Roundtables - One UN Roundtable (WUF13)

Good afternoon, colleagues, Excellencies.
Welcome to the one UN roundtable with a theme on one UN for adequate housing and resilient communities.
We are extremely pleased to have all of you taking part in this very important discussion.
Delivering SDGs through housing and urban solutions is extremely important as we face very turbulent world today.
Housing isn't a standalone sector, but a strategic entry point for addressing interconnected challenges across climate resilience, mobility, employment, social protection, and service delivery.
The objective of this session is to identify integrated practical solutions and financing pathways to enable solutions that we identify collectively.
With that, we have a number of key speakers today, and we are extremely pleased to introduce the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbijan, Mr.
Yatin Raff, who is the UN's very good friend and colleague, because he was the Cp lead negotiator for Cp 29.
So once again, he is here to make introductory remarks.
We welcome him and thank you once again very much for your participation.
With that, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Madam Moderator, dear colleagues, dear friends from different UN institutions.
As always, it's a pleasure to be surrounded by good friends from UN institutions, which, as Madam Moderator already mentioned, we have enjoyed a lot during our Cop 29 journey by having a global task force established by UN Secretary-General.
We have managed to build an exemplary partnership between the government of Azerbijan and UN on undertaking a very important duty for the globe.
And now we are here at the World Urban Forum 13 again taking place in Azerbijan and I think that could be yet another important platform for us to act together and very warm welcome to Azerbijan to all of you.
Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, friends.
Azerbijan has declared 2026 as the Year of Urban Planning and architecture, and this is known as ceremonial gesture.
It reflects a deeply held national conviction that the built environment and the homes in which people live profoundly shaped the quality of every other dimension of life, meaning health, education, safety, and opportunity.
We are proud to host Urban Forum 13 precisely because we regard this forum as an opportunity to translate that conviction into global momentum.
This forum, convened at the midpoint of the new urban agenda is precisely the moment and the place for this conversation.
Baku is not merely a host city.
It is a country committed to the proposition that urban development, housing, and human dignity are inseparable.
Dear colleagues, we meet at critical juncture.
The sustainable development goals have less than five years to run, and the global housing crisis has not waited for us.
We are witnessing an unprecedented pace of urbanization worldwide.
However, this trend is not always positive as many countries face significant challenges in managing rapid urban growth.
In this context, the statistics demand our immediate attention.
In 2025, the cities were home to approximately 50 to 55% of the world's 8.2 billion people compared just to 20 to 25% in the 1950s.
By 2050, this share is projected to rise to around 68%.
Such rapid urbanization brings considerable challenges that require urgent attention.
Otherwise, further adverse consequences will be unavoidable.
Moreover, today, cities are considered to be the biggest source of emission by 70% of the global Co two emissions.
Therefore, housing and urban systems are not a standalone sector.
They are interstincly linked with others.
They act as a cross cutting drivers of development and are essential to human well being and the sustainable functioning of the global environment.
Without safe and affordable housing and without addressing related challenges, we cannot achieve our goals in health, education, economic growth, or climate resilience.
Without shelter, there is no health, no education, no economic security, no climate resilience.
When we invest in housing, we unlock progress across the entire 2030 agenda.
The question before Roundtable is not whether housing matters.
It is whether we are willing to act with the urgency it demands.
Distinguished colleagues, no single government agency or actor can resolve the housing crisis alone.
The scale, complexity, and cross sectional nature of this challenge make coordinated multilateral action not a luxury, but a prerequisite for any meaningful progress.
Yet too often the UN system still operates in parallel rather than together.
Mandates compete, resources are soiled, and the benefits of system wide coherence are lost.
Reform of the UN development system created the architecture for one UN delivery.
This roundtable is a test of whether we are using it.
UN system wide coordination is critical to support action on adequate housing.
Multi stakeholder partnerships are key to advancing progress in achieving adequate housing.
Given the scale and complexity of the global housing crisis, global stakeholders must collaborate effectively.
No single actor can alone deliver change at the speed and scale required.
The UN system plays a fundamental role in advancing these objectives through supporting and aligning the efforts of member states and stakeholders.
As a host of Wolf 13, Azerbijan understands this acutely.
Allow me to briefly share Azerbijan's own experience, not as a model, but as evidence that integrated government led coordination backed by a coherent UN partnership can produce results.
Following the restoration of our territorial integrity, Azerbijan is engaged in one of the most ambitious reconstruction and recovery programs in its liberated territories.
Cities, towns and villages are rebuilt from scratch in this lands according to principles of smart urbanism, climate resilience and inclusive design.
Housing is provided free of charge by the state, demonstrating the role of public leadership in post conflict recovery and long term stability.
Excellence is adequate housing is not one SDG among 17.
It is a condition that makes all others possible.
We recognize the vital importance of localizing the SDGs, not just as a matter of implementation, but as a necessity, urgency, and equity.
In Azerbijan, the SDGs are fully integrated into the national framework of Azerbijan 2013 national priorities, reflecting commitments to strong social policy, environmental sustainability, economic growth, and good governance.
Urban planning plays a foundational role in translating these global commitments into concrete local action.
Accelerating finance for urban climate action requires practical solutions from green bonds and climate funds to public private partnerships and innovative local financing mechanisms.
It also depends on empowering local governments to access and implement these resources effectively.
In conclusion, dear colleagues, I want to underline that stronger multilateral cooperation, coordinated action across the UN system, and effective partnership at all levels are necessary to advance the SDGs through sustainable housing and urban development.
As a host of Wu 13, Azerbijan remains committed to supporting inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban development.
Let us use this forum to strengthen cooperation and accelerate practical action for better cities and for better lives for all.
I thank you.
Thank you, deputy foreign minister for your very warm and kind words and also a bit of a wake up call for the UN to be more coherent and coordinated.
I think we heard loud and clear and we will also take this opportunity for us to reflect more deeply as we discuss UN AD initiatives.
Thank you so much for hosting this World Urban Forum in such a beautiful place.
It rained on Sunday, but it's actually beautiful sunny day today.
With that, I think what we will do in the interest of time management, we'll go straight into the first panel, and when the Executive Director of UN Habitat comes, we will then give her the floor and we will, if you don't mind pause and give her the floor so that she has a chance to share her remarks.
The structure of this meeting is that we have two panels.
The first panel will focus more on identifying solutions, and then the second panel is actually on localization.
Given the number of speakers for each panel, we will ask you to speak in a very succinct manner, not exceeding 3 minutes so that we also have a chance for us to open the floor and take some interventions from the floor.
With that, we are going to open the first panel and I'm going to ask some of the key question to each panelist, and we will try to close in time for us to also have panelists to share their reflections.
With that, we will start with the um Our very first panelist, miss Elizabeth Mara Rema, Deputy Executive Director of UNEP.
Here is a question.
