Curtain raiser

The 2016 World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders, themed ‘Local Voices for a Better World,’ opens on Wednesday, 12 October 2016, in Bogotá, Colombia, and will continue through Saturday, 15 October. The World Summit, organized by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), is the largest global gathering of mayors, councilors, representatives of local governments, and other interested policymakers and practitioners. The World Summit is being held back-to-back with the Third UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), which will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from 17-20 October 2016.

During the 2016 World Summit, the UCLG-coordinated Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments (GTF) will convene the second session of the Second World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments. The Second World Assembly is the mechanism through which the local and regional government constituency provides formal input to the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III. The New Urban Agenda is intended to guide urban development policy across the world in coming decades.

The 5th UCLG World Congress will also take place during the World Summit, electing a new UCLG Presidency for the 2016-2019 period and discussing the organization’s new Strategic Priorities.

In addition to the Second World Assembly and 5th World Congress, UCLG has organized plenaries, policy dialogues, workshops, two permanent working platforms, community forums, learning forums and other interactive sessions for attendees to take part in. These activities are intended to foster in-depth knowledge of the necessary structural changes that can give way to a different approach to development. Such changes include innovative financing mechanisms, new patterns of production and consumption, and more inclusive forms of governance.

Four major deliverables are expected from the 2016 World Summit. The Global Agenda of Local and Regional Governments for the 21st Century will reflect the discussions held in the Summit’s plenaries and policy dialogues, highlighting local and regional authorities’ priorities that are not currently included in global development negotiations surrounding Habitat III and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Accompanying the Global Agenda will be the launch of the 4th Global Report on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD IV), providing analysis, innovative examples and case studies from around the globe to support the recommendations of the Global Agenda.

Another major output will be the Bogotá Statements, which will capture the major challenges that local and regional governments have identified during the Summit.

The fourth and final expected outcome is the Key Recommendations of Local and Regional Governments to Habitat III. The proposals in this document will be developed at the Second World Assembly, and the local and regional government constituency will take them from Bogotá to Quito as the basis for its main inputs to the Habitat III conference.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF UCLG, HABITAT AND RELATED PROCESSES

With six out of every ten people in the world expected to reside in urban areas by 2030, UN-Habitat notes that cities face unprecedented demographic, environmental, economic, social and spatial challenges. According to UN-Habitat, more than 90% of this growth will take place in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Hence, urban areas are central to sustainable development efforts. Habitat III builds on the work from Habitat I and Habitat II, as well as on recently agreed global frameworks, including: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) 2015-2030; the Paris Agreement on climate change; and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3).

UCLG was founded in 2004 to ensure subnational and regional governments and other local authorities have a voice in the international processes that are defining the sustainable development agenda and addressing other areas of interest at the local level. Since its creation, UCLG has been convening city and local government representatives around the common issues affecting subnational jurisdictions and defending the interests of local governments on the world stage.

HABITAT I: The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) took place in Vancouver, Canada, from 31 May - 11 June 1976. The Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements adopted by the Conference officially established the UN Centre for Human Settlements as the major UN agency mandated by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.

FIRST WORLD ASSEMBLY OF CITIES AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES: The First World Assembly of Cities and Local Authorities met in Istanbul, Turkey, from 30-31 May 1996, ahead of Habitat II. The final declaration on Habitat II issued by the World Assembly represented the constituency’s official contribution to the Conference.

HABITAT II: Habitat II convened in Istanbul, Turkey, from 3-14 June 1996, on the 20th anniversary of Habitat I. The Habitat Agenda and the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements adopted by the Conference outline over 100 commitments and strategies to address shelter and sustainable human settlements. With the adoption of the Habitat Agenda, the international community set the twin goals of achieving adequate shelter for all and ensuring sustainable human settlements development. The Istanbul Declaration recognizes local authorities as the “closest partners” of UN-Habitat and “essential” in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. Article 102 of the Habitat Agenda acknowledges that municipal governments “can be an effective partner in making human settlements viable, equitable and sustainable,” given that their level of administration is “closest to the people.”

UCLG FOUNDING CONGRESS: In May 2004, mayors, councilors and elected city, local and regional representatives gathered in Paris, France, to establish UCLG. The Founding Congress Final Declaration addresses sustainable development and globalization, decentralization and local democracy, cooperation and diplomacy, and world health.

2ND UCLG WORLD CONGRESS: At UCLG’s 2nd World Congress, held October 2007 in Jeju, Republic of Korea, the organization and other stakeholders discussed the consequences of urbanization, cooperation with regions and challenges of tomorrow’s city. The final declaration lays out commitments on global warming and environmental protection, human rights, peace and development, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition, UCLG’s Policy Paper on Local Finance was approved.

1ST WORLD SUMMIT OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL LEADERS and 3RD UCLG WORLD CONGRESS: In November 2010 in Mexico City, Mexico, the first World Summit convened in conjunction with UCLG’s Congress, adopting a document titled, ‘The City of 2030 – Our Manifesto.’ The Manifesto lays out the common goals of local leaders and their determination to make the urban world a better place.

2ND WORLD SUMMIT OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL LEADERS and 4TH UCLG WORLD CONGRESS: Held 1-4 October 2013 in Rabat, Morocco, the 2nd World Summit celebrated the centenary of the international municipal movement and allowed participants to debate and exchange views on the most vital issues for subnational authorities and partners in the 21st century. The Summit’s outcome document, the Rabat Declaration, recognizes the need to address change, innovation and the issue of just societies by reinforcing bottom-up governance under the leadership of inclusive local and regional governments.

GTF: Set up in 2013 as an initiative of UCLG President and Mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbaş, the GTF is a mechanism for coordinating advocacy efforts of the major international networks of local governments in international climate change and sustainable and urban development policy processes. The GTF has organized the Second World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments as a three-part process to provide formal input to Habitat III.

FfD3: Taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 13-16 July 2015, FfD3 adopted the AAAA, which includes a global framework for financing development post-2015, along with specifications of action areas, data, monitoring and follow-up. The AAAA includes a focus on cities and commits to support resilient and environmentally-sound infrastructure in developing countries.

UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT: The UN Sustainable Development Summit took place at UN Headquarters in New York, US, from 25-27 September 2015. The Summit adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 SDGs and 169 associated targets. SDG 11 addresses urban areas, aiming to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” It includes seven related targets addressing, inter alia, housing, transport, urbanization and waste management, as well as three targets on means of implementation.

PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: The UN Climate Change Conference convened in Paris, France, in November - December 2015 and culminated in the Paris Agreement. The Agreement sets the goals of: keeping global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels; and enhancing global adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change. The Paris Agreement will enter into force on 4 November 2016. In the lead-up to Paris, local and regional governments showcased the way in which they are leading, from the bottom-up, to address climate change by increasing pre-2020 ambition.

2ND WORLD ASSEMBLY OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS: The first session of the Second World Assembly was held in New York, US, on 15 May 2016, immediately prior to the Habitat III Informal Hearings with Local Authorities Associations, during which representatives of local and regional governments exchanged views with member States and observers on the zero draft of the Habitat III outcome document. Following the second session being held in Bogotá on 14 October, the third and final session will be held in Quito, Ecuador, on 16 October 2016, immediately prior to Habitat III.