ONE UN - Leveraging Human Security for Integrated Urban Solutions and Housing - Lessons from Joint UN Action (WUF13)

Good afternoon.
Can you hear me well? Good afternoon, everyone.
Distinguished representatives of our co sponsoring member states, the permanent mission of Japan to the UN, distinguished panelists, excellences, and their participants.
It's a pleasure to serve as a moderator of this one UN event, leveraging Human Security for Integrated Urban Solutions to housing.
Essons from UN UN action.
I join you today as an academic researcher and practitioner working at the intersection of urban safety, human security, and housing.
My work has focused on supporting UN entities as well as some national and local governments to operationalize the human security approach and the people Center prevention oriented and integrated responses to complex and interconnected risk shaping urban life.
In this context, housing has become clearly not simply a sectoral issue.
It is a critical entry point for advancing protection, empowerment and resilience in cities.
Today's event reflects on a strong commitment across the UN system to work in a more connected and collaborative way.
Bringing together the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, UN Habitat, and other partners, building a shared recognition that silo approaches are no longer sufficient.
Aligning mandates, tools and field level action through human security lens allow us to deliver more coherent, effective outcomes for peoples and communities.
As housing challenges intensify, driven by rapid urbanization, inequality, climate pressures, and insecurity, cities are where the risks converge more sharply.
This discussion is therefore not only about coordination within the UN system, but it's also about how joint action can better respond to the lived realities of urban residents by linking housing with access to services, community safety, livelihoods, and inclusive local governance.
Through this session, we aim to highlight practical lessons from joint UN engagement and explore how the human security approach can help reach policy and practice, strengthen prevention efforts and support cities in delivering integrated human centered solutions.
We look forward to hearing your experiences on how one UN collaboration can further leverage the safer and more inclusive and more resilient urban communities.
Before we begin, I would like to invite miss Kana Kudo.
From the United Nations Human Security Unit to offer some opening remarks.
She is a program management officer at the Human Security Unit.
She has oversight a number of programs implemented by UN country teams in different regions.
Miss Kanakuu, I welcome you.
Excellencies, distinced mayors and local government partners, colleagues from the colleagues across the UN systems.
Honorable delegates, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, it is my honor to welcome you to this one union event, leveraging Human Security for integrated and urban housing solutions.
Today's discussion brings together colleagues from across the UN system who are working with cities and communities at the front lines of rapid urbanization, inequality, climate pressures, and social fragmentation.
It reflects a growing recognition that when challenges converge, responses must be equally comprehensive and integrated.
Across the world, cities are increasingly shaped by interconnected insecurities, limited access to adequate housing, strange services, unsafe environment, climate risks, and social exclusion.
For many urban residents, particularly those living in vulnerable and informal conditions, These are not abstract pressures.
They define daily experiences of safety, opportunity, and dignity.
Responding to this reality requires a different way of working.
The human security approach offers such a framework.
It shifts our focus from single sector responses to the complex reality people and communities face, Adré risks in an uncoordinated, preventive, and inclusive manner.
It calls on us not only to protect individuals from critical threats, but to empower them as active agents in shaping their own futures.
Through this lens, housing is not simply an outcome.
It is also an entry point.
It becomes a platform through which we can advance safety, well being, livelihoods, and social cohesion, thereby strengthening trust between institutions and communities.
It is a medium where the work of the UN system comes together visibly in people's lives.
The housing and Human Security for all model, which underpins today's discussion, demonstrates how this approach can take shape in practice, linking housing with access to services, community safety, participation, and local governance.
Experiences from cities such as Tripoli, Pryor, Durban, and Shanockville show that when the union works as one, human security principles can translate into tangible, sustained improvements on the ground.
At its core, this is what one UN collaboration is about.
It is about using the framework of human security to look across mandates, combine analytical tools, collaborate on designing responses that brings together the comparative advantage of multiple partners and work side by side with each other.
Local governments and communities.
It is about breaking silos, seeking entry points that maximize the impact and reach out our efforts, connecting policy change with community solutions, and ensuring that our collective impact is commensurate with the complexity of urban realities.
In this way, human security serves as a unifying lens, connecting housing, safety, climate resilience, social protection, human rights, and gender equality into a coherent, human centered approach.
At the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security, we have seen the transformative change that can be achieved when we work this way.
We'd like to express our sincere appreciation to our UN partners, to national and local government counterparts and community representatives for their leadership and commitment to advancing this work.
We also thank member states and the Permanent Mission of Colombia for their continued support through the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security.
As we engage in today's discussion, we invite you to reflect on one central question.
How can we, as one UN, better align our efforts to support cities and communities in building safe, more inclusive and resilient urban futures, ensuring that no one and no place is left behind.
We look forward to a rich and forward looking exchange of experiences and ideas.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, miss Kudo.
Distinguished participants.
It's now my distinct pleasure to invite miss Kasuko Isgaki, Regional Director of Epsia and the Pacific at UN Habitat to provide our framing remarks for today's discussion.
Miss Isgaki is a senior UN habitat official with extensive experience advancing inclusive and sustainable urban development.
Her work spans housing and urban policy with a strong focus on strengthening coordination across national and local governments and within the UN system.
In her current role, she supports engagement with member states and partners, helping translate global urban commitments into practical integrated solutions that respond to realities within cities and communities.
Miss Chick, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much for your very kind introduction.
Excellencies, colleagues, partners and friends, ladies and gentlemen.
It's my pleasure to join you today for this one UN event on housing and Human Security.
I am Kazo Isgaki Regional Director for Asia Pacific UN Habitat.
I thank United Nations Trans Fund for Human Security, our important partner for organizing this very variable and timely session.
Allow me to offer a perspective from Asia Pacific region, which I support.
Asia Pacific is experiencing rapid urbanization.