From an environmental perspective, what are the key systemic barriers preventing housing policies from being implemented at scale? And how can the UN better integrate climate considerations into housing delivery.
Over to you.
Thank you very much.
Permit me first to thank the Deputy Minister for joining us, but more for welcoming us in your beautiful city and NP will be here next month for the World Environment Day.
Again, Million, thanks for hosting at global level, the World Environment Day this year.
Many thanks being here.
On this specific question, We cannot separate housing from climate resilience.
Statistics is very clear in terms of the impact of housing on climate, particularly when we know that 34% of buildings account to 34% of the global carbon dioxide emission.
And not only that, we also know that climate risks could affect over 167 million people by 2040.
So the two cannot be separated, and therefore, when we talk of buildings, we need to complete the entire value chain and ensure that the buildings are environmentally sustainable for the future.
Of course, in the continent where we are in Africa, where building, I mean, these other parts of the world Energy efficiency is key in buildings, particularly when it comes to air conditioning, cooling, heating, and what source of energy is used.
In other continents like Africa is less, but then this is where issues of pollution then become key, the cement being used, the air pollution in particular from building materials as opposed to other resources used for building in other parts of the world.
But then the bottom line is the health of those who will benefit from the building construction.
How do we deal with policies, regulations, I think what is key is for many countries, building codes exist.
Regulations exist.
What is inadequate is the implementation and follow up to ensure that the construction really follow those building codes.
Therefore, this is where a For us in UNP, a non resident agency looking at our UN country teams, under the leadership of the resident coordinators, majority of them are in this room to support us in ensuring the implementation and enforcement of those building codes and where they do not exist, then to support in their development.
But also key is support public awareness.
Of the nature of the buildings were moving in.
Those where we are with us at the headquarters in Nairobi, many buildings, construction is a booming economy at the moment.
Of course, that's where their jobs, increase the economy.
But then the question is whether the population itself, which is the vulnerable population requiring those buildings, is aware of the impact of the materials used on those buildings to their health.
Again, we look upon the UN at country level to support also with creating that awareness.
In terms of collaboration in UNEP, we have what we call the global alliance on building and construction, as well as cool Coalition, which is a global platforms and delighted working closely with UN Habitat, UN UN OPS, UNF TrileC as well as UDO in terms of both financing buildings, but more so the tools for the new buildings and also ensuring that through technical assistance, we support stronger policies, those building called sustainable materials pipelines of bankable housing projects.
And of course, not present in the countries.
We also look forward to work closely with our DA resident coordinators in the countries.
We also have what we call Local 2030 coalition, which brings together 14 UN agencies, and this is basically looking at innovative high impact solutions to building.
There are many avenues we are collaborating.
I'm sure we can do more.
Because we know and let us be frank among ourselves at times we are not well coordinated and I think the ongoing UN aid initiative will even force us to be even more closer to each other as UN entity as far as providing support to the member states, to their countries and here we are is an entry point.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
I think that you have highlighted the importance of climate resilience into housing issue.
And as a part of your key asks to our resident coordinators to promote policies on climate resilient building codes and public awareness on these issues.
Of course, we are extremely committed to all of us system to continue to advocate these issues as it is fully integrated into our cooperation framework as well as common country analysis.
With that, thank you very much and I'm going to move to Mr.
Zimin Wu, Assistant Director General of FAO.
The question is, can you please give us an example of how housing solutions can better integrate land use, food systems, and rural urban linkages to strengthen local resilience and livelihoods? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mad.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
The housing crisis is affecting people's well being, health, and economic security and is also affecting the affordability of food.
The housing crisis and the food security crisis are deeply interconnected, but very often discussed or addressed separately.
There is a strong need for practical and integrated approaches that connect housing and basic services with food access and affordability.
Many of the pressures on food security, are most visible in urban and para urban areas.
And of the 2.33 billion people facing moderate or severe, say, food insecurity, globally, 1.7 billion live in the cities and their surroundings.
Cities also consume about 70% of the world food.
That's urban agr system are increasingly shaping the national, say, food security, nutrition, market, employment, and also environmental outcomes.
The ongoing SDG 11 review process has underlined that integrated approaches linking housing, food systems, sustainable transport, and even infrastructure, can generate multiple core benefits.
This points to a matter of fact that agri food systems are part of the mainstream urban agenda and need to be made visible in urban planning and development.
What is often missing, however, is strong connection across policies and responses.
I recognize a strong need for integrated and multi level approaches that bring all these dimensions together in ways that are practical and granted.
Talking about UN coordinated solutions to accelerate urban, say housing and SDG 11, the FEO has been working and continuously exploring cooperation with UN agencies including habitat in time is limited, two focal areas.
The first is the FL Green City Initiative.
The objective of which is to improve the well being of people in 1,000 cities by 2030.
So we are working with our partners, including our habitat on actually an Italian funded project in Africa, it's the ten cities of five countries in Africa to establish an urban food market and sustainable value chains through which sustainable produced food and vegetables can be transported and to and sold at this say urban food market.
This is very warmly welcomed by members and partners.
That's the other says focal area is sustainable wood in construction.
We have working with dozens of partners to promote actually sustainable world, the use of wood in construction through initiatives like sustainable wood for sustainable world, grow the solution.
Solution is a tree that grow the tree for sustainable future.
And we have been working in the past two years with UNAC Cop 30 presidency on an initiative called sustainable wood in construction.
There are so many best practices, luxury hotels and office buildings and all affordable wooden house in rural areas.
So we can share these experiences among members and partners.
And yeah, FBO has been working, say, with members and partners to promote the urban agric system transformation and integrated approach to help to ensure that the future of cities is not only better housed, but also better, say nourished Greener and more resilient and inclusive.
That is how local action can translate into national impact and global goals.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Assistant DG FAO for highlighting the importance of integrated approach by looking at food security together with housing security and affordability.
So we are now going to move to our two resident coordinators, and we have a very distinguished resident coordinator from India, staff and prisoner.
And the question is as follows.
What are the key challenges you face in delivering housing outcomes? And how can the resident coordinator system help overcome these challenges? Thank you very much Chair.
Thank you, and Excellence distinguished guests.
First of all, when talking about housing in India, I have to give at least two contextual points.
First of all, the scale of the challenge.
400 million people will move to urban areas in the next 20 years and that in 28 states and eight unit territories, which are vastly different in terms of development.
Secondly, India has hugely ambitious schemes and programs available to tackle the challenge, but the question is whether it's enough.
For example, PMAU has created in the last five years, 12.5 million housing units and has just approved 10 million more.
But challenges exist.
As usual, it's the structural challenges that are the sticky ones.
I would like to suggest four.
Number one, finance.
Municipal revenues are below 1% of GDP.
Financing is better equipped for new construction of housing than settlement upgrading.
Housing therefore often advances without sufficient investment in climate proofing, maintenance, and service connectivity.
Now, a new urban challenge fund tries to address this and it unlocks $50 billion to crowd in private investment for housing.
