UN-Habitat Arena - SDG 11 Progress Review and 50 Years of Urban Development (WUF13)

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So just a few minutes.
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Good afternoon, everyone.
Apologies for the delay.
It's a pleasure to have you all here.
Thank you also for joining us.
It is the last day of the Woof.
I hope you enjoy it, that you learn it but also share their experience.
Let's start now our session.
It's time for a start the session on SDG 11, progress review and 50 years of urban development towards inclusive resilience and data driving cities.
My name is Alinimat.
I'm the head of UN Haptat Office in Geneva, and I'm also the head of the data and Innovation section and UTAC that's visiting Hamburg.
In this session, we are focusing on urbanization, one of the greatest mega trends in the 21st century.
Over the past five years, urbanization has fundamentally reshaped the global development landscape.
Cities have become engines of economic growth, innovation, and cultural exchange, but also focal points of inequality, environmental stress, and vulnerability to climate risks.
Since the Habitat one, two, and three conferences, the global community has progressively advanced a shared vision for sustainable urban development, culminating in the adoption of the new urban agenda and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development with sustainable development goal 11 at its core.
With less than five years remaining to 2030, the global review of SDG 11 at the 2026 high level political forum in New York presents a critical opportunity to assess progress, identify persistent gaps, and define transformative pathways.
Despite notable advance, SDG 11 remains off track.
Challenges such as global housing crisis, the expansion of informal settlements, limited access to basic services, and increasing exposure to climate hazards continue to undermine progress.
Today's discussion, we reflect on 50 years of urban transformation and how this has placed us today in the urgent need to deliver on SDG 11, focusing especially on three points.
Persistent inequalities, housing and informal settlements, and the role of data systems in driving action.
This session will have two parts just for you to understand how we are going to be organized.
In the first few minutes, we are going to have Robert Negua who is the chief of the data and Statistics unit at UN Habitat.
He will be explaining to us some of the trends in urbanization of the last half of enure and also about the most trends on how we are doing towards achieving SG 11.
After the presentation.
Then we're going to have an open conversation with our distinguished panel, and that includes representatives from other SDG 11 custodian agencies within the UN system, government, civil society, and community organizations and academia, who will help us unpack some of the key pressing urban issues today and also into the future.
Without any further delay, I would now like to welcome Robert for your presentation.
Thank you so much, A, for that wonderful introduction.
Good afternoon to you all and thanks so much for showing up for this specific session, which, as Arlene noted, will focus on SDG 11, but of course, a very quick run through in terms of some early findings that we have.
Of course, flagging up front that SDG 11 is under review this year at the high level political forum.
So we'll have a detailed conversation and presentations, but also a report, and SDG 11 synthesis report, which is produced by partners and custodial agencies, which will also be available in New York later this year.
The first flag, of course, is just to remember, SDG 11 has ten targets.
These ten targets, of course, have gone through a lot in terms of methodological improvements and developments.
We've been involved in collecting a lot of data.
Today, we do have quite a number of the indicators and targets of SDG 11, at least sitting in tier one and tier two, which means methodologically, we've done a very good job.
But in terms of data coverage, we're also pushing, working very closely with national statistical offices and partners to make sure that we do collect a lot of data, which then can help us understand and piece the story together for how we are performing on SDG 11 in general.
In terms of the target by target analysis and insights, starting off with SDG 11.11 on slums and informal settlements.
Here, the story, of course, is very much a mixed bag.
We know that close to 3 billion people in terms of a minimum of around 3 billion people today are living in situations that can be considered as experiencing inadequate housing.
Of course, when you break that down further into regions and countries, we begin to see clearly there are some regions that are being left behind, S Shaan Africa being one of those Central and Southern Asia as well, particularly when you look into the frame of slums and informal settlements as a good example.
The idea here, of course, when you deep dive on the slums and informal settlements, we see clearly what we call the slum paradox.
The share in terms of the proportion of people who live in slums and informal settlements, is decreasing, which is good.
But when we look at the absolute numbers of people who experience slumness or informal settlements life, that proportion is increasing.