Nine out of top ten mega cities in Asia.
It's also a place where people and the communities are exposed to a wide range of risks, particularly climate change risk.
Cities are expanding at a rapid pace, often faster than systems can adapt.
In many cities, urban growth is outpacing the development of housing and basic infrastructures.
Therefore, as the cities grow, so too do the pressures of climate vulnerability, environmental degradation, migration, and widening inequality.
In many places, these pressures combge most sharply in informal settlements and underserved neighborhoods and where the challenges we are discussing today can often be most visible.
As you hear in many sessions in this World Avan Forum in Baku, housing, in this context is never just about roof and walls.
Housing assures safety from various kinds of risk, both natural and man made.
Location of housing can determine whether children can access services or they are cut off from them.
It contributes to whether livelihoods are stable or constantly at risk.
Where housing is insecure and isolated, vulnerabilities compound.
However, where housing is addressed as the entry point for human life in connection with other social, economic, and environmental systems, it can shift trajectories.
This is where UN habitat sees value in the people centered approach, what we call people's process in UN habitat Asia Pacific.
People's process is people centered, very integrated approach.
It allows us to see the challenges not as separate issues, but as interconnected risks and opportunities, shaping people's daily lives.
This guides us to other responses that are integrated, proactive, and grounded in local realities.
At UN Habitat, we are increasingly linking housing with urban safety, basic services, climate resilience, inclusive governance, recognizing that progress in one area depends on progress in others.
And importantly, this is not work any one agency can deliver alone.
It depends on one UN collaboration, bringing together mandates, expertise, and field presence to support cities in a more consistent way.
In Asia Pacific, Cambodia provides one such example of this approach in action.
There in partnership with the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and other UN agencies, Housing has served as a launch pad to strengthen services, improve safety, support local governance, particularly for communities facing multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities.
The work started with local realities, established cross partnership with communities and municipalities, and connected housing improvements to a broader system of resilience and inclusion.
And the similar lessons are emerging across the region as you listen today, from upgrading inco settlements where resiliency is assured into housing rate recovery in climate affected cities.
They illustrate that housing policies are most effective when they are embedded within wider urban strategies that place people at the center.
Platforms like this one UN event are essential in this effort.
They allow us to connect experiences across regions, breach global frameworks with local practice, and strengthen the partnerships that this work depends on.
UN Habitat remains wholly committed to working with the United Nations Trans Fund for Human Security.
UN partners and also country team under the leadership of UN resident coordinator, member states and cities across Asia and the Pacific.
We are committed to advance housing people centered solutions that contribute to safer, more inclusive, and more resilient urban futures.
I look forward to the discussion today ahead and to continue this collaboration in turning shared principles into practical actions.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, misses Higake for those insightful, informative, and hopeful remarks to frame this session.
Just to mark the end of this opening segment, I would like to invite you all to watch the following video that is going to introduce and also capture the essence of what this event is about, this one YN theme, which is also focusing on presenting the housing and human security for role model.
This video will help us transition to our panel session.
One in five people worldwide lack adequate housing.
Every day, millions of people wake up without a safe, secure place to call home.
Some live in informal settlements, some struggle with the constant threat of eviction or inaccessibility, others live in unhealthy or unsafe environments.
Yet housing is where social progress begins.
Housing is not just a roof over one's head.
It influences health, education, opportunity, and the strength of our communities.
It is a social institution reflecting and shaping our relationships with people, our environment, and our society.
Where people live affects who they meet, what opportunities they can access, and how secure they feel.
It can determine health and well being, influence social mobility, and create a sense of belonging, or deepen isolation and vulnerability.
Housing reflects a society and the inequalities that exist.
Some neighborhoods flourish with opportunity, while others are underserved.
Schools, access to food, safe public spaces, health services, and employment are all connected to where we live.
When disparities are stark and unaddressed, they undermine social cohesion and make societies less resilient.
Human security transforms housing into a driver of social development.
Human security puts people at the center, examining the broad range of risks and challenges they face in daily life.
It asks how housing can enable people to live with dignity, free from fear and want.
It connects housing to livelihoods, health, education, and social protection.
It considers community, culture, and local realities, and it ensures that solutions reach those who are most vulnerable and engages people in shaping their communities.
Across the world, people are designing housing strategies through the human security lens.
Neighborhoods in Tripoli, Lebanon, are creating stability for local communities and refugees through improved housing, safer streets, and stronger social ties.
In Cabo Verde, participatory local development planning gives residents a voice, expanding access to services and a sense of security.
In Cambodia, the cities for all Initiative is advancing inclusive housing through integrated planning and climate smart solutions for vulnerable communities.
In Mexico and South Africa, public spaces and housing improvements strengthen safety, belonging, and opportunity for all.
The challenges of today call for human security solutions.
As the world continues to urbanize, the challenges of climate change, growing inequalities, and conflict are reshaping where and how people live.
Meeting these challenges requires more than incremental change.
It calls for innovation for housing strategies that are comprehensive, transformative, and sustainable.
When approached through the lens of human security, housing becomes a foundation for peace, resilience, and social progress.
It is where people can live with dignity, build opportunity, and create a sense of belonging for generations to come.
Thank Now, it's my privilege now to introduce our first speaker, Mr.
Tarik Osn, country program manager at UN Habitat in Lebanon.
Mr.
Os has played a central role in one of the most impactful initiatives and collaborations between UN Habitat and the UN Trust Fund for Human Security.
That initiative is the development of the Neighborhood profiling tool in Tripoli.
It was grounded in a human security approach and this tool places the protection of safety for residents at its core, generating insights into vulnerabilities and capacities at the community level.
The Lebanon experience is particularly relevant and instructive.
Cities like Tripoli are shaped by multiple and overlapping waves of migration and displacement, where host communities and refugees populations live side by side under significant pressures.
