The United Nations and the international community are working on defining a new agenda which will follow the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 and implement the Rio+20 outcomes, under the so-called “Post-2015” agenda. The Global Taskforce of local and regional governments towards Post-2015 and Habitat III is involved in this process in order to ensure that the new development goals can take into account local and regional priorities and, particularly, the challenges of rapid urbanization faced by local governments in many regions of the world.
In this light the Global Taskforce, of which the CIB Working Group is a member, decided to support the initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s titled “Why the world needs an urban sustainable development goal”, a proposal which has been developed with the active participation of UCLG, ICLEI, UN Habitat and Cities Alliance.
The Global Taskforce is now launching an awareness raising campaign to gather supports from local and regional authorities and their partners that will be presented to the United Nations on 13 December 2013 and January 2014 during two key moments for the definition of the new goals.
We call members to join in by sending us the attached form. By joining in you will be indicating the interest of your city or organization in the new development agenda and calling for the concerns of local authorities to be addressed. Please note that an urban goal will not only be aimed at cities but would entail a territorial approach, including regional and rural-urban linkages.
The aims of a stand-alone urban goal would be to:
· Educate and focus attention on urgent urban challenges and opportunities to reduce growing inequalities in urban areas, protect the environment and ensure resilience;
· Mobilize and empower all urban actors around practical problem solving, enhancing the participation of urban stakeholders;
· Develop strong and accountable institutions;
· Ensure local economic development;
· Promote integrated and innovative infrastructure design and service delivery to address the specific challenges of urban poverty and access to infrastructure, particularly for slum dwellers;
· Promote urban and land use planning for more efficient spatial management and innovative infrastructure design and service delivery;
· Ensure resilience to climate change and disaster risk reduction;
· Acknowledge culture as driver and enabler of development;
· Promote local government development cooperation as instrument to promote solidarity and peer learning
To support this initiative, please complete and sign the following form and send it back before the 30 November to: post-2015@uclg.org.
Please click on the links below to access the following documents:
Why the World Needs an Urban Sustainable Goal
Form to be completed and signed to support a Stand-Alone Goal on Sustainable Urbanization