The Global Urban Futures Project
& The Habitat III Process
From Nairobi to Quito
The Global Urban Futures Project (GUF) was actively involved in the preparatory process leading up to the United Nations Third Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), which took place in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016.
Aside from raising awareness about Habitat III, the GUF was actively involved in creating critical content related to the NUA. GUF team members functioned as policy experts to assist UN-Habitat in developing policy recommendations for the Habitat III conference and its final outcome document. In addition, the GUF developed a research project that tracks urban developments and the fulfillment of urban goals since the last Habitat conference in 1996. This research project, titled the “Habitat Commitment Project,” successfully raised awareness of the importance to monitor global commitments in order to hold governments accountable for their actions, and inactions.
According to the UN General Assembly, the conference was expected to address the challenges facing “human settlements” in all countries, with the mandate to produce a “New Urban Agenda,” a 30-page document that is supposed to guide nation states in the formulation of policies and programs for the development of sustainable human settlements. With the Habitat conferences only occurring every twenty years, the preparatory process started around the same time as the GUF was created, in the fall of 2014.
As part of the preparatory process for Habitat III, GUF representatives participated in preparatory, regional, and thematic meetings, and organized thematically related events at the New School campus in New York City.