We can see it more clearly on this specific graph, which of course, you can also see it across the regions.
You see quite well that the share proportional has been decreasing, and that is true for quite a number of regions.
The absolute numbers, the graph you see on the other side is clearly increasing.
It's a battle that we are still fighting over and over.
I think a focus on housing and slums and informal settlements is very much on top of many people's agenda simply because those absolute numbers today we have 1.16 billion people who live in slums and informal settlements and if we don't put in more efforts, those numbers are expected to increase.
When we move to target 112 on access to public transport, we see here again significant improvements, but not that much.
For example, for the period 2020 to 2025, we saw an increase in the proportion of people who access convenient transport, public transport specifically rising from 53.2%, going to 61.5%.
But the idea here again is to dissect that data further.
When we look at the type of services that are available, it's very much the aspect of low capacity public transport systems do dominate, particularly here buses.
They're the main means of transport.
We do, of course, have very limited aspects in terms of mass transport systems are not largely available in many, many cities.
We learning a lot more by just opening up many of these targets and indicators that can give us plenty of insights.
When we look at public transport and access by types of houses, early data working with around 441 cities shows us clearly that access to public transport is highest in high density housing settlement areas as opposed to non high density settlement areas.
Again, when we are dissecting this, where is access actually higher? Where is access actually lower, we are beginning to learn that besides, for example, this aggregated data by housing typologies, And when we move next to target 113, which looks at urban expansion, but also civic engagement and participation, starting with 1131, the aspect here is we want to have a very delicate and informed balance between land consumption and population growth rate.
The global statistics here shows us that Clearly, our cities are consuming much more land at a faster rate than the rate at which the population is actually growing.
This aspect, of course, is true and consistently very well observed through different time periods as you see quite on the graph.
But of course, what is also interesting here that we've done some additional analysis around the housing typologies and land consumption rates and we see, for example, that housing is one of the major drivers of urban spiral, but this is very true in low housing settlements as well.
This analysis is again available time period 2010 and 2025.
When you look at just the built upness again, we've done additional analysis and the key message here is that the built up area per capita is also increasing very, very fast, and this is quite true for quite a number of the time periods that we have looked at for the period 2000 to 2025.
Again, basically replaying the message that we are consuming much more land, much more faster than the rate at which our population is growing.
The complimentary indicator to target 113 looks at the level of civic engagement in urban planning processes and urban development processes.
And here, of course, the aspect is to look at three, uh, elements to assess how much we create that space for civil society engagement citizens to engage in the processes of urban planning and development.
What we see here in terms of our results that in general, that participation space is not largely available for many cities.
We do have it being quite higher in some regions, but a significant quite a number of cities, these remains are quite low.
When you look at the green graph, the dark green, the high participation is very high in North America and Europe, but in many other regions, this remains much more limited in terms of that participation.
When you look at Target 114 on the amount of investments we put in culture conservation and heritage contervention, we see that there's been significant progress around the aspect of collecting this information since 2015.
Early results here shows us that there's of course, a very limited investment in the conservation and preservation of our culture assets, but as well as the heritage assets.
These are other results that UNESCO has also brought in.
The aspect of course is make sure we put in more investments in the conservation and preservation of those key assets.
Waste management, target 116, here we do see coverage, but the aspect is not just coverage going up in terms of waste collection, the target and indicator itself looks at how responsibly that waste is also being managed.
Collection coverages could be high.
We see differences across regions, but in terms of the responsible management, the environmentally responsible management of that West, we see a big discrepancy around the percentages.
It comes close to 94%, but responsible management drops down to much lower figures, and that's true even for many cities in the global South.
When we look at target 117, access to open public spaces, the message here, of course, is again, very clear.
For the time period 2020 to 2025, we've seen a significant improvement, rather, a very small improvement, 16.6% for 2020, now it's 17 for 2025.
So there's those drastic improvements, but the story here again is very much at the regional level.
When you open it up regional levels, or if you open it up within cities in the same country, you begin to see cities and regions that are being left behind.