This context underscores the importance of approaches that are both inclusive and responsive to layer vulnerabilities.
This tool has helped provide practical foundations for the emerging of the housing and human security for all methodology, ensuring that housing strategies are anchor in dignity, resilience, and inclusive development at the municipal level.
So we are grateful for your participation and we look forward to learning more about what happened in Tripoli.
Thank you.
Yes, hello, good afternoon.
First, I mean, I'm happy that we have also with us today a member from the municipality of Tripoli attending.
So this is another confirmation of what is going on in Tripoli.
Uh Today, I will really want to brief you about, I don't want to say a best practice, maybe a good practice about the one UN partnership that has been going on since 2018 and it involves the UN Human Security colleagues in New York, YN Habitat UNICEF and UN Woman.
In 2017, I remember there was a call for proposal by the human security, and we applied for the project together with Unicef and an Woman, which succeeded.
And, I mean, I will brief you about this project now and how it worked.
The implementation was for two years, and because it was really a good success, then We got another funding for another phase and another funding for the third phase.
Now we got funding to document this good practice and have a toolkit on how human security and the one UN can really be applied in other places, whether in Lebanon or even in the region.
So the one YN, I mean, I've been working with the UN for more than 25 years and I want to be really frank with you.
So it's not always this one Yan collaboration works well.
I mean, you were looking at me, but I think based on the experience, it works well when we go down to the level of the people.
This is where it really becomes a reality.
So it's not the theory and the design of nice joint projects.
It's really one you implement together with the people.
And I think this combination between UNICEF, UN Woman, and UN Habitat brought, you know, by looking into the problem from three different angles, and, you know, each UN agency has its mandate, has its expertise.
So all those together they were put, you know, for the sake of the people in Tripoli.
And I mean, just to mention that the project was and still in Bitabei, one of the, you know, most critical neighborhoods in Tripoli.
So, I mean, as you and habitat, we bring on the table, you know, our expertise in terms of the governance, the basic services, you know, the housing sector, and also public spaces, while UNICEF children, education, health, and of course, you and woman, gender livelihood and protection.
When all those come together to support the people, then this is how we can really meet the multiple needs of the population.
It happened also that in 2016 until 2019, habitat and UNICEF conducted a number of neighborhood profiles, mainly in the cities that hosted large numbers of Syrian refugees at that time.
And, you know, we use the neighborhood profiling to understand the impact of the refugees on the cities and on the neighborhood and also to identify the threats, you know, that this change in the demography was causing on the human security, mainly in the lack of basic services, maybe the safe environment and the social cohesion.
So the profiles helped us really in understanding better the situation and in designing our future interventions and this project with the human security was really based on the outcomes of the neighborhood profile.
The good thing that at that time, we had the municipality of Tripoli also on board.
From the beginning, they were part of this work, and this is why maybe this project succeeded at the beginning and continue until now.
If you see, this is just to say that the profiles They look at a wide variety of issues and sectors, and this is maybe the good thing about them.
At the end, we have collected data around different sectors, and there is also the analysis of data with the local stakeholders and with experts.
Then we come out with recommendations related to the different sectors, and if you see them, we're talking about basic services, buildings, and housing social interventions, livelihood, open spaces, cultural heritage, climate change, and so on.
So in the case of Tripoli, as I mentioned, we had the municipality of Tripoli, like in the driving seat as its main, counterpart.
We also collaborated with the Minister of Social Affairs because also in Tripoli, we have a community development center, which was part of the initiative.
And of course, we collaborated with the local grassroot NGOs and organizations and with the local communities.
So again, if we look what were the outcomes of the neighborhood and of course, if we look at them from different angles, we have the different sectors, and you can see them all listed.
Then we have the different institutions that were part of this exercise, and then the different population groups, and then the people in the center.
This is really how it works well because even you were looking into the issues from a triangular perspective.
I'm fine with it.
All right.
So I mean, if you look at the outcomes from the profiling, we have proper decision making, which is also participated.
This helps in having inclusive planning and targeted interventions, prevention oriented solutions, local ownership, which is very important and will also now explain how this local ownership has been going on until today.
So based on this project, We have established what we call Abjt Center.
It's a center that is located in Babbit Tabeni.
It's operated currently by a local NGO.
It has been operated by this NGO since 2019, fully operational by Ethiopia, if you know it.
So this community led center served as a hub for the people, for any as a referral.
If people have any issue that they want really to discuss and ask about, they go to the center and they at least maybe not the service, but at least they got the real information on how to get this service and it became like a hub for the area with a safe place for the woman to come and also explain about their issues and about their constraints, whether at the personal level or if there are any issues related to the community.
And the good thing about this project that we learned step by step.
So this was not like design from the beginning.
So with the experience, we were able really to modify and to shift according to the changing context, which was really the added value of working closely with the people And then when the center was there and, you know, we witnessed that people are coming to seek for advice, for advocacy, for services, and, you know, for any consultation, then we brought all the grassroot organizations that are based in this area to work together and they formed also what we call Shankal network.
The Shankl it means in Arabic, the So we thought I mean, they came with the name that, you know, they thought that, you know, those NGOs are all hooped together.
And the beauty about it that each NGO is coming with a different, you know, mandate, with a different expertise and, you know, with a different sector in terms of what they can provide in terms of support.
And until now, the Shanker network is still exist.
They are still meeting.
They are still using the Object Center as, you know, the hub.
And they are providing whatever they can in terms of services and advocacy to the people in different sectors based on the existing resources and whatever they have.
So I think that the main takeaways from this exercise that again, maybe I mentioned at the beginning that the UN to come together, they need to work, you know, at the level of the people and really not only at the planning level because we have seen a lot of joint programming, which didn't end into good joint implementation of projects.