Second challenge, governance.
No single institution owns the integrated outcome of sustainable cities because of disbursed mandates across different ministries, land, transport, water, energy, environment, social welfare, and so on.
Often urban local bodies lack the capacity to deliver, therefore, on integrated advancement in terms of housing.
Third, datasets cannot identify informal settlers, migrants, or climate exposed communities.
Systems often are not interoperable between different departments, and therefore, national averages mask significant differences in neighborhood level deprivation.
And finally and not least, political economy, land costs, contested tenure, speculative market, of course, distort and organized urban and scalable planning.
So how can the UN play a role in this huge ocean of challenges? I believe that the UN comparative advantage, and this is from my experience of being now the first time resident coordinator is in generating system solutions and supporting with system solutions.
Of course, the cooperation framework is a powerful instrument to articulate this very comparative advantage.
For that, I believe RC leadership is essential because we don't implement.
The only raison d'etre is to bring the UN together to achieve better results.
Within this overall objective of system solutions, there are several roles that we have.
Of course, the UN is neutral convenor of different partners.
Very often the scale of the challenge requires us to move from implementation to working with partners that have much bigger financial firepower than we have.
Secondly, the technical integrators for the system solutions.
We have all I have 25 and I have.
The Rs and co system consists of 25 different UN agencies, so I have a wide range of excellent experts basically that can be brought together for system solutions.
Then as a standard and evidence partner, of course, as a capacity builder, and finally, last but not least, as the conveyor of the voice of the vulnerable.
Now, this spirit has translated into various strategic initiatives.
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I was very happy when I entered the door and I looked at the faces and I said, Okay, I know many more faces than I knew last year when I landed two years ago in Cairo.
When I landed at the UN round table.
I feel much more at home and comfortable right now.
First of all, I really would like to appreciate your availability to come all the way to the beautiful Baku to this forum forum.
I realize it's not an easy task to leave everything behind, but leave no one behind, so don't leave the wolf behind.
In any case, thank you so much for being here.
I was asking Efron about the numbers.
He's going to look at that, but we don't have the exact numbers here, but it is a record presence of the UN at the Weban Forum.
Yeah.
This wuf has been record breaking at many levels, but one level is the UN and I'm very proud of that because me, myself, I worked very hard to make sure that we have strong UN presence here, not only me, but my teams, Efron everybody, all my teams in the different geographies and teams, they have worked to make sure we bring.
At the principals level, we have about 14, I think, if I'm not mistaken, and then Efron is looking here at the United Nations registered here, 1,000, So we have 1053 registered participants from the United Nations system.
A large part is UN Haptat too.
I agree.
But I think this encompasses UN Habitat, right? Yeah.
But it is strong.
It's good because I think the Wolf can be a very interesting innovative platform for us to come together.
It is not an intergovernmental process, as you know, it is a stakeholder engagement mechanism.
And when I reflect about our discussions throughout the UN reform, the UN AD initiative, there is a strong call for us to work in a different way and for us to connect with stakeholders in a different manner.
Wolf offers us this possibility of having different types of conversations that in the traditional intergovernmental conferences, we don't have.
So this is what I think we can make grow in the future.
I also would like to appreciate our ongoing cooperations.
We have been working.
I've been going to missions and I met several of you in my missions.
I'm looking at the faces, and I really appreciate that every time space was open for me to present our strategic plan, our priorities, and I felt strongly supported by the teams everywhere I went personally.
Because I felt that there is a perception that all the challenges that we are facing the urban sector in cities are not conceived as something only for you and Hat to solve.
But I realized the perception is that there is a systemic failure, there is a system issue and we cannot address only as one entity, and we need to work in strong cooperation and collaboration to support countries in addressing the challenges of urbanization, the different challenges that we have in the different geographies.
But there are many challenges, cities on the front line of climate, city on the front line of all crisis, and also on the front line of the global housing crisis, so we need systemic action.
I would like to also to highlight a couple of efforts that we have been doing to connect with the UN system at a global level because I think then it cascades at the country teams.
So I have been working a lot with many, many principles and we have been sitting together and identifying specific areas of cooperation and collaboration that are clear.
So that when it cascades to the ground, then we know how we can come together as a team, then as a part of a team, and so on.
So we signed MOUs, but meaningful MOUs with ITU to work on technologies, for example, with smart cities and so on, which is a big demand that we have all over the world and ITU is here, right? Well, Yeah.
I just met with them.
It was in the other panel, sorry.
I was with them in the panel about technology.
With UN DR, we are working now on disasters.
Of course, UNP, I don't have to say anything right, Elizabeth.
We have been working closely together.
Um, and revamping our partnership on citizen climate.
And just yesterday, our voice said, let's work on the urban climate agenda.
So they're reshaping our new urban agenda and the climate agenda already.
So we are reviewing our collaborations with different entities, agencies.
So it will would I also see the World Bank, Angela, we have been also working at the regional level, the global level to see where we can come together with projects, but more than projects with the systemic change that need the changing policies, and so on.
So, Having said that, I believe the priorities and that we discussed before, what would be the priorities for this roundtable with a fund? I think the priorities, I think it's very simple.
If we can have a simple conversation.
How can we integrate housing into the cooperation framework? I already spoke with many of you on that.
There are many low hanging fruits in many places.
Um, and of course, the localization of the SDGs, and specifically through the local 2030 coalitions.
This has been a front of work that we have been developing together with about 15 UN organizations, but also disruptive in a way and speaks to me also directly to the principles of the reform because it's a different way for us to engage.
It's not only the Local 2030 coalition's not a UN only platform, but I'm seeing the stakeholders are here, present.
I'm grateful for that and I hope you're feeling part of the UN, local government, local regional governments, private sectors, the civil society, and so on.
They're all part of this coalition.
I think that this is a mechanism that strong mechanism that we have at hand to work together.
Of course, finance has been the big question mark, how finance work for us for sustainable development.
Through our different areas, how we can generate more finance that really lands at the local level, also locally generated.
I think this is very well and sharply shaped.
Concluding saying, from our end, the W forum, the local 2030 platform, our teams on the ground are extremely committed to work with you so that we can come closer together at the various scales that are pointed out through the UN reform, the local, the global, the regional scale.
Thank you very much.
Executive Director, thank you so much for highlighting some of those key messages.
I want to also say how important it is to have good leadership who transmits some of these key messages all the way through to the very bottom of the organization.
We would like to see consistent messages throughout the whole United Nations system, not just in Habitat, but in all agencies, funds and programs in such a way that actually we become much more coherent and coordinated, especially in the midst of the UN AD initiative when member states are looking very closely how we behave and what our messages are and how we action.
So I think your importance on attaching importance to the cooperation framework and integrating housing as an enabler and accelerator to move multiple SDGs, I think is well heard, and of course, our resident coordinators around this table, we are all very committed, committed to work together with the UN habitat and also to actually ensure that we advocate the voices of those vulnerable, those left behind to ensure that actually we serve and service the people.