One of our e analysis around, again, housing typologies and access to open public spaces will show you, for example, that people who live in slums and informal settlements are significantly deprived in access to open public spaces.
So they tend to live in areas where open public spaces are not easily accessible to them.
Visa vis, of course, people who live in high end and expensive housing settlements.
So the aspect, of course, and the lesson here is that At the broad spectrum level, we might see progress, but when you open and disaggregate that data within countries or within regions or even within cities in the same countries, you begin to see some of those discrepancies.
In general, what we also see is that as cities are growing, one aspects we've been looking at is the green spaces that are available in cities.
The evidence shows us very clearly that the green spaces are shrinking very fast compared to the rate at which cities are also growing.
Again, a very significant concern on that specific aspect.
On the side of the national urban policies, we've had a very positive story in terms of countries that are doing a significant uptake on the implementation, but also the development of national urban policies.
But clearly across the three dimensions, in terms of those policies that respond to population dynamics and those policies that respond to the balanced territorial development, as well as the local fiscal space, we begin to see some, of course, performing much more better in terms of increase for local fiscal space, many national urban policies addressing that specific concern.
I think at the tail end of this process, we also see a scenario where the policies are developed.
But when you check for the levels of implementation, as we'll hear later also from OECD, level of implementing and resourcing and financing those policies is a little bit unbalanced.
On 11 C, which of course looks and focuses on how much ODA is actually going into urban infrastructure and housing.
We see, of course, again, a mixed bag here and a discrepancy, but all data that has come through clearly shows that a lot of the development assistance that is coming up to many developing regions, we see a good share that is going into housing.
But the aspect, of course, is opening it up to know which houses is it actually funding? Is it funding higher end housings, or is it funding informal settles? Is it funding housing that is basically evidence based in terms of the needs and the distribution of that.
These are part of the questions that are also coming up.
But clearly, I think housing here comes through as one area where that investment is happening.
These are some of the other results that we do have.
We do have teams from WHO who work with us.
They will be able to share a little bit more on other aspects and indicators, particularly air quality and other aspects around disasters, but I'll leave it at that and hand over the floor to you, Ali.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Robert.
Thank you for setting the scene to us and also for demonstrating how we are progressing towards the achievement of SG 11.
We are certainly still far from attaining division of SG 11 by 2030, but we still have hope we can still work and have urgent actions to advance.
We will now unpack some of the points that we saw here with our distinguished panelists.
So I would like to ask you all to welcome to please join us.
We have Natalie Lohr from WHO, please, from the World Health Organization.
A round of applause.
Welcome, Natalie.
We have also Claudia Barraze from OECD.
Claudia, please.
A round of applause.
Then we have Ibrahim Sis from Humanitarian Open Street Map.
Please join us.
And finally, we have Had Sadat from the Gatan City Region Observatory.
Please join us.
Welcome, welcome.
So colleagues, while they are settling here just to tell you, we are going to have a moment for questions and this of course, also include the presentation of Robert.
So if you have any comments or questions also to Robert, then we can also follow up afterwards.
So let's start.
Where's Robert? Okay.
He'll be back and then he sits there.
It's okay.
Let's start with a quick introduction from each of you.
I will ask you to briefly introduce yourself and what do you consider as the most urgent SAG 11 indicator and for which action is needed right now and why? 1 minute, 2 minutes just for you to share with us, please.
Natalie, please flip.
Thank you very much and thank you very much for inviting me.
My name is Natalie Rubble and I am WHO's technical lead on urban health.
Actually, the answer is very simple.
They are all relevant to health because actually each single indicator that we have been discussing are actually health indicators.
Now, if I have to pick one in particular, I would say that most importantly, what we are looking at is SDG Indicator 116.2 on air quality in urban areas.
Obviously, the reason is if you at this situation in the world today, air pollution is actually responsible for globally 7 million deaths every year.
If you look actually at how the air pollution and in particular, PM two levels are within the world, they are actually five times higher in average to the recommendations that WHO has been making in the air quality guidelines.
