[2022] Training Event at the Eleventh World Urban Forum (WUF11)

Description

The World Urban Forum was established in 2001 by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies. The first WUF was held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2002 and has been held around the world ever since. Representatives of national, regional and local governments, academics, business people, community leaders, urban planners and civil society representatives will be among the thousands of people are expected to attend WUF11 which is co-organized by Poland’s Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy, the Municipal Office of Katowice.

For cities to contribute more effectively to the global sustainable recovery from the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate the achievement of the international sustainable goals and agreements, cities must be able to fuel their own sustainable recovery and development. To do so, efforts should be forward-looking, and address the pre-existing and new weaknesses and issues that were revealed or prompted by the pandemic, in order to building back— and/or forward— better and foster a healthy, green, inclusive, resilient, innovative low-carbon recovery and development. This will also require rethinking our cities, their density, the way we plan, manage and even finance them, make them more inclusive, and improve access to adequate and affordable housing, water and sanitation, urban mobility, and other public services, to name a few. We also need to reconsider how we design our urban infrastructure, buildings, and public spaces to reduce their environmental impact, adapt them to climate change and make them more resilient to natural disasters and more supportive of sustainable lifestyles.

It is in this vein that the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) is proposing to hold the training event, titled “Enhancing the capacity of local and regional governments for delivering the SDGs through a Whole-of Government approach, smart cities, enhanced infrastructure asset management and resilience, monitoring & evaluation and innovative finance and partnerships” at the 11th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11), which, this year is under the theme “Transforming our Cities for a Better Urban Future”.

Objectives

This training event follows and builds upon previous meetings and capacity building activities that the UNOSD has organized in support of the localization of the SDGs over the years. These include the International Mayors’ Forum, held in Vientiane (Lao PDR) in 2017, in Lilongwe (Malawi) in 2018, and particularly the past two editions (held online in 2021 and 2022), which were exploring strategies, measures and tools with the goal of enhancing local governments’ knowledge and skills around essential topics to build back and forward better and greener from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and accelerating progress for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other related international agreements, including the New Urban Agenda.

Official Documents and Programme

Concept Note and Agenda (updated as of 25 June 2022)

Speakers' Biographies (updated as of 25 June 2022)
 

Introduction: Mr. Jean D'Aragon, Senior Sustainable Development Expert, UNOSD

• Good Governance to Accelerate SDG Implementation at National and Subnational Levels
  • Lichia Saner-Yiu, Professor, Organisation Development & Institutional Learning, President of the Centre for Socio-Eco-Nomic Development (CSEND)
• Introduction to the Whole-of-Government Approach
  • Mr. Bokyun Shim, Head of UN Project Office on Governance, DPIDG/UN DESA
• Effective National to Local Public Governance for SDG Implementation
  • Mr. Prabin Maharjan, Programme Management Expert, UN Project Office on Governance, DPIDG/UN DESA
• Local and Regional implementation of SDGs: An introduction to Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs)
  • Mr. Jean D'Aragon, Senior Sustainable Development Expert, UNOSD
• Smart cities supporting an inclusive, sustainable and resilient society
  • Mr. Kazushige Endo, Director, United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD)
• SDG monitoring and evaluation tools to accelerate actions at local level - Local experiences of conducting a VLR and building a smart cities
  • Ms. Nana Urakami, Researcher, UNCRD
  • Honorable Mr. Toshihiko Ota, Mayor of the City of Toyota (short video)
  • Mr. Takehiro Kuribayashi, Chief Representative of the City of Yokohama Europe Representative Office
  • Mr. Wu Guosheng, Director of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province (short video)
• Impact Investment in Cities – Innovative Finance for SDGs Implementation at Local Level
  • Mr. Raymond Saner, Professor, Organisation and International Management, Basle University
• Enhancing infrastructure asset management at national and local government levels for improved service delivery and sustainable development
  • Mr. Gustavo Goy Garcia, Infrastructure and Project Management Specialist, The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)

Closing: Mr. Jean D'Aragon, Senior Sustainable Development Expert, UNOSD

Format, Date & Time

The training event is scheduled to take place in an in-person format only on 30 June 2022, between 9:00 AM to 11:45 AM – Central European Summer Time (CEST: UTC+2h) at International Congress Centre, Multifunction Hall, Room 7.

Participation in the training event is free and registration can be done at the entrance of the Venue, before and during the event.

Organizers

The United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA)

Contact Information

For any questions or comments please contact Mr. Jean D’Aragon, Senior Sustainable Development Expert, UNOSD at daragon@un.org; and Mr. JinHyun Lee, Team Assistant, UNOSD at jinhyun.lee@un.org.