So with that, thank you very much.
I'm going to hand over to Sebastian.
It's a very nice segue, who is going to actually frame the second panel and the and focusing on localization.
With that, Sebastian Bazoule is the head of the local 2030 Secretariat, please the floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
Indeed, we have been talking a lot about the complicated backdrop we are working against not only as UN system, but also local and regional governments, national governments, civil society organizations, all the different stakeholders that make sustainable development happen.
We have been talking about the importance of addressing this systemic crisis with systemic solutions.
I believe that we cannot talk about systemic solution if we leave more than half of the system outside and the one that own part of the solution outside the distribution.
Half of it, at least is at the local level, local value chains, local service delivery, local economic opportunities.
Local climate action and ultimately also a renewed social contract that materializes at the local level with the trust that is built between the nearest administration level from the government, from the citizen and the citizens themselves.
But I think that localization is also an answer to a demand from pro and cons SDGs offer more bottom up approach.
For more respect for local cultures, local context, local realities, directly responding to local priorities.
This is also what localization is about, not only considering local level, but multi level approach, including national policies to global and BAC and also moving from projects approach to territorial transformation, systems transformation.
This is, I believe, one of the backbone and the executive director was saying it of the UN reform.
We have heard also our colleagues, FAO, our former co chairs, you UNEP a critical member of the local win search eealition and we will hear from UNDP, former co chair, UNEC, current co chair.
You have made it possible to position localization through the local win search eealtion really as a key accelerator of the SDGs.
What the local twin search e coaltion does in this sense, one is bringing local voices to contribute to design global agendas to make these local realities the basis of global agendas.
Second, scaling up local solutions that if brought to scale can mean a meaningful acceleration of the SDGs everywhere, scaling them up, including by channeling finance towards the local level and equipping UN country teams with capacities and tools to advance localization on the ground and ultimately tracking local impact of what we do.
This is not only the UN, but also together with all the constituencies, national governments, local governments, et cetera I believe that the local coalition is a living example of when we are together, we deliver this impact and we very much look forward to continue to have all our UN member entities and our constituencies working together on this.
Thank you very much and looking forward to hear them on this localization panel.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sebastian.
Thank you, Sebastian, for setting the scene for the second panel of our roundtable.
Thanks for highlighting how the national and the local strategies could work together.
Thanks also for indicating to the role of the new end system, the IFIs, how can they support the implementation of these strategies at the local level? I'm honored to moderate the second panel of our roundtable, and I'm honored also to introduce the distinguished speakers of the second panel, starting with our honorable mayor of Kona, His Excellency, Mr.
Ugur Ibrahim Altai, The second I will introduce the speakers first, then we will start the interventions.
Then our colleague, Mr.
Dmitri Maria Asin, the Deputy Executive Secretary of UNECE.
Also, we are honored to have our colleague Francine pickup, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Policy and Policy and program support from UNDP.
We have also distinguished resident coordinators from South Africa, Mr.
Nelson Mufa, and we have also our resident coordinator from Mexico, Madam Allegra Poli, and Madam Angela Nunez, the Manager of Urban subnational Finance, Tourism, Disaster Risk Management Policy and regulation of the World Bank.
Most welcome all our distinguished speakers, and we'll start with our honorable Mayor, Mr.
Alta.
The floor is yours.
We have sorry, I missed to ask the question, Mr.
Altai.
Because we have a very important question, Mr.
Mayor, we want to hear about your perspective regarding what support is most critical from the United Nations system and from national governments to deliver housing programs at scale at the local level.
Thank you very much.
I.
Honorable ministers, distinguished representatives of the United Nations system, esteemed mayors and partners.
It's a great pleasure to be with you in Baku, the capital of our brother the nation, Azerbaijan.
I believe this is the forum is invaluable for examining the crisis facing our world through the perspective of cities and for developing global solutions that emerge from the local level.
So on the horizon of 2030 is rapidly approaching and we have not yet reached the desired level of progress on the SDGs.
It is clearer than ever that the path forward runs through cities and local governments.
The structural challenges at this table like finance, governance, data gaps, construction costs will be addressed by detail here.
I would like to use my time differently.
I would like to share with you how in my city of Kona we are responsible for these challenges.
Because I think what's more interesting here is not abstract calls, but concrete experiences that can travel from one city to another.
What are we doing differently in Konya? If you allow me, I would like to share seven approaches that I believe may be relevant for many rapidly urbanizing and vulnerable cities.
Firstly, planning housing as a system, not as an isolated structure.
In Konya, my city, we plan our social housing areas together with rail transit lines, health clinics, schools, green infrastructure, social facilities, and digital municipal services.
Providing a family with four walls is not enough.
What is needed is an integral environment where the child can walk to school, their mother can easily access healthcare, and their father can reach work on time.
Making transport oriented planning is an inseparable part of housing policy.
Secondly, institutionalizing multi level cooperation.
And our way of working with our Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change to build a coordination.
Kenya has showed us that this is a replicable model which can be applied to different cities.
Thirdly, making earthquake resilience an insseupperable element of social housing.
After the February 2023 earthquakes, our country lived through one of the largest internal housing crisis.
As Konya, we sought to offer the affected families not just temporary shelter but lasting solidarity.
So for every seismically vulnerable city, I would like to share that this is not a solely technical matter, it's a public policy choice.
Fourth, urban regeneration in harmony with cultural identity.
Kona is the city of Malana Rumi, a city of deep history and strong cultural identity.
In our urban regeneration of efforts, we have developed approaches that preserve neighborhood fabric, community relationships, and historical character because urban regeneration is not simply the renewal of old buildings.
It's the construction of new neighborhoods in which people feel that they belong and are not alienated.
Fifthly, housing planning underwater stress.
Kona is the country's grain basket, but it is a city where the consequences of climate change are most visible.
Groundwater situation in the Condra Basin reminds us all that climate crisis is not abstract but tangible.
For vulnerable cities facing water scarcity, I would like to share that thinking about housing policy and water policy together.
Sixth, treating housing as part of the energy transition.
Energy poverty is often the invisible face of a housing crisis.
So we have to link housing to energy from the outset, and this is a replicable gain for every city.
Seven, using digital municipal services for social purposes, services for social purposes.
Geographic information systems and neighborhood scale data collection is important and it is used for a social purpose.
Distinguished participants.
None of these approaches are unique to Konya.
Each under the right conditions can be adapted to different geographies, but for that, three fundamental conditions must be in place.
Firstly, trust based, sustained and institutional cooperation is needed between national governments and local authorities.
Second, an integrated planning approach that allows projects to be designed not only as construction, but as living environments.
Thirdly, long term predictable financing mechanisms.
I think this is one of our most recent and important agenda.