Also, the profiling is one of the tools that helps even in bringing the UN together because, you know, we did the profiling together with UNICEF, but the sectors that were identified can bring maybe ten or 15 agencies to work together because, you know, all the sectors were in this area.
Then also the profiling, the good thing that they brought all the local actors together.
So we had the municipality in the driving seat.
We have the local NGOs, we have the communities, we have the people.
I'm done.
So this is also another factor that was behind the success of this, I mean, initiative.
So, I mean, this is it from my side, and, you know, happy to for the discussion.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Rose Rn, for your valuable, honest and informative insights and perspectives.
It's now my privilege to introduce our next panelist, Mr.
Evandro Holtz.
Mr.
Evandro Holtz is Deputy Head of the West Africa Hub at UN Habitat, where he supports regional efforts to advance inclusive and sustainable urban development in rapidly urbanizing contexts.
His work spans housing, public space, urban resilience, and strengthening collaboration with national and local governments.
Across his career, he has contributed to the application of participatory and community driven planning approaches, including tools such as the block by block methodology to help cities engage residents in shaping safer and more inclusive and more resilient urban environments.
Through this work, he supports the translation of urban commitments into integrated and locally grounded solutions.
It's going to be a pleasure to listen to your experience and to your contribution.
The floor is yours.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you so much for the opportunity and for the very kind invitation from the Human Security Trust Fund.
I'll talk a little bit about the experience of the work that we've been doing in Cabo verde, and you'll likely see a lot of similarities and definitely inspiration from the work that has been done in Lebanon.
I was just asking my colleague Tarek, if a Lebanese colleague of ours, Christel was part of the project there because she was the one that actually led quite a few elements that we had here.
Once again, this is also part of the one UN spirit that we're trying to and that we're actually not only trying, but we definitely promote as part of these initiatives.
How do I do this.
Just a quick introduction because maybe not everyone knows exactly where is Cabo verde and what are the main characteristics of the country.
Cabo verde is located in the west coast of Africa, is a small island developing state of about 460,000 people split into nine different inhabited islands, sorry, ten.
It's a highly urbanized country around 70% of people already live in cities.
It does already stand on middle or higher middle income country.
It's a good thing that is also very much politically speaking, it's a stable country.
It had held elections literally two days ago, everything went well.
The opposition party won and they're transitioning as we speak.
But of course, it still suffers from quite a few different issues because it's on the route of drug trafficking, for example, from South America to Europe and other places, which results, amongst other contexts, elements in a high rate of criminality, especially amongst the youth.
These issues are compounded by a series of factors, for example, the fact that it's highly dependent on tourism, the GDP reduced by almost 30% as part of the COVID pandemic amongst the others.
In the case of Cabo Verde, as I said, we're getting inspiration from Lebanon.
We're still on phase two.
UN Habitat is working with the UN DC, which is the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime.
The first phase was very much focused on COVID 19 recovery and awareness and advocacy, whereas the phase two gets inspiration from that, it builds from that experience, but it expands the work to also include the element of urban resilience and social housing.
For each one of the programs, we work in three different cities across the country with different characteristics because the idea here is also to test the grounds and see what works and what doesn't work.
I think one important element here to highlight is the work of the RC, the resident coordinator office.
For those that are not familiar with the UN structure at the country level, you have the different agencies with the different mandates as my colleague was saying.
RCO resident coordinator's office then is in charge of coordinating the work between the different agencies and plays quite an important role in understanding how these different agencies can actually work together.
One of the main elements of the initiatives, both in phase one and phase two is the application of the block by block methodology that is based on minecraft for those that are young enough or have younger members in the family or relatives, know what the Minecraft is.
The idea here is that really we allow the engagement of the youth and of course children as part of the process in this case, specifically focus on public spaces, and as I said, in the new phase of the program on housing.
In terms of the process itself, it follows a very similar approach.
Now as for Lebanon, you start with the assessment, then you have the workshops where people come together, we get the feedback and validation later on for the design implementation of the resulting public spaces.
What's let's say novative or different about the case of Cabove is the fact that we apply the human security approach to human security lens from day one.
The block by block methodology was adapted based on the seven elements of human security, including economy, food, environmental security amongst others.
And as I said, I mean, with time, we realized that although public spaces was an important element of these communities, the social housing settlement, you know, that includes other elements, no, I mean, passageways, maybe some hidden alleys that were causing some issues in terms of security should be included as part of the, uh, uh, assessment.
In terms of the concrete results that we've had thus far in the three different cities that are part of phase one, in all cases, we got the full validation from not only the community, but also the municipalities, which allowed us to institutionalize some of this process within the strategic plans of each one of these cities and that happened to the point that I just got the confirmation because I was trying to get information for this presentation that in all cases, although the project itself didn't include the budget for the construction of the public spaces, Each CD has managed to implement different stages of implementation, but they're executing the projects in different ways with their own resources.
How the joint work between different agencies actually enhance the program.
It worked in different ways.
First of all, that we managed to operationalize a single language.
We didn't only talk about public spaces or housing or human security.
It was really something that we jointly developed the methodology since the beginning.
I've already mentioned the crucial role played by the Office of the resident coordinator, which is, again, quite crucial in the case of C Cabo verde.
The methodology itself allowed us to engage those that are generally left behind in this kind of processes.
We managed to adapt it throughout the different phases because we started with a focus on COVID, but then the war in Ukraine started.
I mean, again, it's a small island development state, so everything that is happening globally affect the country directly.
We did manage to engage also with other agencies that were not originally part of the programs such as UNICEF, UDP, FAO, and amongst others.
As part of the process, we had the opportunity to establish and are still establishing some of the tools and mechanisms that would allow the replication of the same model elsewhere.
