Lessons from Spatial Planning Platform Enhance wellbeing in urban and rural areas. (Country Good Practices in Governance and Partnerships(Spin-off of the 7th Spp meeting) )　

Recently unplanned development and rapid urban growth is a major issue in a number of developing countries, particularly in Asia. They are recognizing needs for spatial planning (e.g., national master plan) and requesting JAPAN for support and guidance.
At the HABITAT III (Oct 2016, Quito), Japan presented the importance of establishing a platform to support Spatial Planning including urban, rural, regional planning, which caught a great attention and interest from various countries.
In light of these background, The Spatial Planning Platform (SPP) was established by the Government of Japan and UN-Habitat's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in 2018 as a network of stakeholders aiming to achieve the formulation and implementation of more effective spatial plans.This event will be held as a spin-off of the SPP meeting, and participants will engage in lively discussions based on the outcomes of the SPP meetings to date and reports of good practices by member countries.
Specifically, we will be reported and discussed the following points.
The first is sharing the findings from previous SPP meetings.
As noted in New Urban Agenda, Populations, economic activities, social and cultural interactions, as well as environmental and humanitarian impacts, are increasingly concentrated in cities, and this poses massive sustainability challenges in terms of housing, infrastructure, basic services, food security, health, education, decent jobs, safety and natural resources, among others.
The most recent SPP meeting, the 6th meeting, was held in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Republic of Indonesia in November 2023. Japan made a presentation on its past national strategies and shared with the participants its measures for the development of a nationwide transport network and the promotion of industry outside the major cities.
The Second is informing the participants about the importance of regional (local) development policy.
The solution to the challenges of the big cities is to increase regional strength and the development of the country as a whole.
In this regard, as mentioned above, Japan have taken the measures for balanced development between regions. Japan is currently a society with a declining birth rate, broad-based decentralization of population and functions still remains a challenge. Gathering potentials of the regions is also identified as important.