So if we cannot solve the financial side of these aspects, we cannot apply our solutions.
In this regard, in the partnership to be built with the United Nations, UCLG and the World Bank, and other international institutions are of great importance.
We need innovative financing models that go beyond traditional development assistance.
To bring together development banks, climate finance mechanisms, impact investors, and private sector.
As the UCLG executive present, I would like to share the following.
The place where the sustainable development goals come to life are cities.
The local 2030 approach is a vision that positions local governments not merely as implementing partners, but as a national strategic partner.
Engaging local governments more strongly in policy design, financing processes, and implementation mechanisms will ensure both the more effective use of resources and the delivery of faster, more tangible results to citizens.
Particularly in areas where vulnerable and rapidly urbanization takes place, developing direct technical cooperation mechanisms is important between global systems and cities.
Therefore, we should establish shared data platforms, expand local capacity building programs, and strengthen disaster risk mapping.
This will be concrete steps towards this vision.
I would like to conclude with the following call.
If we want to build resilient societies, we must first build resilient neighborhoods.
If we wish to reduce inequalities, we must produce accessible and quality housing for all.
If we wish for a future where the SDGs come to life, we must place cities and local governments at the heart of global development architecture.
Because housing is more than a roof.
Housing is the foundation of human dignity, social scalability, and sustainable future.
Ultimately, it's a matter of building hope.
I sincerely hope that the steps we have taken in Konya to build this hope will inspire new hopes in your cities as well, especially the approach of the representative of the United Nations is a very positive aspect in that sense, and I hope for a fruitful discussion here.
Thank you very much.
Sharing this very important perspective from Kenya, from your role as a global leader in the network of United cities and local governments.
This is very important because local governments represent or they are the closest to the implementation challenges on the ground.
I will shift to our second distinguished speaker, Mr.
Marian.
From your perspective, what are the most important practical tools and systems that are important for decision making and to ensure the coherence between the national and international housing strategies and the implementation on the ground.
The floor is yours.
Thank you very much and thank you for the warm hospitality of our Azerbaijani hosts and, of course, habitat.
Distinguished colleagues, housing is no longer a social issue.
We've heard this very clearly.
It is a much more complex issue that bridges climate resilience, health, employment, land management, and so many other aspects.
And so when the world, including this region, is in deep housing crisis, and we are.
I think this is increasingly recognized by the policymakers across the board.
Just if you look at a few years ago, European Commission established a very power EU task force.
Now it's an urgently established housing task force which brings different directorates, generals across the board to make sure that housing is addressed in a systemic manner and as a crisis.
If it is a crisis, and we all agree it is.
It's a crisis of inequality, of poverty, of deprivation of no access to sustainable jobs, how do we approach it? Sectoral approaches and housing used to be tucked in a sectoral corner for many, many years to no longer work.
But moreover, national policy approaches alone do not deliver the result we need.
Sectoral mandates need to become cross sectoral and they will only be effectively implemented if they are connected to territorial approaches if things happen at the local level.
We just heard a very powerful vision statement from the mayor of Kona and I would say this is a vision statement on behalf of the thousands of municipalities around the region and the world.
This is precisely the cross sectoral approach and connecting policy and local implementation that we've been taking at UNACE.
We have a number of areas of work which I won't go into the details of that deal with both national reforms and urban policy, but also very specific housing and resilience strategies.
We do so both through a member state driven committee on housing, which convened a special ministerial session on housing crisis last November and through the form of Mayors, which is a unique platform which brings mayors, local authorities not in the back row of nation states, but in the front row as actual prime participants of a UN meeting in Geneva.
We believe that this multilevel governance is what delivers the best outcome.
We believe that working across sectors and across policy and territorial action is what we need.
This is why UNIC is so pleased to be right now the co chair of the Local 2030 coalition.
We were just discussing with Sebastian that coalitions is what we need going forward.
As UN, we need to learn new way of multilateralism.
A lot of it will be about crossing the borders of our own UN bubble, crossing the borders of state to state conversations and having private sector in the room having civil society in the room, again, not as an afterthought, but as core players.
But of course, first and foremost, we need to work as a team as the United Nations.
Hence, it's going to be very important that UN country teams and the resin coordinators are part and parcel of how the local 2030 collision develops.
It's very important that we already have examples of such collaboration.
I'll give you just a few.
In Kyrgyzstan, under the leadership of the UN resident coordinator, UNIC has worked with UNDP and UN Habitat through financing from the joint SDG Sfund to support a small but very important catalytic project on localization in Bishkak, a clear localization strategy for a city that is quickly expanding, that is undergoing a transformation and where urban development strategies connect housing, connectivity, accessibility, and service delivery.
Another good example, and this is also an example of partnering with the international financial institutions.
Key stakeholder in this work is from Montenegro, where we partnered up with the Council of Europe Development Bank to develop, in our view, quite a transformative country profile on housing, land management, and urban development of the country, which was just launched by our executive Secretary, the Ministry of Environment of Montenegro, and the UN resident coordinator in Poor a couple of months ago that is a foundation then for Montenegro, among other things, to go ahead with a completely new strategy on affordable and rental housing.
We need more of these.
We're working right now to prepare a new housing profile for Uzbekistan, Moldova, and hopefully other countries as well.
We need joint programming that will build on this evidence base as well.
For that, UNIC is working on several flagship proposals together with our partners at UN Habitat, UNDR and others, and we hope that both on the topic of earthquake resilience and on the topic of affordable housing, you'll be hearing soon about new powerful joint programs that this region so much needs.
We also have examples of doing these joint programs together with international financial institutions.
I remind you of the excellent partnership with UNDP, of course, with the RC in the and EBRD in North Macedonia.
We worked on the critical topic of energy efficiency, and I think the results achieved there can be replicated elsewhere.
But of course, and I will say in closing, the real depth of change comes when national governments actually use approaches we promote as the UN at scale, when financial institutions create markets, and when the private sector starts working on sustainable and affordable housing for the benefit of the citizens.
That is our job to create and catalyze this process and the rest, hopefully will start happening in countries at scale.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Marcin, for highlighting on the mechanisms, the multi level governance, the territorial approach, and for bringing these very powerful examples of collaboration.
I will shift to our distinguished panelists from UNDP, Madam Pickup.
I have very important and linked question.
To asking you to share with us from your perspective how SDG localization, the local 2030 coalition could help to translate the housing commitments into integrated sustainable urban development on the ground.
But Madam Pickup, I'm reminded by the best moderator of this session that I should remind the distinguished panelists just to be a bit brief because we don't have much time.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
It's really a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for inviting UNDP.
And and consider us your partner on issues related to urban and housing when it comes to governance, when it comes to finance, whether it's climate, crisis recovery, we're there.
I think there's a lot of we're saying much the same.
Everybody's in agreement about the narrative.
Housing is a social and an economic issue and it's a system wide issue.
