The 13th World Urban Forum opened on Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, under the theme “Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.” The event brings together governments, cities, civil society, the private sector, youth and other stakeholders aiming to respond to the global housing crisis. It runs until this Friday, May 22nd.
The key messages of this year’s forum are that housing is a human right and that all must get access to it, that failing to transform slums into permanent housing is not an option given the climate crisis, that action is needed now to address the housing crisis, and that housing is the foundation of sustainable development.
There will be hundreds of events across the six days, including assemblies and dialogues to set the stage for urban policies, and special sessions on subjects possibly overlooked in the main program. There will also be an Urban Expo, which is an exhibition space for participants to showcase innovative solutions and ideas for sustainability.
Speaking in an interview with UN Video, Anacláudia Rossbach, the head of UN-Habitat, stated:
The World Urban Forum is our biggest platform to bring together stakeholders. We hope to see a strong and diverse community gathered in Baku and to emerge from WUF13 with a stronger global coalition to address the housing crisis. We cannot solve the global housing crisis alone. We need governments, local authorities, civil society, academia, communities and the private sector to work together.
According to UN-Habitat, the UN’s development agency, which is hosting the forum, an estimated 2.8 billion people, 40 percent of the world population, are inadequately housed. Over 1.1 billion live in informal settlements or slums, and more than 300 million are homeless. The world is projected to continue to urbanize, with 70 percent of the world’s population projected to live in cities by 2050. As more people move to cities, the housing crisis is likely to expand.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the New Urban Agenda. The UN General Assembly will conduct a midterm review on July 16th to determine how the world has progressed in creating more affordable and sustainable cities. Signed in 2016, the agenda aimed to assist in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the 2016 Paris Agreement, and other international sustainable development frameworks. Discussions held this week in Baku are expected to determine how far the world has progressed towards making cities more sustainable, affordable, and safe.
The World Urban Forum is organized by UN-Habitat every two years. The first session took place in Nairobi, Kenya in 2002 and has since taken place in cities around the globe. 40,000 participants are expected to attend this year’s conference in Baku from 182 countries. It is planned to include speakers like Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Jeffery Sachs, the President of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Professor at Columbia University, and Jonathan Reckford, the Chief Executive Officer of Habitat for Humanity International.