So in terms of the context of small island development states, I think that the case of Cabove really provides a model that can be replicated scaled elsewhere, know as part of the elements that I've shared here.
It's really important to say that institutionalization, what I call the incorporation, know of the human security and public spaces in housing as part of other governmental initiatives that go much beyond the project itself is crucial for that regard.
Once again, we will continue collaborating with the different agencies to ensure that the impact of this project doesn't stop there, that it really goes much beyond its initial scope.
Thanks again for the opportunity and I'll be very happy to answer any questions.
And if you have any suggestions, of course, we're open to discuss later on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Holtz.
We certainly have a moment for comments and questions.
Thank you so much for that practical view and perspective based on the live experiences of the populations living in context of small island developing states.
It's now my pleasure to invite our third speaker, doctor Roshni Bob, Senior Executive of the Directorate for Safety at in municipality in Durban.
Doctor Bob brings today's discussion a perspective grounded in municipal action.
She has been working on linking the human settlements action and public safety through a human security lens.
Her experience is highlighting how housing intersects with climate risks, social cohesion, and community well being and underscores the importance of people centered processes in advancing adequate housing for all.
Human Security, together with Mexico where beneficiaries countries of a piloting process of the human security and participatory appraisals.
It offers valuable insights into how joint UN supported tools can strengthen coherence and effectiveness at the municipal level.
We look forward to hearing your presentation.
Doctor Bob, the floor is yours.
Good afternoon.
Today, I'd like to share our experience from Atiguini Municipality, the city of Durban, on the one UN approach and collaboration between municipalities, communities, and particularly the UN country teams, and in our case, the UN country team in South Africa, including UN habitat and other UN partners have been central in our projects and shared success.
Thank you.
We take a journey from participation to policies.
We have to understand from a country that's been governed in an apartheid regime to democracy, one of the things that we have to start initially is when democracy prevailed 30 years ago, what do you do in that journey? How do you look at inclusive communities and the approach We began with the community based human security appraisals, where residents identified risks relating to their safety, the housing, and the services.
Remember, historically, we had land masses that was never governed, but depended on traditional counsel and those aspects and introducing them to a governance approach was the journey.
The In that way, the insights fed into a human security monitor and generated evidence that would directly inform municipal decisions, particularly around housing, land use management, and the safety interventions.
Through collaboration with the UN partners, we have strengthened these tools, ensuring that the local data aligns with global standards and supports integration in urban policies.
The Durban reality is it's a coastal city and We're facing informality, inequality, and climate stress, converging at the housing being at the center in that space and it overlaps risks such as affecting safety, tenure, and access to services.
Working with the UN country team, we have been able to frame these challenges into a broader sustainable development and resilience agenda, ensuring that local realities inform national and global discussions in that space.
Linked to linked to the relationship.
I'm sorry, I need to go back one.
This is not my friend linked to the relationships, particularly where the one UN approach culminates with multiple data sources.
You have UN agencies all over bringing information into the city of Durbin and that is created from a human security process together with the human security appraisal.
We've identified priority hotspots where multiple risks interact.
Here, the UN habitat and other UN agencies have supported the methodology for risk mapping as spatial analysis and inclusive planning and has helped us strengthen the evidence based decision making that we share within our council and get buy in from our political players.
The community led diagnostics has become a very important tool in this space because you have to understand the civil society, including people coalitions for adequate housing, the slum dwellers International, and other activities to identify both the problems, the issues, the social and cultural dynamics, and then thereafter sit together and produce solutions.
The one UN approach became tangible at the neighborhood level, particularly around the participatory processes, building capacity and ensuring that no one was left behind.
In this situation, you need to understand that sometimes when you're moving from one government into another governance process.
Government may not be trusted and having the UN partners present in our space created that trust and brought government together with civil society and communities together.
From a neighborhood level, we had various layers.
We we have a safer layout and improved access routes when it comes to transportation and the safety pin one of our civil society organizations played a crucial role.
From a human security perspective, we also linked to the assessments, improved lighting and better public spaces so that people can engage more effectively.
We integrated informal settlements into an upgrading mode, through the one UN approach and also strengthened social cohesion where a country like ours, being the rainbow nation, embraced cultural diversity in that space.
The key achievements in our space is mostly about the understanding and embedding safety, dignity, and inclusion into planning to such an extent where nobody felt that they were entitled to anything.
They understand that government is an enabling environment and making people understand that this is my city, it's my safety and my responsibility.
Everybody has to take ownership in that journey.
Enabling communities to influence decisions.
When you start understanding that it's your responsibility, you become more vocal.
But you're you're trained and you're given tools through the approach, the one UN approach to help in that space.
We promoted preventative approaches such as community safety forums and neighborhood watches.
It was methodologies that brought communities together to discuss their matters first before bringing it as individuals into the government space.
And The outcomes in that space, it actually started to support joint programming.
It also started to align interventions into the sustainable development goal methodology, and particularly the SDG 11 around sustainable cities.
So Durban makes an attempt and tries to actually lead when it comes to people centered housing transformation.
It's about understanding each neighborhood and understanding the complexities of that space.
No one design fits all is taken into account.
The human security framework enables enables integration and inclusion.
Also, it makes cities more resilient.
It makes the urban environments more resilience through early warning systems.
For us, being a coastal city and being exposed to huge risks and matters of climate change, as well as being a city that's got more than 800 informal settlements, fire is a huge challenge.
If one of the informal settlements embrace fire, you may have 200 households without a space.
In that and sometimes it's declared a disaster.
Early warning systems have become a community need and based on that, we have embraced that and took it through to the UN partners, and this is the solution that we've had.
It's just a 1 minute video that I'd like to share with you.
Fuse is a system that uses a whole lot of models where we can interpret and collaborate and identify significant areas which we can then use the information to warn our sister departments such as disaster management as well as our maintenance departments to tell them of an upcoming rain event.