I wanted to, and I think the local 2030 coalition We agree on the narrative, the Local 2030 coalition is the platform for implementation, for delivery, for coming up with solutions together.
I think that's very important.
I wanted to just make three brief points.
On this point about integration, we're all saying systems approach is necessary.
A housing crisis never comes alone.
It's accompanied by often weak land governance, it's accompanied by climate risks, fiscal pressures, many other issues.
These all converge on the issue of housing.
It's important that we take a systems approach.
We can't pick off one sector at a time.
I I would say that UNDP takes this very seriously.
We don't just talk systems, we do systems.
We've actually designed what we call a portfolio approach, a portfolio policy.
We don't just implement projects now, we implement portfolios.
Portfolios we do with others, taking those integrated approaches to complex issues.
I want to say that's something that we do.
I'd like to give an example from Bangladesh where we supported 4 million people across 19 cities with community led planning invariably women led planning that was linked to strengthening municipal capacities in institution, it was linked to flood protection, better housing, climate resilience jobs.
That integrated approach is key.
Number one.
Number two, I think what others have said, you can't act on what you can't see and many of the housing needs that we're talking about, whether it's informal settlements, whether it's displaced populations or inequalities within communities, the data isn't there, but we have the innovation, we have the technology, so we have to collect the data to inform the UNSCDF to then act.
Getting that data is critical for the evidence base, and then of course, no one can deliver alone.
We need to deliver together.
We have many good examples of working with many of you, but including with UN habitat, for example, in the Sahel, where we created 7,000 climate resilient housing units that reduce the temperature in those homes by seven degrees heat resilient homes using local materials.
Then the third point that I wanted to mention is is the point about finance.
Money is there.
It's just not flowing to where it needs to go to those low income neighborhoods and communities.
We have to work to try and align that finance with the housing needs.
There are a couple of interesting initiatives that I wanted to point to, but it is about trying to connect government financing with other sources of financing, private financing, as well as grant money from the UN.
One example is from Uruguay where we were able to work with the Inter American Development Bank, who was implementing a loan alongside our grant to upgrade neighborhood housing.
Then another interesting example is from Tanzania where we used what we call SDG investor maps.
Many of the RCs may be familiar with these.
It's a tool to map out potential investment areas and we identified through that initiative, 2.5 billion in potential investments that could be aligned with housing and local urban issues.
There's a lot that can be done more and we have some of the tools to do it.
The last point is just watching some of the crisis unfold around the world, we must be mindful to make sure that in crisis contexts, we make sure that we have development financing going in as well as humanitarian.
Funding because investments in housing which is being destroyed or requires that long term financing in crisis context.
So let me leave it at that.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot for the very insightful roadmap first integration from the perspective of the integrator of the SDGs.
Thanks a lot and emphasizing on finance and investment.
For this point, I will shift to our resident coordinator in South Africa, Mr.
Nelson, to share with us few experiences, mechanisms that are to mobilize resources to mobilize partnership that could help us to implement the housing strategies and sustainable urban development on the ground.
Well, thank you so much for that program director, and it's really a pleasure to be able to join this conversation.
Inspiring, especially to listen to the mayor and the tangible reflections he put on the table with regards to how we can continue to accompany cities and municipalities to be able to embrace sustainability and advance resilience.
I hope we can get a copy, Mr.
Mayor, your remarks as well, because I think for my contexts in South Africa and across the continent, this is especially useful.
Let me borrow from my colleague actually in the first segment started by laying out what the scale of the challenge is.
We have currently a housing deficit across the continent of Africa of 15 million units.
This is anticipated to double by 2030.
In the South African context itself, we have about 2 million households that are still informal.
There's a need to not only look at, I think, evolving from informal settlements, but also ensuring this is affordable.
So in my mind, actually, and in our context, the real question then is about how we align partnerships with adequate financing to advance solutions that will address this problem at scale.
And we've been trying to do that mindful of this historical context of the country which also has deep seated structural spatial inequality challenges.
So it's not only about housing, and that's why going back to the mayor's intervention, it's also about an ecosystem approach.
It's not only about providing housing.
We have a context where because of the colonial history and aarthite, the poorest are leaving on the fringes and the most unproductive parts of cities.
So how do you address that and address then a situation where even the municipality In these areas are weakened or not sufficiently financed or resourced.
That's also something we've been trying to think about.
We operate in a context as well where there's a full alignment between what government strategy, plans, human settlement plans are all about, what the UN intends to do.
Financing is not the challenge or funding as well is not the challenge.
It is about a systemic approach and ensuring that the financing goes where it is actually needed and that the municipalities in this territorial approach can absorb and utilize the financing efficiently and how private sector also plays its part.
So in dealing with all of these challenges, we're thinking about a few shifts that are important.
And this shifts really will help us, as I say, address the challenge of lack of inclusive governance, but also just the fiscal nature of the challenge, which is people are not where they are meant to be and are not connected to the services they are meant to be having.
So it's how we regenerate human settlements with this in mind and through the cooperation framework and thinking about this through a systems lens, we're looking at how we integrate issues of resilience building, early warning and anticipated actions with regards to environmental shocks, how we connect that with service delivery challenges, how we look at crime and safety because that's also important.
Just human capital development and alongside, of course, adequate and dignified housing.
That's the approach we're taking to connect the dots, but also then to embrace a blended financing approach to say there's government financing, there is the Development Bank of Southern Africa, that is a national finance institution also ready to play its part, but there's a vast amount of stranded or I would say hesitant capital, how we also tap into asset owners and what they have available, all mutual and others.
So we have then in collaboration now with the SDs joint fund and working with local 2030, we're exploring how we can unlock this with the UN as a connector and trusted partner, and the RC and the UN country team also playing its part because we can connect and we've heard that well, which also need to catalyze and help shape and influence financing flows into where this is needed the most.
So that really is something that is true not only for the South African context, but we've also heard in a number of other contexts across the continent as well, and we need to be able to approach this in a way that makes sense and look forward to the collaboration across the UN system and with partners.
To be able to advance this.
Only today, we were being briefed by FAO about the Greener Cities Initiative, which really goes very well in hand with everything we're trying to do in the South African context, including with UN habitat and Local 2030, UNDP also trying to play its part.
So really, there's an opportunity here which we cannot ignore.
So let me see the remainder of my time back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Mr.
L.
Very important highlights on, especially the challenges from the territorial perspective and the shifts that you shared with us to mobilize partnership and financing to help on the implementation, but we will continue this also with our resident coordinator in Mexico, Madam Allegra.
How can the country team through the cooperation framework help in this alignment between the national housing strategies and the implementation on the ground? Okay.
Thank you so much.
Again, join everyone else in thanking for the organization of this and housing us here.
I'm going to be brief.
I know we wants me to be brief, but I just wanted to, and I'm second to last.
I'm just going to pick up on some of the messages.
I think what we've heard around the table is housing is a systemic issue, it needs integrated solutions, and it's an SDG accelerator.
