Actions to achieve Sustainable Urban Development

Why actions matter in achieving the 2030 Agenda

We have less than seven years remaining to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2020, the United Nations Secretary-General called upon a Decade of Action to accelerate and mobilise solutions at local and global levels and fully engage partners, people and communities across all sectors to leverage transformative changes. Therefore, it is crucial to collect and monitor committed actions and advance the progress and achievement of the Agenda 2030.

For more information: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/decade-of-action/

WUF 11 – The Katowice Declared Actions

The eleventh session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) took place in Katowice, Poland, from 26 to 30 June 2022 under the theme Transforming our Cities for a Better Urban Future.

The theme’s relevance is stark as the world comes together to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, especially after the devastating effects of Covid-19 and the refugee situation due to the crisis in Ukraine.

The WUF11 concluded with the Katowice Declared Actions. These declared actions will carry the sustainable development agenda forward to the next World Urban Forum in Cairo, Egypt in January 2024, and beyond. They include recommendations and commitments that representatives of government, civil society and the private sector take back to their home cities for further discussion and implementation. WUF11 Katowice Declared Actions are voluntary actions and commitments that support the NUA implementation and accelerate the SDGs’ attainment. 

WUF 10 - The Abu Dhabi Declared Actions
The Tenth Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF10) debated issues related to rapid urbanisation, building inclusive and resilient cities, and taking steps to accelerate their work towards the New Urban Agenda as an accelerator to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Decade of Action. WUF10 began with a call to action and concluded with the Abu Dhabi Declared Actions committed by different partners and stakeholder groups.

The Abu Dhabi Declared Actions comprises actions committed on a voluntary basis by governments, partners, individuals, communities, and the business sector from cities and countries around the world to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The Actions were produced in consultation with the WUF10 Advisory Group representatives from diverse urban development partners. The Actions are strategic level goals that will result from implementing new initiatives from various institutions and actors.

For more information on the Declared Actions, please visit here.

The first report on the implementation of the Abu Dhabi Declared Actions: one year of implementation was published in 2021. The report details successes and highlights actions partners are engaging in to fulfil their commitments.

Actions At-a-Glance

Actions

Booklet 'Inclusive Cities'

Booklet with technical and legal guidance to promote more inclusive cities, aimed at public managers at the municipal, regional and federal levels, including references of successful affirmative policies and programs.
Source: World Urban Forum

Crossing City Limits, embracing the values of WUF11

Awareness of knowledge outside of our local realities and knowledge bubbles. Enhance actions with knowledge. Measures by increasing the audience.
Source: World Urban Forum

SUPPORT FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR SOCIAL HOUSING AND LAND REGULARIZATION

Since 2015, the CAU/BR has been one of the main articulators and promoters of affordable housing in Brazil, through the promotion of Technical Assistance in Social Housing (ATHIS), as a professional practice and State Policy. From the dissemination of the Federal Law No. 11.888/2008 (ATHIS law) among the population and the public sector, CAU/BR have financed and disseminated successful experiences throughout the country. Starting in 2021, with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and environmental disasters in cities and, especially, in vulnerable territories, CAU begins a unified campaign for a new proposal for professional valorization focused on the ATHIS. It is also CAU Brazil's role to promote an articulation among the federation units in favor of more resilient, inclusive, healthy, and safe cities, always encouraging actions that favor the development of public policies aimed at the survival and health of Brazilian cities. Thus, the purpose of the ATHIS Funding is to select at least one project in each region of the country and offer financial support for its development. The selected projects must be relevant to the promotion of social justice in the context of socio-economically vulnerable families, in issues related to Social Housing and the promotion of the adequate social housing as an institutional policy of CAU; and must prove their impact on the prevention and mitigation of climate risks and the recovery of areas degraded by environmental disasters through adequate social housing and land regularization in places of social vulnerability that have been affected between 2018 and 2022. The immediate results are on two fronts. The first, in the valorization, implementation, and dissemination of projects that share CAU Brazil's institutional vision in favor of an agenda that aims to build more resilient, inclusive, healthy, and safe cities. The second front is the direct impact on the communities served, since they are at risk and, with the technical support, can glimpse decent conditions for their future. With these actions, we aim to impact the public authorities regarding the urgency of taking effective measures to mitigate climate risks, especially for vulnerable populations. Measurements occur on a continuous basis, since the financing call foresees the project being monitored in a systematic way. The tools used to validate the activities in execution are the work plan and the rendering of accounts. Both are monitored by CAU Brazil's technical staff.
Source: World Urban Forum