This allows them to pool their resources for those specific areas and creates a more proactive approach instead of a reactive response.
The sustainable development goal that we will be talking about here is number 11, where we include communities, we create a safer environment for the community, and a more proactive approach trying to save lives instead of reacting to a disaster scenario.
CSTM is very proud of the fuel system and we would like to replicate it all over the country.
You just need the resources and expertise to do so.
Isn't Durban beautiful.
I took the opportunity to share this particular video to also see what a beautiful coastal city we are.
For the record, we only have a week of winter.
It's the warmest place to be.
But, in closing, I'd like to say that the Durban experience highlights the power of partnerships across all levels, taking into account both local, continental and global partners and the one approach brings together those type of avenues to a sustainable urban development and also community development and community driven solutions.
I'd like to personally thank the UN system, particularly in South Africa, because they bring the other partners into our spaces and to further scale these successes and ensure that inclusive, safe, and resilient cities prevail everywhere, particularly around the coastal areas globally.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, doctor Bob, for the presentation and for the invitation to go to Durban, which we will gladly accept.
Allow me to thank all the panelists.
I think it's been really enriching to hear these practical insights on how the UN system can actually work together and be empowered to make real impact on people's lives through the human security approach.
And just to continue the exchange, I think this is the perfect moment for opening the floor for comments and questions.
Many of you probably are having pressing questions and comments.
So please just raise your hand and when you give you introduce yourself briefly and just share with us your experience hopefully from your own work and the context that will be very enriching and also we particularly welcome obviously like your views, especially if you are a representative from national and local government, if you have experience working with the UN agencies or any other partners who have been trying to implement integrated programs.
We have the microphone coming.
Thank you so much.
This is Rana from Lebanon, UN Habitat staff.
I would like also to acknowledge the very good insights from this panel.
Thank you.
One of the biggest challenges that we faced when implementing a joint UN programming in Lebanon, particularly was not the technical aspect, it was the operations behind the scenes.
Procurement, for instance, between UN joint agencies, or even finance or even reporting.
The function differently um, behind the scenes and with each agency.
My question for the panel, how can we avoid these operational gaps that ultimately reduce and slow implementation when we're working on joint programming? Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I think we're going to take two more questions or comments and then we will have the round.
Please take your notes.
You're ready? Yes, please, go ahead.
Hello, this is Bilal Hassan.
I'm a counselor in Tripoli municipality, the city that Mr.
Tare was talking about a while ago.
First of all, I wasn't member of the council yet when this project was implemented, but definitely I know it as an activist in the area.
I've definitely visited this space several times.
I talked there even before and after I was elected.
But right now right now also we are implementing a project with three UN agencies with the UNDP, IOM, and UNICEf a project through the peace Building fund in Lebanon.
I'm seeing these challenges that you were talking about and a small joke about this.
Last meeting a couple of days ago, they both had two out of three had a clash and they talked to me after that and how did you feel I told them it felt as if you're a child and your parents are fighting together.
But to go back to reality, in fact, these projects, even though they're not the easiest to implement, but at the end when you finish, you can see that their impact might be because they cover different aspects.
So definitely they could be much more helpful for the community and much more sustainable, just like the project that Mr.
Tare was talking about a bit ago.
Thank you.
Thank you for that experience.
Do we have any other comment or question? I'm going to ask our speakers to answer the question that was placed first ladies first.
I just think from a South African perspective, as I mentioned, that we do have a one UN approach and we do have a South African based environment at the national level.
What we do is we make sure that we get buy in.
In that place from a holistic perspective.
Then we as the city of Durban, has a memorandum of agreement signed with the UN habitat, and then we bring in other partners through that memorandum of agreement in it.
The other thing is that we have an integrated development approach to the way we function as a five year process.
We understand, um, our system environments within the space, what their core priorities would be, and then we bring it through into the integrated approach, and then from the other spheres of government is the district development model.
We also bring that we understand the needs in that space and sharing information and data becomes important.
And then thereafter, when we establish a relationship, we have to go through to council for approval.
At council, that knowledge is shared with all the decision makers together with the strategists in the city.
That's how we get information and we rope in people in that space.
But we clearly approach things in a neighborhood way.
Not as holistic because each neighborhood post apartheid into democracy has its own challenges.
You have your effluent areas, and then you have the marginalized areas that's wanting to strive towards that level of effluency.
In that space, but you have different types, different cultures meeting one another with that.
The assessments occur at the neighborhood level shared with counsel and then through the memorandum of agreement, we bring all the other partners in.
And in some instances like, for example, the human security one, we were grateful to Mr.
Azago who has been with us for 20 years, in many ways, and he introduced that methodology to us and it's become the best and most trusted methodology because the communities are now embracing it.
Thank you.
I know my colleague Tarek has been strategic here because the question from Ra is quite a difficult one to answer, but I'll try my best.
I'm not nearly as experienced as him in the UN system, I've been around for about nine years now.
Indeed, the operations are often the biggest challenge when implementing these programs and simple things, for those that are outside of the unit system, like Roya saying in terms of procurement, but also even more basic functions, even the system of sharing folder, sharing files within the system can be a challenge, and we have to rely sometimes on Google Drive or whatever other tools to make this exchange.
I think the first step here is to be transparent and recognize that this is an issue.
No, because the last thing that we want here is to promise something either to the community or to the government or to any other partner that in the end of the day we cannot deliver.
And also, what you were also saying in terms of the engagement with the municipality to ensure that there is a buy in, there's an engagement.
I think that's important and once again, transparency is key on that process.
The second point is planning.
Now, if we know that procurement is it's going to take six months, I mean, it is what it is.
I mean, it's not going to be two months, it's not going to be four, it's going to be six.
So we have to plan for that and incorporate that element into the work plan of the project.
