Habitat III Conference

On the eve of the historic UN Habitat III summit, our event, Towards a More Equal City: Mobilizing for Post-Quito Implementation, brought urban leaders and experts to focus on the opportunities and challenges of moving the New Urban Agenda (NUA) towards action on the ground.

The event began with a presentation of the WRR and was followed by an opening panel of urban though leaders, civil servants and practitioners. Specifically, the panel focused on how to transcend isolated sectoral solutions within cities and promote an integrated multi sectoral approach to achieving more equal cities. The panel featured: Michael Berkowitz, President, 100 Resilient Cities; Xavier de Souza Briggs, Vice President for Economic Opportunity and Markets, Ford Foundation; Rubbina Karruna, Research Adviser, Department for International Development (DFID); Marcio Lacerda, Mayor, Belo Horizonte. Following our opening panel, there were three thematic panel sessions. Each panel session featured a presentation by WRR lead authors on housing, energy and transportation/mobility. Panelists represented our target geographic regions, Latin America, Asia and Africa and included leadership at the multilateral, nonprofit, private, public and informal sector levels.

The panels featured the following speakers:

HOUSING: Don Chen, Director, Equitable Development Team, Ford Foundation; William (Billy) Cobbett, Director, Cities Alliance; Eifania Espinola Garcia, Home Based Worker Leader, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO); Ellen Hamilton, ‎Lead Urban Specialist, World Bank; Rose Molokoane, Deputy President of Shack / Slum Dwellers International (SDI); André Veneman, Corporate Director for Sustainability & HSE, AkzoNobe

ENERGY: Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Arab Hoballah, Chief of Sustainable Lifestyles, Cities & Industry, Division of Technology, Industry & Economics (DTIE) (UNEP); Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior Director, Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice, World Bank Group.

TRANSPORTATION: Clarisse Cunha Linke, Country Director-Brazil, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy-Brasil (ITDP); Juan Carlos Muñoz, Director of Bus Rapid Transit Center of Excellence, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Patrick Oliva, Senior Vice President in charge of External Relations – Sustainable Mobility and Energy Transition, Michelin; Tania Roediger-Vorwerk, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany.

Our closing panel included government officials from the global south, global north and aid organization representatives. Panelists shared plans for action that their countries and organizations are planning to take in order to make the New Urban Agenda a reality. Our closing panel featured: Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India; Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility; Aw Tuan Kee, Director at the Centre for Livable Cities –Government of Singapore; Gautier Mignot, Deputy Director General, Foreign Affairs, Government of France; Kees Rade, Directorate for Climate, Water, Food Security, Energy, Natural Resources and Polar Policy at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Cities For All