SDG Cities Faith Implementation Partner

Summary

Intended Impact: SDG Cities, a flagship program of UN-Habitat, has clear and identified goals and targets for achieving the SDGs, the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement, and other related international agreements (https://www.sdg-cities.org). In response to the direct and strategic call for faith-based communities to join SDG Cities as one of its six “implementation windows,” the WEA, through the work of the WEA Sustainability Center, commits to be a faith-based implementation partner with SDG Cities to achieve its comprehensive goals in 1000+ cities, especially through intentional leadership to mobilize the global evangelical community’s support, expertise, resources, and collaboration. Simultaneously, we commit to co-leading, with other faith-based partners, galvanizing a broad based multi-faith coalition of faith-based implementation partners. This multi-faith organizing work, which was started at WUF11 with networking event #172 (co-hosted with Religions for Peace and SDG Cities), will continue at COP27 and other convening events and venues. Immediate Expected Results: In route to building out the capacity of SDG Cities faith-based implementation partners, we will work with our multi-faith partners to write an international multi-faith statement on cities--which will be the first international multi-faith statement on cities and the sustainable future of cities that we are aware of. The statement will debut as soon as possible, potentially for the UN Habitat Assembly in 2023. If that is not achievable then for WUF12 2024. This multi-faith statement will express the common understandings faiths have regarding cities and our common cause with the New Urban Agenda, the UN Decade of Action to achieve the SDGs, etc.. We will also work on updating a parallel evangelical statement on Cities, the Gospel and the Future of Cities, that was written in 2016 to express an evangelical Christian understanding of cities, and their future, for Habitat III. Measurement: SDG Cities has built-in measurements, processes, and protocols. For implementation partners those measurements and processes will track the progress and outcomes of SDG Cities, including the outcomes and the effectiveness of the work being committed to here.