No, there's not much we can do about it that either for the time being.
Then I wanted to highlight once again, the role of the RCO because it is part of the job of the resident coordinator office to understand what are the strengths and weaknesses of the system and push on that.
I mean, if there's a need, for example, for one agency to focus on one activity, whereas the other one focuses on a different task, I mean, this is something that can always be discussed.
And although this is something relatively recent, for those that have heard, the UN is going through a big reform, UN 80, and one of the emails and notifications that I've got lately is that there is an intent to unify, for example, the procurement process at the country level.
Cabo Verde has been historically one of the countries where some of these initiatives are pilot.
You know, for example, the UN info, which is communication and platform to to disseminate the results of the UN system in the country was first tested in Caldes so we really wish that maybe Cabvedes also get selected to test this new platform because as the ex colleague has said, this is indeed something that would greatly enhance the effectiveness of our programs.
Thank you.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, again, this is one of the maybe hardest questions and especially that, you know, at the field, we suffer a lot because we see how much, you know, people are in need of the service or the project.
And then, you know, we are waiting for all the processes to be completed.
And I always argue, you know, with our senior and headquarter colleagues that instead of having, you know, the operational systems to ease our lives, we do things, you know, to please the system.
And this is really how it has been becoming because I recall, you know, like 20 years ago, in one day, you can process an agreement and you can do the payment and you can do everything in two or three days and this is it.
This is a question I would ask Juma to raise it to the headquarter level because I don't think that we really have the answers.
I'm going to what Mr.
Bilal was saying, because I know that there is now a project funded by the Peace Building fund also a joint initiative in Tripoli.
I really want you because we tried a lot, because we support municipalities as Habitat, we work closely with municipalities.
And we ask them to initiate a coordination, you know, platform that is led by the municipality and to, you know, invite all the UN agencies and other, you know, like international NGOs working in the city and to understand what's really happening, what they are doing, what they are planning to do, and make sure that those are really in line with your plans, so they are not doing something different.
And I think this is how the municipality can inform the work of the UN.
So rather than coming with our projects and our you know, ideas, let it come from the municipality, let it come from a municipal plan, that we really ask the UN agencies to abide by this plan and we are ready to support you in this regard.
Thank you very much.
Well, we have explored a lot of challenges.
But looking forward and also you making the most of your experience, why don't we try to explore as a mean of closing remarks as well.
Sort, not too long.
Will you please highlight some enabling factors that will strengthen this one UN coordination and this integrated approach and effort? What will be that whether operational, institutional, this enabling factor that you said, this is something that we need to highlight.
I honestly feel at a personal and professional level, we place too much of emphasis on money and budgets and funding.
I want to challenge the UN to bring us together and find alternate solutions to this because we're working with people.
You people working businesses and other avenues and everything.
What else can we do? Because the reality is throughout the world, everybody is given a mission, do more with less.
And then as government practitioners, what do we do then? You know? And then we change our role and we say, no, no, no, no, we only an enabling environment.
You know, we can create the atmosphere, but you have to now come on board and get things done.
So how can we start getting direction around that, you know, to start looking at solutions because, I mean, from our case, the human security solution, came with a little bit of funding, but most of the work and most of the insightful processes came when we brought communities, businesses, and civil society together and solutions were in that space.
They created alternate social infrastructures for engagement and those type of things.
Yes, Some of the operational costs increased, some of the service delivery costs increased.
But from a marginalized point of view, creating access was successful.
How would we find that alternative to actually say, in a priority of the top five, funding must become number five, one, two, three, and four must be something else.
Thank you.
Another very important question and I will piggyback on your answer as well because I think the word people for me is the one that is crucial in this aspect because in the end of the day, I know that we're talking about institutions and be different UN agencies, be it UN with the government, be it between different departments within the government.
I mean, all of these institutions and departments, they are made by people.
No, and of course, everyone here has experience is nowhere.
You try to engage with one institution and then the person that you're trying to engage with changes, and then suddenly everything starts happening.
And the other way around.
No, I mean, so has been going very smoothly.
Suddenly, because there's a change in the department, things start crumbling down.
So once again, people are the most crucial factor for me for such things to happen.
I mean, we're here and connecting people, getting to know in person, people from different agencies, different institutions.
I think that's a very good starting point or leapfrog in some of these collaborations that would already happen.
And in the end of the day for me, the word that apply both to housing or to any initiative know in that regard is incrementalism.
No.
I mean, we cannot expect that the very first joint program is going to be perfect and everything is going to work beautifully.
No.
I mean, some things are going to work well, and in the next one, you try to improve and understand and calibrate also your expectations.
But at the end of the day, once again, it's about people, willingness, energy, and a lot of persistence.
Yeah.
Maybe it was all said, but I just want to really say that we need to change the mind, because money is not the objective, money is really the mean to reach to people and to provide services.
I think this is where now that everyone is really just looking how to get money and not to see the real things.
Yeah, I mean, I fully agree that, you know, the communities are really the main partners.
Again, I think if you know the national and the local governments really understand and they know what exactly, they need Then this will help also the others in mainstreaming their support to one track and which is one vision.
Thank you very much for that hopeful note and it's something that we certainly have in all our communities and cities.
Allow me to invite you to give another round of applause to say thank you to the panelists for.
To build on this discussion, also please to invite Mr.
Duma Sgo to share some reflections and outline directions and the way forward.
Mr.
Asiago is an urban development specialist at UN habitat and has served as program manager for the Global Initiative, making cities and human settlements safer after COVID 19, strengthening awareness of safer cities tools, applying a human security framework, funded by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security.
Through this program, he worked closely with UN partners, national and local governments and city stakeholders to promote integrated prevention oriented approaches to link housing, urban safety, community resilience and engagement with a coherent human security framework.
