Urban Agenda

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GUEST OBSERVER
Our cities are increasingly beset by a lack of affordable housing, inequality, lagging infrastructure – the list goes on.
To the rescue, we now have the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But how can they help?
Responding to the urban century
Australia and 166 other countries agreed the New Urban Agenda at the Habitat III conference in Quito last October. The agenda frames global policy for cities and urban settlements for the next 20 years. Signatories will be measured against its objectives.
This historic agreement did not attract the same attention as the Paris climate agreement, yet it has similarly profound and linked potential. The Paris agreement will determine what action countries take on climate change, shaping policies on energy use and carbon production. The New Urban Agenda will aim for city sustainability, shaping our liveability, homes and neighbourhoods.
The agenda responds to the urban century. It recognises the growth energised by cities but also their spatial, social, cultural and economic inequalities.
Action is urgently called for to tackle inequality. The shift to cities hasn’t reduced inequality. Instead, it has shifted poverty to cities and deepened inequality in the process.
Two key concepts of the New Urban Agenda are the “city for all” and the “right to the city”. It also clearly links to Sustainable Development Goal 11, which aims to:
… make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
A lack of joined-up thinking
Three key problems beset our approach to cities. In principle, the New Urban Agenda and SDG 11 can help overcome these.
1) Policy siloes persist despite decades of rhetoric about joining up policy and programs. Housing affordability, planning and transport, economic development, public health and education, for example, remain remarkably siloed.
Transport policy rarely looks at employment and health impacts. Policy for providing affordable homes rarely examines the impact of employment and economic strategy on housing affordability. Promoting social cohesion and social inclusion is rarely considered in developing and delivering the education system.
Cities are intricate, entwined collections of people, plans and infrastructures. Throwing isolated and disconnected solutions at complex problems is a recipe for failure, but it’s one that is constantly repeated.
2) Governments not only typically divide their approaches to social and economic policy, they also have split responsibilities between levels of government. Separate ministers and departments deal with the very narrowly defined aspects of their portfolio.
In Australia, the policy separation between states and federal government magnifies the silo issue. Wide cracks between levels of government allow critical planning and policy decisions to be postponed for decades.
In this policy void, local and city governments often lead the way on issues of liveability, climate change mitigation, sustainability and social cohesion. However, many of the levers for change are above their reach. Those powers reside in state and federal governments.
3) Private sector, government and civil society interests remain fractured and opposed. Not enough attention is paid to negotiating common interests. Cities need capital but they also need to be liveable places for all citizens. New alliances are needed to reconcile needs and resources.
All the above problems are related to the overwhelming need for integration, which provides a common meeting point for a wide range of players to approach complex problems.
Not a task for government alone
Australia has no national housing or energy strategy. But both are critical to successful nations and cities.
The joined-up phrasing of the New Urban Agenda and SDG 11 offer an entry point. They provide a catalyst for integration in three critical areas:
policy formulation to tackle multiple, connected problems;
fresh attempts to develop integrated multi-level governance; and
reframed governance across bureaucracy, business and civil society.
Shared ideals, objectives and delivery mechanisms linked to the New Urban Agenda are the first step. This has already led to the setting up of a multi-partner initiative to support sustainable urban development.
The New Urban Agenda is the product of many hundreds of urban scholars, mayors, policymakers and community voices. It provides an integrative policy framework that sets a broad direction toward better cities.
Planning for the future of our cities can no longer ignore growing social, economic and environmental issues. And these are all exacerbated by wealth and income inequalities. The task of reframing governance across bureaucracy, business and civil society must recognise the uneven resources across the city, and reconcile the interests around the table.
Signing the Habitat III declaration was easy. Implementing the New Urban Agenda is a challenge that government will not be able to meet alone.
Ralph Horne is<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ralph-horne-160543"> </a>deputy pro vice chancellor, Research &amp; Innovation; Director of UNGC Cities Programme; Professor, RMIT University and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ralph-horne-160543" target="_blank">here</a>.
David Adamson is Emeritus Professor, Social and Community Policy, The University of South Wales and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-adamson-259956" target="_blank">here</a>.
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What can the New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals do for cities?

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GUEST OBSERVER
Having run the diplomatic equivalent of a cross-country marathon, there was concern that negotiations on the New Urban Agenda might trip at the final hurdle. Three days of talks were needed, with negotiations continuing long into the night before agreement was reached on Saturday night in New York.
The agenda is a non-binding international agreement designed to shape urban development over the next two decades. It will be formally adopted at the UN Habitat III summit in Quito, Ecuador, from October 17-20, 2016.