I think we all agree, but the reality is that this is not how we are addressing it at country level.
I think the first shift we all should agree to here and then bring it down to the country level is exactly what we're seeing what we're seeing here.
I was Googling.
I mean, last two years ago, we were given a whole list of SDG accelerators and I challenge you to Google SDG accelerators, and you will not be seeing housing or cities come up on that list.
Because I know that this one round table is also looking at recommendations, I would definitely want to put that on that list.
Um, the second is, how do we translate coalitions that exist globally to the country level? I think we had this conversation with local 2030.
A RCs today we hear four or five agencies telling us what they're doing, but our reality is we have 25 at our country level.
I mean, I have 25, India has 25, probably Egypt as well.
So I think the big issue for RCs is how do we blend using the finance word our offer to make sense at the municipal level and what absorption capacities there are at the municipal level for everything the UN has to bring.
Be Mexico, I was in Costa Rica, there's a lot of examples of mapping out everything the UN has to offer at the city's level, but also mapping it against what the needs are.
Because again, you know this challenge from our family.
We come in with a lot of offer and not always step back and say, well, what is suitable in this environment? I think a colleague from UNDP mentioned data.
Um, and indicators and tracking our offer.
Maybe the third point is we have a lot of tools and they're not always applied to the local level.
INFF is definitely one that I think we all kept at the national level where we really should have brought it and are starting to bring it down to the municipal level.
UN habitat has a lot of tools also to help municipalities map out their financing because this is really what we need.
We need to bring money, but we also need to map and help municipal level build more sustainable finances at the local level.
I think we also talked about VLRs and I think in the previous panel we were in, a little bit about we're asking a lot of municipalities to do VLRs and I find a lot of enthusiasm at that level.
We don't always give them the platform they deserve.
I think there's this conversation about where do they report to and how can we help HLPF be a more open space for them.
Then partnerships, actually I already shared the stage with the mayor in Mexico just recently because we had UCLG a host the meeting there.
To me, it was really inspiring to hear how much work there's going on from other coalitions and how much more we need to do to bring the UN together.
Then I'm just going to finish with localization marker, which I think is something a lot of countries now are doing and Local 2030 is helping us do, but also that access to finance.
Joint programming as the real shift or the transformation to get all our offer again, blended together.
That really happens when there is one pot of money and we program together and we get the best of agencies.
Anything we can collectively do to continue to support not only pooled funds, but also joint programming.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for reminding us about the important, the critical role of the RCs, the UNCTs in connecting the national policies with the local delivery and thanks for that vision and the proposed accelerator will for sure take it into our recommendations.
Now, we heard about a lot of challenges, a lot of examples and challenges, and finally, we will get the solutions.
We'll get the solutions.
Exactly from the World Bank, from our friend Angela.
We want you to share with us the solutions and what are the mechanisms from your perspective that could help us to implement to deliver housing at scale and how also the collaboration between not only the World Bank, the IFIs in general, with the United Nations could strengthen this delivery.
The floor is yours, Angelika.
Thank you.
I I don't know about the solutions, but I'll tell you a little bit of where we stand from the World Bank perspective.
Like you, we are convinced that housing is a fundamental developmental issue.
It's much more than a structure.
We have a strong track record in housing, not necessarily always track record in lending.
We have mixed results, I think, like all of us in the different things we do.
For us, when we are asked by our client governments to support in housing, we like to take a little bit of a steps back to analyze how we can best support because we're not great at supporting the delivery for a specific city or a specific sector.
We try to take an approach, what I think is what you call a system approach and we look at what we call at the foundational elements of housing, which includes the regulatory elements, the policy and the institutional setup, and the extent to which the private sector is present in the country and that can come in both in the construction and in the financing.
We think that these two elements are critical to what we believe is essential for any project, ours or any others to work, which is to de risk the sector so that the money can flow.
Money, I'm not meaning only money for banks.
It's also money from households themselves, which are the biggest investors in housing that we have.
Um.
So We find, for example, that one critical element that is very missing in most of the places we work is land markets.
Without functional land markets is very difficult to get a housing sector that is working.
This is an invested sector, I think in many of the places that we work, we are trying to ramp up our investment in land markets because it's a segment where it's truly an investment.
You put 100 and you get 1,000 back in land markets and they are absolutely critical for housing to work.
The other part is the risk at the financial level, both for construction and for housing demand or affordability.
Let me give you an example of Brazil.
In Brazil, what we are doing is to do blended finance with our IFC, with the agency that works with private sector with IFC through Kaisha because we work best at national level programs.
We are not very good at going at very specific locations.
We try to do larger scale, so We have blended our resources with IFC, which is market based and us that are below market to support Kasia so that Kasia can then on end to developers because developers are under capitalized and we want them to capitalize be more capitalized, but also to get access to finance.
There is no way to finance a sustainable housing supply with pre sales.
It hasn't happened anywhere and there's financing for construction for developers.
The sector can only grow at AR experience in a very limited basis.
Another example in Africa is we have supported the establishment of the Africa Green, resilient and inclusive de risking facility, which is literally a fund whose only objective is to provide de risking through guarantees and first loss provisions for lenders in Africa.
We're trying to take a little bit of a more risk based approach, and we're trying to move our shareholders to take more risks in this sector, hopefully showing them that there is definitely the housing is a sector where the poor pay better than the non poor.
We have statistics to show this, so we think this is where we should invest.
I will stop there because it's almost time and I know you have some remarks to close.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Angelita.
Thanks for sharing these important examples and mechanisms.
We'll turn to week.
Thank you so much for this very rich discussion.
We have 15 more minutes.
The colleagues have given us room for additional 10 minutes.
What I would like to do is actually open the floor to take some interventions, but I'm going to ask you to be very direct and to the point and succinct.
Please do not take more than a minute or minute and a half to actually make your points and raise your hands if you would like to say something.
I'm going to start with you, Tim.
I saw you raise your hands over to you.
Thank you so much, S, and very much appreciate the opportunity.
The discussion today highlights that the challenge is about the absence of plans.
The challenge is implementation and how to translate these policy ambitions into investable, bankable, and locally deliverable solutions.
This is where the UN system brings distinctive value, particularly through stronger integration between planning, financing, delivery, and local implementation.
One of the biggest challenges we see is the fragmentation of data, housing data, land data, infrastructure performance, climate risk, and financing information are often disconnected across institutions and levels of government.
In UNOPS for example, we use tools to combine remote sensing and AI to rapidly assess damage and map invisible service gaps in crisis affected areas.
But the key point is not the technology itself, it's ensuring that data becomes operational for decision making, budgeting, and implementation.
Housing only works when connected to infrastructure systems, water, drainage, transport, waste management, energy, digital access schools, and health services, and in some cases, safe ground.
I'd like to also touch on local implementation and localization.
