The inaugural UN-Habitat Assembly held at the United Nations complex in Gigiri closes Friday with the adoption of a sessional report. The event kicked off on Monday.
The plenary will also adopt resolutions made during the five-day event that sought to mobilize commitments for the realization of Sustainable Development Goal 11 on sustainable cities and communities.
Also on the agenda of the final plenary session is the selection of a date and provisional agenda for the second session of the UN-Habitat Assembly set to be held in 2023.
Key highlights of the inaugural assembly include a $152 million commitment by 38 governments including Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria, Gambia, Morocco, Senegal and Malawi towards initiatives aimed at reducing spatial inequality, promoting shared prosperity in cities, strengthening climate action, and urban crisis prevention.
UN-Habitat on Wednesday unveiled a 2020-2025 Strategic Plan valued at $1.9 billion while rallying support for the New Urban Agenda, a blueprint born out of the 2016 Quito Declaration which aims at mitigating a projected rapid growth of informal settlements in urban areas where estimates show two thirds of the world’s populations will have migrated to by 2050.
On Thursday, the UN-Habitat Assembly elected an Executive Board and subsequently picked Lori Dando from the United States as its chairperson.
Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Morocco, Malawi, and Angola were among thirty-six member states elected to the board by acclamation.