We have seen that there has been a decrease in PM two in the last years 2010-2020, but then it has stagnated.
And obviously, there are huge differences within regions, but also within rural and urban areas.
And in particular, when we look at urban areas, depending on income, economic terms.
So in conclusion, this is a key indicator for health.
And interestingly, it's WHO, the health organization who is hosting the custodian of this agency.
So it's very important for us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Natalie.
Moving to Claudia now, please.
Thank you so much.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Very happy to be here as well and thank you for the invitation.
My name is Claudia Brenel at the OECD, which is the International Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.
I I'm head of the Spatial Analysis lab and we do work a lot with you and Abt that's exactly on what Robert showed in his introduction, really working on the evidence based that we need to measure the progress towards SDGs.
Now, myself, I'm a little bit embarrassed about choosing one target.
But if I have to prioritize today one SDG 11 indicator, it would be the one about access to adequate and affordable housing.
I have three reasons why to choose this one.
First of all, because of its sheer scale and urgency, which we have been discussing about over the past few days.
The second reason is because housing is in fact a multiplier across the entire SDG 11.
It dysfunctional housing system, where offer and demand don't really match, drives the social exclusion and inequality, reduces labor mobility, and increases environmental pressure.
On ecosystem.
Finally, the third reason why I chose this one is because the crisis is in fact intensifying.
Based on the latest data that we have worked on at the OECD, we see that over the past decade, housing prices have increased by almost 70% on average across OECD largest cities.
As Robert mentioned, we are probably also building houses in the wrong places.
Because, again, just to give you an idea, 30% of OCD population actually lives in a region where housing construction increased despite population decline.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Claudia.
Now moving to Had please.
My name is Rashid Sirat.
I work for an organization called the Harding City Region Obsvatory, which is in South Africa.
It's centered around the city of Johannesburg in our capital, Tani Pretoria, and we basically collect data.
We partnership between government and universities in our part of the world.
And we're also an affiliate of the Global Urban Observatory Network, which is an initiative of UN habitat.
So in choosing an SDG indicator, of course, a tough job.
But I settled for 11 B two, which is, just to remind you, a proportion of local governments that adopt and implement local disaster risk reduction strategies in line with national risk reduction strategies.
So I mean, I think we all know very well that climate change is an unfolding reality.
And we have warmed the planet by approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius, and that has led to the consequences that we all also know about changes in global temperature sea levels and extreme weather events.
Just to say that in my own country in South Africa, in the cities of Cape Town and Durban, the second largest and third largest cities we've had in the recent years, very dramatic changes in weather that's actually really impacted on the infrastructure of those cities.
Um, And, well, the issue is basically that the capacity to implement has been severely impeded, and in my view, partially by the lack of political will at the local level because other local priorities eclipse the importance of an existential threat like climate change.
And I think that, you know, unless you're directly affected by it, you tend not to be concerned.
So for me, I think that's a In the urban environment, it's a very much a real threat that is currently facing us.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Bram.
Hello.
Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
I'm doctor Ibragm Sisi.
I'm the Regional Director of Humanitarian Open Street Bup team for West and North Africa.
I'm based in Dhakar, Senegal and the Hb is covering 24 countries, West Africa and two North African country, Marc and Algeria.
So we work on open data and coming to the question, maybe I will have opportunity to develop later.
But just to say, The issue or the different challenge that we have are all linked.
We cannot separate them.
When we talk about housing, we talk about pollution, climate change, this parameter all depends.
Sometimes there are some relation.
So for us, what is really important is the data.
Without the data, we cannot evaluate where we are.
Without the data, we cannot know if you have done some progress.
So we think that data are important and particularly when data come from community.
When the approach is the localization because the community, we are trying to support the community that are impacted by air pollution, by disaster, et cetera, when they collect the data and share it, it becomes more relevant.
When they own the data, they can support the progress of the information.
For me, choosing one of the major challenge or what we should consider I think data should be the first one and particularly open data, and I think that there is some way to make some integration to allow all this work happening in different silo to be integrated and to benefit the whole objective of SDG.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for your insightful thoughts in this just for us to break the ice here.