We often discuss multi level governance conceptually, but local governments remain structurally under resourced.
Through our scaling up essential services in African cities program, we've seen that secondary cities are where the implementation gap is widest.
Municipalities are expected to deliver increasingly complex urban services while lacking financial instruments, technical capacity, and implementation support.
If SDG localization is to become real, we need stronger mechanisms to provide municipalities with a technical capacity and procurement expertise to turn national policy commitments into a pipeline of local projects.
Ultimately, The credibility of multilateralism depends less on the frameworks we produce and more on whether people see tangible improvements in their daily lives and communities.
Thank you, Tim Lochner is UN OPS representative.
I'm going to move to Cenclo from UN CCD.
The floor is yours.
Thank you, Madam Moderator.
For those of you who might not be familiar, UN CCD stands for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
We're an international treaty that is a sister convention to climate and biodiversity.
Indeed, we'll look at those as very interrelated challenges.
For us, the key message here is that healthy land underpins indeed urban resilience and that for us throughout the process, we have been very fortunate to have had very strong engagement from local and regional authorities, starting with our very first COP and the latest COP, CP 16 in Rad where Honorable Mayor of Kona was there to indeed for greater engagement of local authorities in this process.
What resonated me most here today is, first of all, that dual challenge that we are facing.
On the one hand, growing pressures in cities, on the other hand, rural exodus that we're dealing with, and indeed, one quarter of all land worldwide is abandoned agricultural land.
So that's why we're working with partners such as FAO and others on making sure that we do address that broader context and that urban rural interface that was highlighted by a number of speakers.
Second, As cities are getting hotter and drier, the solutions will need to be adaptable.
Again, we're engaging with partners, including UI that is leading the trees and dry Cities coalition that really has scaled some of those practical solutions that are available.
And third, many of the solutions that we're talking about will be found in nature and in particular in blue and green infrastructure, whether it's restoring wetlands in cities, whether it's implementing urban greening projects, et cetera.
These are the solutions that we look forward to building upon, working with our partners from within the United Nations system and beyond, and we look forward to continuing to engage with UN habitat that has really championed this in the context of our upcoming Cp 17 Ulan Batar.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you so much for that.
Very important conference coming up in Mongolia.
I'm going to give the floor to our resident coordinator in Jordan, Sherri Anderson.
The floor is yours.
Great.
Thank you very much.
I'll be brief.
In terms of these questions and how we move forward, I think from the Jordan perspective, which is likely going to resonate across, I will give you three words integrated strategy, Political.
We need an integrated approach because getting cities to follow the local sustainable development approach requires a multidimensional approach.
It's not just about housing.
Why is housing in Jordan not working? Part of its water.
The water system in the country needs to be upgraded, it needs to be expanded.
Without that, you simply cannot build more housing because the service structure just does not exist.
We need a multidimensional integrated approach.
Number two, for the UN in particular, but I think collectively across all international partners, and this is my perspective from Jordan, we need a dedicated strategy.
We have lots and lots of strategies, but none of them are a jointly owned strategy on localization.
In the UN country team in Jordan, we now have under development, what do we call mini strategies.
So that's thematic, trying to pull the country team together.
All of these UN agencies have something to offer, pull us together and to find a way forward because whoever said, I forget the absorption capacity of municipalities is a huge deal.
If we all went with full capacity, it doesn't mean that they'd be able to absorb it.
Strategy, working together.
But I think all of this has to be underpinned by the political commitment and we cannot outpace that.
Integrated strategy, political commitment.
Thank you very much.
We will turn to our Res coordinator from Saudi Arabia, Mohamed.
The floor is yours.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'll be very, very brief.
I want to talk simply about incentives.
So incentives cannot come from one direction only.
They've got to come from within the UN system, you got to come at the leadership level, they have to come from government, they have to come from different levels of government.
So when we talk central government, where we talk at the local level, that's the only way we're going to see this collaboration multilayer approach to engagement on this subject.
In Saudi Arabia, we have a very good example of that where we're seeing as we're developing our cooperation framework at the moment, we're seeing because of what the government is pushing for at the various levels, as well as the messages that we're seeing from the UN leadership.
We're seeing a lot of integrated work between UNDP and UN habitat.
I work with the Ministry of municipality in Saudi, we have UN habitat with the quality of life index with an across the board approach engagement with all UN entities and that is coming because the incentives are coming from within the system and outside.
This has to remain central if we are to continue down that direction.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mohamed.
Any other colleagues around the table, resident coordinators? Mikayla from Thailand.
F is yours.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I don't want to give my own age away, but I don't know if you remember the song by Madness from 1982, our house in the middle of the street.
It was a big global hit, and I think it really puts at the center the importance for safe, adequate, and sustainable housing as the platform and centrality for what we build our societies on.
It's been ringing in my ears as we are here today and as we are here at Wolf 13.
What I take away from that is actually the strength that we have in the UN system if we come together.
Because it's only if and when we come together that we can deliver on all those dreams that are so central and are so central in the leave no one behind.
I don't want to repeat what everyone has been saying, whether we talk about disaster risk reduction, we talk about social protection, we talk about the environment, the food security, whatever those issues are.
As long as we do not see the adequate housing, not as an add on, but as a right, we're not going to move away.
I take the Jordan example on creating a strategy for housing in the UN cities.
We have sustainable cities, we have learning cities, we have green cities, we have all kinds of cities.
As we move forward, let's remember madness, our house in the middle of the street and let's make sure that we work as one UN country team to make that happen.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well set.
Anybody else before we conclude? Okay.
So we're going to come to a conclusion.
I'm going to give the floor to Erfan, who's going to share some key takeaways, and we will come to the final conclusion.
Only three takeaways from my side, very short.
I think integration was the most mentioned word today.
Integration is the mechanism is the principle that we need to utilize in our cooperation framework as United Nations as a system to address the housing crisis, the growing importance, criticality of localization as a pathway for implementation on the ground and the point that you suggested about the new accelerators, cities indeed must be the accelerators.
Housing should be an accelerator.
Housing and cities as a recommendation, we will encourage that those are considered as the new accelerators for the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and SDGs.
Back to you, u.
Thank you, colleagues for very open discussion.
I think that we have actually identified a lot of solutions, but I'm going to repeat what was said by some of the colleagues.
It is not just identifying solutions, it actually is making it happen.
It's a translation of commitments to action and it's walking the talk because we do talk a lot and we talk very well, but it is not just talking beautifully, but actually making sure that talk is translated into concrete action.
Maybe the second point is the one N.
Again, there has been a lot of discussion and talk about how having one UN family.
The one UN family, we can actually have disagreements.
And many debates.
But at the end of the day, when it comes down to actually translating how we work into concrete action to serve the people that are left behind, we're going to have to really come together as one integrated UN family because we do want to, at the end of the day, served the people, and that is our purpose.
So let's not forget that.
With that, thank you very much for this very rich discussion.