Genezaret Hernandez

This project is concerned with what happens to people with ideas, eco-social entrepreneurs, small businesses. These are affected because Under the Emprendecos program "ecological social entrepreneurs" where the target population is focused on ages between 16 to 70 years, with innovative ideas, growing entrepreneurship. This problem has its origin in the lack of organs, businesses that meet the demand for services and/or products of the community with easy access, these ventures are focused on the rental area of ​​communities of each parish of the Angostura del Orinoco municipality, replicable and scalable. This problem originates from We get involved in this problem due to the lack of products, services distributed in different residential areas of parishes, as well as the disappearance of large markets and shopping centers. Strategically located services. By virtue of the foregoing and in order to serve all attendees at and after the event through the coaching programs, consult and meet the objectives set, financing, contributions, or subsidies are required, otherwise they would not advance. Permanent campaign and events that will take place quarterly, will not be there, since it will have 2nd. Post-event stage in order to evaluate, adapt and measure indicators, which show partiality, through Angostura Si Emprende, Consulting Solutions and Allies (University-UNIAGSFM, Sustainable Projects-Votto). We can transform the current weakness in the entrepreneurial ecosystem into an opportunity, that manages to sensitize and raise awareness, be multiplier monitors of the Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystem that can be replicated in areas of Ciudad Bolívar, and in other cities of the country, being able to be a novel and replicable model, incorporating the digital transformation and aspects of the orange economy; all aligned to sustainable development goals number 4, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 17
Source: World Urban Forum

Ensure Every Community Has an Equitable Music Strategy to Promote Sustainable Development

We published the Guide to Music and the SDGs this year and will, in 2024, publish a Global Music Policy Handbook and website, launching a framework that allows any community in the world, large and small, to develop, engage with, measure and implement a local music development strategy, encompassing education, health and wellbeing, sustainability, economic growth, tourism and integration. Music can be a powerful tool to better understand how to create sustainable places, but there is no baseline or framework to understand what to do, how to do it and how to measure the impact across all disciplines and sectors. If we include music, in all its forms and functions, in how we think about urban development, we can create better places. We need a guide to do so. We have published the link to the SDGs and now will expand that to the entire new urban agenda.
Source: World Urban Forum

Penang Bay: A potential SDG City Zone and Economic Zone

Penang Bay is an ambitious programme to rehabilitate, regenerate and rejuvenate the waterbased assets of George Town and Butterworth into a seamless and dynamic space aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is in a highly dense, urbanised and multicultural part of the state of Penang and a decade of analysis concludes that the future of Penang rides on a new spatial economy, based on the rehabilitation of its natural core, waterfronts and most connected areas. It also needs to build capacities in its economy and urban form to absorb future shocks. Penang Bay will be a New Economic Zone and the following SDGs have been identified as key to its success. Goal 3 Good health and well-being, Goal 4 Quality education, Goal 7 Affordable and clean energy, Goal 8 Decent work and economic growth, Goal 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure, Goal 10 Reduced inequalities, Goal 11 Sustainable cities and communities, Goal 12 Responsible consumption and production, Goal 13 Climate action and Goal 14 Life below water. Penang Bay offers us the opportunity to invest in the built environment to improve resilience and create a future-proofed city. It also presents prospects in building on a green lifestyle, using nature to adapt to the effects of climate change, and to make new strides towards sustainable living. Furthermore, it aligns with the strategic blueprint of the state, Penang2030, and its vision of ‘A Family-Focused Green and Smart State that Inspires the Nation’. Key areas in the economic realm to support this New Economic Zone is the push for industries of the future that leverage on Penang’s unique qualities and enhancing the ‘stickiness’ of Penang for talent and capital by enhancing its liveability and investment opportunities. Other areas of focus would be the rich culture in Penang as an enabler to further economic development. Environmentally, Penang Bay aspires to create viable opportunities for environmental rehabilitation, minimising carbon emissions and preparing for the possibilities of climate change. Work has already started through projects that protect the UNESCO World Heritage site of George Town by rebuilding the seawall that helps to stave off the impacts of climate change. Socially, Penang Bay will generate opportunities for equality and the democratisation of space in the face of social transformation associated with technological and demographic shifts. It will also showcase ways in which cities can be planned to deliver the SDGs through the collective actions of government, private sector and civil society. The SDGs will be the basis of measuring the outcomes and impacts of the various programmes that form Penang Bay. These include the George Town World Heritage Site Seafront, Butterworth Harbourfront, Gurney Wharf, Northern Connector, Jelutong Landfill, Rayston Reclamation and the George Town Creative and Digital District.
Source: World Urban Forum