Negotiations began in New York at the first preparatory meeting in September 2014. It was envisaged then, if everything went smoothly, that the final draft would be agreed at the third preparatory committee meeting in Surabaya, Indonesia, on July 25–27, 2016. The negotiators in Surabaya, however, could not reach consensus. Instead they punted the draft to a final intersessional meeting held in New York last week.
The road to Quito has been at times precarious and it is unclear how the agreement will be taken forward thereafter. It is a tremendous achievement, though, when you consider the highly contested terrain the international community has been able to negotiate to reach an agreement.
Credit should go to the dedicated team at UN-Habitat, the committed representatives from civil society (under the banner of the World Urban Campaign) and the member state negotiators. Although not without his critics, the leadership from UN-Habitat executive director Joan Clos has also been significant in moving the agreement forward (or at least not messing things up).
<h2>What is at stake?</h2>
The disagreements were many, but I would like to point out three particular issues of contention.
First, it is recognised that no single UN agency can reasonably be given responsibility to implement such an all-encompassing agenda for the future of our cities. UN-Habitat hoped to have this role, but its motivation was to gain both influence and financial resources.
Second, co-operation from sub-national, city and local governments is a prerequisite for successful implementation. From the very start of negotiations, they have felt excluded from what is principally an agreement between nation-states. Sub-national government wants more say on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda.
Third, civil society has fully engaged with the formulation of the agenda and successfully pushed for the principle of the “right to the city” to be included.
This was a huge and historic victory for civil society from a social justice perspective. This encapsulates the “paradigm shift” that Clos often talks about in terms of a new global emphasis on “cities for people, not for profit".
All of the above will be the subject of intense analysis and discussion once the New Urban Agenda is adopted. If taken seriously, each has the potential to be transformative.
First, the UN system now needs to reflect on how best to promote urban sustainability. Second, sub-national governments need to reshape how they interact and influence the UN. Third, cities need to re-evaluate how they work with and for their people.
<h2>A bumpy road ahead</h2>
Realistically, the biggest headaches will start from Quito onwards. By far the most significant challenge is the timing. For the UN, 2015 was an apex year with the adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (the 2030 Agenda) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
In contrast, 2016 has been a year of intense discussion and reflection on how best to implement and fund those two world-changing initiatives. The fundamental predicament will therefore be how to squeeze the implementation of the New Urban Agenda into an already jam-packed and rapidly evolving global schema.
The situation is complicated by the fact that a new UN secretary-general will take up office from January 1, 2017. They will inherit a UN system that needs drastic reform to deliver effectively on the 2030 Agenda. Some major reforms have been proposed, and the new UN chief is going to have their hands full.
The central aim is to reduce fragmentation and duplication of effort. This implies that we need a multi-agency approach to the New Urban Agenda.
This was one of the sticking points in New York last week as negotiators struggled with two proposals on implementation responsibilities.
The first option, supported by the G77 (pushed by UN-Habitat host country Kenya), was for a strengthened UN-Habitat with universal representation in its governing council and greater financial resources.
The second, from the European Union and others who would be footing the bill, was a recommendation that the institutional framework to support the New Urban Agenda be determined in the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. This would effectively put off the decision to late 2017.
A compromise between these positions was reached in New York. This gives UN-Habitat a period of grace to move forward from Quito until new arrangements are determined.
<h2>Innovation should follow from Quito</h2>
There is a proposal that the best way forward would be to establish a new co-ordinating body – UN Cities – similar to UN Water and UN Energy.
This would certainly be more in line with the way that funding is moving from donors to the UN system in recent years – known as multi-partner trust funds – with the aim of increasing agency co-ordination.
An initiative like UN-Cities could also provide a more effective framework (or a clean slate) for how the UN works with sub-national government. Another option could be a UN Council for Cities and/or a Global Parliament of Mayors. Both represent a significant departure from the practice to date and would likely take some time to become a reality.
While these global-level institutional shell games play out, perhaps we may end up concluding that the most significant outcome from Quito is the emphasis on the right to the city.
There is a rich intellectual tradition reaching back to Henri Lefebvre’s1968 book, Le Droit à la ville. If seriously taken forward, the notion of the right to the city – essentially a human-rights approach to city governance, development and sustainability – would bring into focus a wide array of social justice issues. This includes how we deal with homelessness, urban poverty, gentrification and the privatisation of public space.
Can this transformation really happen, or are we doomed to repeat the follies of Agenda 21 and the Kyoto Protocol?
Brendan Barrett is research fellow/Research Coordinator, UN Global Compact Cities Programme, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-barrett-179124" target="_blank">here</a>.
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