The Global Taskforce gave feedback on the revised Zero Draft on behalf of local and regional governments at the Informal Intergovernmental Sessions on the New Urban Agenda in New York on 29 June.
Local and regional governments welcomed the revised draft as a positive basis from which to refine the New Urban Agenda and its implementation mechanisms, but called on Member States to go further to face the new reality of an urbanizing world and to achieve the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda.
In its statement to the Session, the Global Taskforce welcomed the recognition of the role of local and regional governments in sustainable urban development, suggesting that this could be done best by building on existing initiatives, particularly the Global Assembly of Partners and the World Assembly of Local and Regional governments. It also recalled the commitment of local and regional governments to a strategic partnership with civil society.
On the global governance architecture for the implementation and follow up of the New Urban Agenda, the Global Taskforce celebrated the revised draft’s call for ‘special status for local governments that will allow them to play a full role as active partners of national governments’.
The Global Taskforce also celebrated the introduction of a reference to sub-national capacity building in the areas of data collection, analysis and dissemination, and the need for globally-comparable as well as locally-generated disaggregated data. This was one of the key recommendations of the Global Dialogue on Localizing the Post-2015 Agenda, co-led by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, UNDP and UN Habitat.
The statement also warmly welcomed the references to local government associations in the draft, particularly the acknowledgement of their role in “knowledge sharing, promoting peer-to-peer exchange, and strengthening the involvement of local governments associations in national consultations on development priorities”.
In its contribution, the Global Taskforce reiterated its call for a renewed social contract, best captured in the notion of the Right to the City. It also called for an end to ‘business as usual’ in the financing of urban infrastructure to deal with the new urban reality.
Finally, local and regional governments called on Member States to address the renewal of governance at local, national and international level, saying that “missing this opportunity to involve all actors and spheres of government would be missing to have a truly transformative agenda that can support the development agenda in general.” It suggested Member States consider giving a specific seat and active participation to local governments in the governing council of UN Habitat, given their role in implementing the New Urban Agenda.
Statement of local and regional governments at the Informal Intergovernmental Sessions