Women Leaders Global Initiative

BlendGroup-BlendLab are very honoured to joint effort with UN-Habitat to promote a co-construction of an initiative to mobilize and enhance women leaders to in a coalition and solidarity, together Women business Leaders and Women Leaders Cities promote the acceleration and achievements of SDG, better social equality and women social and economic inclusion, through SDG Cities Initiative, with no Cities, no Women and No One behind. As presented on WUF11 Networking Event, Women Led Business Supporting Women Led Cities, BlendGroup Will join effort with UN-Habitat and UNCDF, and commit to catalyse the development and implementation of the Women Leaders Global Initiative. And will mobilize Women business and Investors Leaders to promote the initiave, joining effort with the Women Leaders already engaged, that sent their videos, public declaring their support for the initiative: Marina Feffer, Generation Pledge Rachel Gerrol, Nexus Global Luiza Helena Trajano, Magazine Luiza a Marisa César, World Funding and Instituto Mulheres do Brasil Lucia Domville, Grayling USA Starting Convergent Actions on US, Latam and Middle East.
Source: World Urban Forum

Magdalena Garcia

We developed capacity building for women and local governments
Source: World Urban Forum

Por una Colombia más amable, más vivible y más humana para todos sus habitantes.

Principales problemas asociados al medio natural y el espacio público Colombia tiene una extensión de 1.140.000 km2. Las áreas urbanas de las ciudades ocupan una superficie de 369.879 has que equivalen al 0,32% del territorio total colombiano, donde se concentra el 77,1% del total de la población. El área rural ocupa el 99,6% del territorio y es habitado por el 22,9% de la población. Estas características de ocupación global responden a la intensa dinámica de urbanización experimentada por la estructura urbana y las áreas metropolitanas de Colombia que entre las décadas de los años 70 y 80 generó algunos de los rasgos dominantes de la estructura urbana de hoy. La Organización Mundial de la Salud fijó un indicador óptimo entre 10 y 15 mts2 de zonas verdes por habitante, con el fin de que estos mitiguen los impactos generados por la contaminación de las ciudades y cumplan una función de amortiguamiento. Para efectos de garantizar la planeación y gestión del espacio público en los Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial en Colombia y fundamentalmente para monitorear el déficit cuantitativo y cualitativo del mismo en las ciudades, el Artículo 14 del Decreto 1504 de 1998 estableció la categoría de Espacio Público Efectivo, que corresponde al espacio público de carácter permanente, conformado por zonas verdes, parques, plazas y plazoletas. Para efectos de su medición, se estableció un indicador de espacio público por habitante y un índice mínimo de EPE de 15 mts2/habitantes. Colombia cuenta con una dotación promedio de espacio público per cápita inferior a 4 mts2/persona, lo que lo ubica lejos de los estándares internacionales. Este índice marcadamente inferior a los estándares recomendados para las ciudades colombianas, insuficiencia especialmente marcada en espacios verdes que equilibren su alta densidad constructiva y mejoren su microclima. En las 1.347 millones de mts2 de área construida en Colombia estas no presentan las áreas de cesión obligatoria y gratuita establecidas por la Normas Urbanísticas, lo que ha causado un desequilibrio entre la demanda y la oferta de áreas recreacionales, equipamiento comunal e infraestructura, y demás áreas complementarias como son estacionamientos públicos y privados, áreas peatonales que constituyan plazas y demás usos comunales que requiere la población urbana de los municipios. De otra, en Colombia más de 60% de las ciudades son construidas de manera informal, sin planeación ni ordenamiento, lo que ocasiona un desarrollo desordenado que ha afectado a la estructura urbana de las cabeceras municipales, lo que genera, además, un gran déficit de parques y zonas verdes; déficits de vías peatonales, andenes desnivelados, ausencia de accesos fáciles para discapacitados, poca disponibilidad de parqueadero y falta de señalización. Los Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial en Colombia deben apuntalar a un conjunto de normas que eliminen las restricciones y obstáculos que padecen cotidianamente los ciudadanos discapacitados que habitan en las estructuras urbanas de los municipios. Un cuerpo de artículos a favor de la accesibilidad que acerque más a la Cabecera Municipal que sueñan los habitantes: Una Colombia más amable, más vivible y más humana para todos sus habitantes.
Source: World Urban Forum

Ciudades sostenibles

From Sustainable and Resilient Universities we will be addressing actions that facilitate the promotion of sustainable cities, actions linked to creating resilience in the face of the El Niño phenomenon, floods, tsunami threats
Source: World Urban Forum