So drawing on his experience, Mr.
Aciago will reflect on key lessons from JoN UN action and highlight practical opportunities for further strengthening the one UN action, including the application of housing and the human security for all model.
Mr.
Aciago, floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
This has been a very powerful panel and I think one of the real concrete ways that I think countries would want to see the UN pull together towards not just the 2030 agenda, but also beyond that in terms of how we look at the new Urban Agenda 2036.
I think for where I sit, we have been over 20 years now down this path of piloting strategies and policies around municipal strengthening municipal government capacity building on the prevention approach.
There have been a number of pilots that the UN has undertaken globally in all regions of the world.
I think this is one of the spaces that I can say has demonstrated one of the most innovative ways of institutionalizing sustainability at the local government level.
The principles we have had today, the no one size fits all approach, the idea of engaging communities, a people centered approach, the idea of leveraging on evidence to inform policies and programs.
All these aspects were part of what prevention began to bring to the local government space two to three decades ago.
And now we are in a full scale situation where it has become an urban concept.
It's part of the urban grammar way beyond just the safety discourse.
When we speak to integrated policies, this exactly is the arena you want to look into to understand how this has been applied in cities, in differentiated ways, and in ways that have actually enabled communities to grow.
And so I'm proud today that we have, for example, our distinguished ambassador of Colombia to UN Habitat.
In habitat today, we have what we call an open ended intergovernmental working group that is trying to build peer to peer learning between governments to ensure that governments can lead this agenda of scaling up what we are doing.
And to ensure that we are actually leveraging on countries that have succeeded in making this happen.
As much as we didn't hear today the presentation of Colombia, but yesterday we did.
We had the case of Medrin I think for the UN family, Median is one of those case studies that we say is a global laboratory, a global laboratory of knowledge that we can consolidate in line with what are the exact ideas of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the urban agenda.
It is also a laboratory that many universities around the world have taken learning studios into Colombian to try to extrapolate innovative solutions and to inform them the integrated solutions that the 2030 agenda and the new Urban agenda are really aspiring to.
In a nutshell, UN habitat has come together with the UN trust fund and Human Security.
Executive Director Anna Claudia has been very central to try to put housing at the center of this conversation on sustainable urban development.
UN Habitat has now put in place what we call the strategic plan 2026 to 2029.
In this now, we have also had the two principals now exchange letters of collaboration.
Um, to be able to harness this knowledge of the countries that have had these practices already as demonstrated by this very noble panel, and to take this forward towards the World Urban Forum 2028 in Mexico City to ensure that we're not only systematizing these experiences, but we are also making sure that we are now beginning to measure and monitor the quality and consistency of these municipal policies and programs and how they are making change in communities on the ground.
We hope that part of the roadmap of implementation will involve the development of a methodology in housing and human security.
Because we already have the evidence.
All we now need is to pull this together into a way in which cities into guidelines, into ways in which cities and national governments can be able to leverage and inform what we call their integrated housing policies.
In November this year, we will be having the next open ended working group in which our distinguished ambassador will be part of, and one of the agenda items is integrated housing policies.
In fact, this is the space that we can see now, South Africa, Lebanon, Colombia, the countries that you've had making presentations here, being able to showcase how these integrated housing policies go beyond just shelter provision and become enablers as what this World Urban Forum is saying, enablers of safety, of inclusion, of resilience.
So we really have a moment and a real moment now to really take forward this cooperation that the UN Trust Fund and Human Security has provided for us.
And as you heard what my regional director did say, the opening of this, we are ready to actually move and mobilize the UN family, the UN country teams, the resident coordinators to take this effort forward.
I thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Acigo for that call for action.
Now, for closing remarks, we are lucky to have the ambassador.
I would like to give the floor to His Excellency, Mr.
Pedro Leon Cortes Riz, ambassador of Colombia to the Republic of Kenya, and also permanent representative of Colombia to UN Habitat and Up.
Please, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Madam Moderator.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you to the panelists.
It was really inspiring to hear from these experiences and especially the last question, I like a lot, the reflections in terms of the enables.
Highlighting precisely is not just money, it's not technical, but it is basically deepening participation.
That's good.
Thank you, Mr.
Asgo, for highlighting the case of managing Colombia that we feel very proud and thank you, Sebastian, for being here.
Colombia expresses its gratitude to the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and UN Habitat for promoting the valuable space for dialogue on housing policies and their relation to human security.
In this regard, we share the conviction that improving levels of human security requires progress in comprehensive habitat management processes aimed at preventing, mitigating, and addressing the risks and threats arising from both the characteristics of the settlements and the dynamics of conflict.
Similarly, we believe that the development of countries is not only result of the state led action or of the private sector initiative, but also is built from the communities themselves who own the fundamental capacity to promote their own economic development and the strengthening of their territories.
We also highlight the essential role of the United Nations system, whose support is key to advancing in the consolidation of resilient and safe communities, promoting the strengthening of the social fabric and the improvement of people's quality of life.
Finally, we deeply value the experiences shared in this space, which constitute a source of inspiration to continue advancing in the construction of more cohesive communities.
In particular, these experiences show that it is possible to strengthen human security and settlement through structured exercises of territorial riding, which makes it possible to identify specific local conditions, strengthen community capacities, and promote self management schemes.
Thank you very much.
Got you.
Thank you very much, Excellency, for your closing and thoughtful remarks.
I think we all can agree that it has been a very enriching session with ideas on how we can move forward and ideas that confirm that coordinated action to address very complex urban challenges is possible, especially when we share a common vision and a common approach.
I would like to thank all of you for coming and being with us, to the panelists for sharing those valuable contributions.
I think your insights have brought to life that added value of the one UN competition.
So looking forward for the next steps.
Please give a last round of applause and let's keep these ideas moving forward.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.