Towards a New Urban Agenda

HABITAT I  1976   WORLD URBAN POPULATION  37.9%

The United Nations General Assembly convened the Habitat I Conference in Vancouver in 1976, as governments began to recognize the need for sustainable human settlements and the consequences of rapid urbanization, especially in the developing world. At that time, urbanization and its impacts were barely considered by the international community, but the world was starting to witness the greatest and fastest migration in history of people into cities and towns, as well as rising urban population through natural growth resulting from advances in medicine.

Main outcomes:

·Recognition that shelter and urbanization are global issues to be addressed collectively

·Creation of the United Nations Center for Human Settlements （UNCHS-Habitat）

HABITAT II  1996   WORLD URBAN POPULATION  45.1%

The Vancouver commitments were reconfirmed twenty years later at the Habitat II conference in Istanbul. World leaders adopted the Habitat Agenda as a global plan of action for adequate shelter for all, with the notion of sustainable human settlements driving development in an urbanizing world.

Main outcomes:

·Cities are the engines of global growth

·Urbanization is an opportunity

·Call for a stronger role of local authorities

·Recognition of the power of participation

HABITAT III  2016   WORLD URBAN POPULATION   54.5%

The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development （Habitat III） held from 17 to 20 October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador, successfully concluded with the adoption of the New Urban Agenda.

THE NEW URBAN AGENDA