Now we are moving to the round of questions to each of you.
I'd like to start with the World Health Organization.
We know that WO, together with other SEG 11 custodian agencies are working tireless in promoting actions that will support attaining of SEG 11.
Yet, with less than five years remaining, we still remain on track as we saw in Robert's presentation.
What do you see as the biggest barriers to making progress in goal 11? What does that imply for how we can accelerate progress now, Natalie, to.
Thank you very much.
We didn't really didn't have really time to unpack SDG indicator on air pollution.
But generally speaking, we can see that there is an increased awareness on the issue of air pollution.
We do see that there is an increase in technology, but also in actions in implementations of interventions across, I would like to say, all regions, in particular in key domains like industry, transport, and energy.
But I think the main challenge that we are facing is that within countries and within cities, air pollution can vary actually very much depending on factors that are responsible for that.
So it's about the proximity to the sources, it's about the topography, but also the meteorology.
One of the big challenges that we see is that one fit to all solution is actually not feasible.
I think this goes back to some of the discussions we just started to hear, is that actually if you unpack it, land use impacts on air quality are very different.
It depends on the density of the built environment form, on the pollution dispersion, and land coverage.
To turn it around, tackling air pollution actually requires very specific context targeted interventions, also very specific governance structures and understanding the sources, the use of the different sectors is absolutely crucial and it requires obviously coordination.
If we look specifically in cities, we see that more and people are moving in cities, so it's a key issues as regards to air pollution.
They grow fast.
Again, the urban planning aspect is one of the key aspects to address.
So in other terms, to conclude, there is quite a lot to be done in terms of better coordination, better understanding, better mapping of the sources, and I would like to conclude with two aspects.
There is one area that we still don't look enough.
It's this transboundary air pollution because ambient air pollution, it doesn't stop at the border.
So I mean, it's by definition, it's called ambient.
This is something that still requires some additional work, and also armed conflicts, international shipping and aviation are actually under a looked sources of air pollution that we should be looking at.
This is, I would say, some starting points.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for that, Natalie.
Now moving to Claudia, OECD does a lot of work to promote sustainable urbanization among the member states and even beyond.
From an evidence perspective, which urban policies have demonstrated the most impact across SDG 11 targets? Again, another very challenging question and based on our experience working with many OECD member countries, but as you said, also beyond, I would single out policies investing in urban public infrastructure, meaning streets, parks, transport as large that shapes really the foundation of private urban development as well.
I want to mention quickly a very good example, the Metro development in Jakarta, which has drastically changed their urban mobility landscape, not just reducing congestion, but also increasing the property value around the subway stations, which then in turn is guiding private investment along the transport corridors.
So this is one example, but if I have to generalize, I want to highlight three key characteristics that these policies need to have.
The most impactful urban policies are those that integrates economic, social, and environmental goals.
I've just come out rushing and running from a session on NOPs national urban policies, and that's exactly what we are talking about.
That's the first point.
The second point, which I think has been already mentioned when we say that well, air pollution doesn't really follow administrative borders.
We need really coordinated multi level urban policies, breaking silos between different departments, but also working across different scales from the very local one to the national one.
Finally, again, this is my background.
All these policies that need to be rooted in evidence.
All these good characteristics, they are to no avail if they're not based in what we can actually measure, and then after policy implemented also monitor.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Now moving to Had.
Open data plays an increasing role in tracking progress towards the SGs and we see a lot of use of OSM data over the last decade.
What would you define as the greatest barrier to full utilization of open data such as the one that you have been supporting in terms of data production? As I mentioned earlier on, I run an urban observatory in South Africa, and we have been fortunate to be able to collect data, analyze it, and make it policy relevant.
But of course, we face significant challenges and let me just talk about some of them.
I think the one is that well, in this regard, I should say that we've been fortunate in terms of having consistent funding from the provincial government to enable us to function.
But many other such entities basically don't have that kind of situation.
