the first VLRs in the Arab region to further emphasize the leadership role of cities and local authorities and reaffirm the need for local priorities and the need to inform national priorities.
Specifically related to the Sustainable Development Goals, ECLAC also released the SDG Gateway website called 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean – Regional Knowledge Management Platform80 which is a regional database for statistical follow-up of each of the SDGs in each country of the region. Finally, in the framework of the project "Inclusive, sustainable and smart cities in the framework of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean" implemented by ECLAC under the ECLAC-BMZ/GIZ collaboration , relevant data are collected in topics related to urban mobility. Regional stocktaking to assess progress and improve reporting on the implementation of the NUA can also highlight best practices and build momentum for reporting in respective regions.
