The New Urban Agenda Draft Outcome Document for Adoption in Quito Released

As the Conference of the United Nations on Housing and Urban Development-Habitat III approaches, the final draft of the New Urban Agenda have been released and agreed upon at the Habitat III Informal Intergovernmental Meeting, which took place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 7 to 10 September 2016.

The New Urban Agenda that will be adopted next October during the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, is “an action-oriented document which will set global standards of achievement in the sustainable urban development, rethinking the way we build, manage, and live in cities”. It will bring together all involved partners and relevant stakeholders in order to face the challenge of a rapidly urbanizing world.

The final draft of the New Urban Agenda mentions the terms “local governments” 35 times. According to the Global Taskforce, this “provides many reasons for the local and regional government networks of the Global Taskforce to celebrate, and is a testament to the advocacy work of our constituency over the past two years”.

This proves the relevance and the active role the local and regional governments have been playing in the process of defining the New Urban Agenda. Their perseverance and resolution gained them recognition on the global stage. They are also essential to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda on the local level.

For more information on the journey of local and regional governments towards Habitat III, click here.

The New Urban Agenda draft outcome document for adoption in Quito, October 2016, is available here.