In one case, we were talking to somebody from Mauritania yesterday and she said a bilateral agency international bilateral agency basically had funded an urban observany but basically stopped the funding and it collapsed.
Sustainable funding is a very important thing going forward.
Then at a more technical level is basically the fragmentation and inoperability of the data, which is a big problem because people collect data in very different formats and forms using different platforms, et cetera and the ability to marshal it together becomes quite a central challenge because, I mean, if you take the full array of SDGs, you know, you need a variety of different agencies collecting them.
And how do you actually ensure that that happens? In many cases, the data is simply outdated, you know, or static, if you like, and we are dealing with a dynamic environment.
Um, Just to say that if you understand the dramatic changes, certainly in the 21st century, in the urban environments, the emergence of city regions of mega regions of vastly different urban forms, I think it becomes even more difficult.
And then finally, I think is perhaps the obvious point about infrastructure, technology, and skills, and that sort of ecosystem, you know, coming together to ensure everything works well.
And basically, some or more of those elements are often missing.
And basically, it means that you can't really have an effective mechanism, you know, to collect, analyze, and disseminate the data.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Now, Ibrahima, moving to you, a critical aspect of achievement of the SEGs is ensuring data connects to policies and actions.
From your perspective, what do you see as the key impediments to attaining progress on SEG 11 in your region, particularly, and what are some of the success stories where data has been integrated to support policy and development, over to you.
Okay.
Thank you.
I think that the first point that really allow us to have all this information is the community work.
The community are the ones that producing data voluntarily, sometimes in area where we don't put our attention and sharing it in the open platform.
When you go to AD CX platform, we are around more than 600,000 download of data.
This speaks that the data is important for a lot of institution that are using it.
Bringing more support and more attention to community will help really to make good step on this side.
This is one thing that I want to share.
The second maybe would be institutional recognition of this community, but also how we can balance or mitigate the high level dependency of this work on philanthropy or just supporters, how we can contribute to make this community, this voluntary work sustainable for long term.
Then we can have the flow of data continuously coming, and then we can use it for evaluation and looking our progress.
For this, I think in hot We are present in all the region of the globe, as the Pacific, Latin America, East and South Africa, and we are looking how to make sustainable the work with the community by adding a business model that gives them the opportunity to grow also as professional.
This is something that we are seeing as maybe a mitigation measure that can help not only to sustain the work, but also to keep the engagement of these thousands of volunteers that are contributing to the work.
Last thing, I think that We have different department working in silo, having their own data and you talk about it, breaking the silo and creating an integration that allow these different institutions to share and work together or at least to have a place where they can share this data will be very helpful.
Because sometimes we are looking for information that already exists somewhere, but as each department create their own server, their own data collection, and then we don't have this opportunity to really integrate this effort and see the impact and save a lot of effort and time.
Maybe I will end with this one The example that we can share is the free town work that we have been doing.
Of course, we have been working on air pollution in Nigeria, evaluating the air pollution.
We have been working on water access in Niger, on city in Loma, et cetera, there's a lot of project.
But the one that I want to share is maybe the free town city where we have been mapping not only the city but also the slum to allow the better management of the city and even the disability access.
When you manage disability access or you collect the data or disability access, you understand how disabled people have issue to access to some part of the city.
How these people live a exclusion, spatial and social exclusion because they are not able to get this part of the city.
Why? Because the access is not available.
Mapping this issue of disability access will allow actually the Freetown City Council, the authority in Freetown to see where to put the effort to allow these people to be integrated into the system.
This is an example that I can share.
But I think lastly, the better collaboration, and I was sharing with Robert and the UN Arbiter, I think UN Abita can play this role of umbrella, allowing to integrate these different organization working together to create this connection and bringing together these different efforts.
This will be very effective and will help a lot to have visibility and to get the result that we are waiting for.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's actually a very good point.
Maybe, Robert, at the end, you could come in and also explain a bit the work of the Global Urban Data Coalition and how this also relates with all the stakeholders that are here, the partners that we have.
I have a proposal for you.
I was looking at the time here and I still have two questions, but I would like to propose the following because I want to have a chance also to hear from the participants here and that they can also interact with you.
So what would be my suggestion? I will raise the question so that you can reflect about them, and then when you come to your closing remarks, you choose the question that you want to answer, and then you can address that.
But that we spend some time now that we can also listen because maybe you can share your experience or maybe some questions, comments that you may have and also benefit from our panelists.
Is this okay with you? Yeah, it's okay.
Okay.
So first, I will build on actually the point that you made on adequate housing.
So a central issue across decades remains housing.
So what bolder policy shifts are needed to address the global housing crisis and the growth of informal settlements, okay? The second point that was important and resonates with what you were mentioning Ibrahim is the integration of data is still a major global challenge today, yet a key requirement to help advance toward the attainment of the SEG.
So what would you consider is the key precondition to help better integrate official statistics, geospatial data, and community generated data into a unified system.
You have these two questions, you reflect, and then when you come to the end when you convey your final message, you can address that.
Now what I would like to do, I would like to invite our co moderator, my colleague E Eine is an expert in stakeholder engagement, capacity development and she will take over on the moderation with all of you on the discussion.
Elaine, thank you so much.
Please go ahead.
Colleagues.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alena.
Yes, I will try to engage a little bit with you in the audience.
We're just closing this session in a few minutes as Alena said, but we're also closing the World Urban Forum.
To, we'll try to formulate a few key takeaways so we can co create our input to the backup call for action.
But first, as we said, let's hear a little bit from the audience.
If we have colleagues in the back and they can run with microphones, Any questions to our speakers? Yes.
Go ahead.
Good afternoon, Carol Archer from Jamaica.
My question is for Robert and perhaps other members of the panel who can provide some insight.
Data collection is very costly.
Yes.
And we find that consistency in collecting what we collect and how we collect is a challenge.
And I am observing, Robert, based on the charts that you show that in my region, Latin America and the Caribbean, the results are, you know, shocking to say the least in terms of attaining SDG 11.
Would you attribute that to the consistency, funding, and all of that for data and then what ought to be done for us to address that issue? Because it's one thing to show that we're not meeting the goal, but it's a question now of what should we then do? I do know that the cost is an impediment, and I also know the consistency in terms of how we collect and what we collect.
I'd love for you to shed some light on that in particular.
Thank you.
Do you want to answer straightaway, Robert, don't we take more questions? Go ahead.
Yeah, thanks a lot for that very good question.
I think the panelists will also have a bit of thoughts and inputs as you address that in your closing remarks.
Indeed, there's a mixed bag in terms of performances across regions.
It's a good observation, Professor that you've picked up.
But of course, what is interesting is on one of the slides, I showed the aspect of the methodological developments that we have achieved.
For most of the indicators, we are now sitting in tier one and tier two.
For close to half of SDG indicators, we are at least sitting in tier one, which means there's also good data coverage.
But the missing equation there is not just having national level data, but actually having data at the city level and also the neighborhood level.
I think that's where the action, that's where the impact, that's where the localization is also happening.
If we can get data on the last mile, this will help us to piece together the story of who actually is being left behind We can begin to see the changes in terms of the impact.
Measurement is one aspect we've achieved a lot, but the substantive impact we require on the ground is more than just data.
It requires investments, it requires financing, and that also extends directly onto the data aspects.
A lot of the data we have is coming from national systems, so a census and a survey that is covering in a few clusters, but not necessarily the granular data at the local level.
That's where the cooperation with, for example, open street mapping with communities and citizens is becoming so important in these last final years of SDGs to make sure that we narrow the gap from national level data to neighborhood level data.
Of course, that's not to discount the fact that money and dollars are needed to finance both at the local level data collection, but also the national level data collection and aspects and technologies.
For example, earth observation technologies are coming in to narrow down a little bit of that gap, but we still need to do much more than where we are at the moment.
Thank you very much, Robert.
Do we have another question? I think we have time for one more.
Go ahead, please.
Thank you for all this reflection.
I would like to know your thoughts about private data.
For example, Airbnb, they have their own company who sell the data.
How could be work this private data with local data, national data because it's completely different.
For example, We are talking about methodology, a strict process to get the data, to try to be the most exactly what we know.
But some company they make scrapping in the web page, for example, or they have more knowledge that the local government in real time, and that's going to be one of the problem, because if we want to be faster making decision, or normally all data is really slowly.
So I would like to know more about your thought.
He, go ahead, please.
Yeah.
I can just share an example that I think actually using of drone and the AI are making very much difference.
The drone and the AI are literally game changer in this because you can fly a drone in a community, get the information rapidly, process it with an AI, and get the information while you should spend more time, spend more energy and more stuff to collect the data.
And when we talk about drone, I take the example of hot, the drone tasking manager of HOT that is open, accessible, and the AI that we use, we use it in Ftown and we have a resolution that come until five centimeter.
Yeah, it's very high resolution.
Compared to satellite data, this is in terms of time, in terms of quality of information, and the data it's very strong.
This is just to say that there's avenue of improving the work.
Of course, there's some other methodology that we can use like the FMTMeling task manager that we use with several community.
But if you see open mapping community, use mapper, open source community, they are spreading all around the world.
I mean, everywhere in lots of countries of the world, you find them.
So if these people master the AI, master the drone, we can go very, very, very fast in this question.
This is just an aspect I wanted to bring to your question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, we are running out of time, so we have 5 minutes left, and I'd like to play a little bit of ping pong with you and help me wrap up this session.
So less than five years to go until 2030, what are the main barriers to progress on the SDGs and SDG 11 in particular? One sentence, and perhaps also What should we avoid in the post 2030 agenda? One sentence.
I'll actually let Robert start because you probably are a little bit better prepared than the others, and then we have one sentence each.
Thank you so much, Ailen.
I think for me, it has to be the aspect of governance, partnerships, and coalitions around data production processing, but also making sure we finance all that aspect.
Thanks.
Who feels ready? Great, Natalie.
Thank you very much.
I would like to point to one important issue, which is training.
And I'm giving you an example because we're talking about air pollution data.
So we're talking about exposure data, right.
But from a health perspective, we want to put it in the context of health data.
So very often, we have the health data on one side, we have the air quality data on the other side.
But what is interesting at the very local level to take decision, about how they are related to each other.
And the training, the capacities to do that is very often lacking.
So we shouldn't see data availability independently to actually the capability to use it and translate it into action.
Great.
Thank you.
Claudia, perhaps, one sentence if you manage.
Maybe a long sentence? Yes.
Going back to the issue of data, I think this resonates with what you just said.
It's really key bringing together data producers and data consumers because we need to have the right data and we need to know how to use it, when to use it for which applications.
Then if I may, I would just mention also as preconditions that were mentioning before in the questions, interoperability.
Which is interoperability, not just from a technical perspective, speaking about the data and standards, but also interoperability of people.
Breaking silos.
Thank you.
Tashid.
Um, I would say that I think partnerships are quite fundamental at a variety of levels, vertically and horizontally, say in relation to data specifically to actually get us out of the situation of the kind of fragmentation, et cetera, that we've been talking about before, so that we have and that will basically ensure that we can create common platforms, common standards, and that will, I think, provide us with the evidence that we need to go forward.
Thank you, Y.
I will try in one sentence.
Brilliant.
Then we can tweet it.
Create an integrate ecosystem that unify the different data producer, the different parties stakeholders that work in the same objective and make it inclusive, make it inclusive, transparent with clear guidelines.
That's it.
Thank you.
I actually wanted to ask you about a breakthrough if there was one single breakthrough to actually accelerate progress, but I think you actually just did, right? With that, I think we're going to wrap up this session and we'll have a nice walk in a few in an hour or so to the closing session of the W Forum 13.
And if we don't see you between, we'll hope to see you at least in Mexico in two years, right? Thank you.
Thank you to the audience.
Uh huh.