Multilevel Urban Forums

The Azerbaijan National Urban Forum (NUFA) is an annual non-legislative event convened by the State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in collaboration with UN-Habitat. The forum has evolved into a highly anticipated and prestigious gathering in the region, attracting participants from around the world. It serves as a recurring platform for addressing urban challenges, focusing on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of human settlements in post-conflict regions. Additionally, the forum aims to showcase the latest achievements in sustainable urban planning and development, while facilitating the exchange of international experiences in this field. The 2023 NUFA was held in the City of Baku, and in Zangilan from the 29th of September to the 1st of October 2023. 

The Kenya Urban Forum 2023 was organized as the most open and inclusive gatherings that convened urban stakeholders to share a common urban development vision that addresses the challenges facing cities, municipalities, towns and market centers in Kenya. The Forum provided a high-level platform for raising awareness on sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public. It focused on improving collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive open debates, sharing lessons learned and the exchange of best practices and good policies. It was a jointly organized by the Ministry of Land, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development, The World Bank, Council of Governors, UN-Habitat, and Kenya Institute of Planners. 

The PUFIII comes after the noticeable improvement of services made by Palestinian cities to achieve the aspired welfare in spite of the challenges imposed by the political conflicts and prolonged occupation with its control over Palestinian resources and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Malaysian Urban Forum (MUF) is a national-level forum that aims to promote inclusive debates and discussions towards developing and improving our sustainable urbanization strategies, policies, and programs.

As one of the strategies for the implementation of the National Plan for Habitat and Housing, the “Meet-Up for the Habitat and Housing” Forum was proposed to create a space for dialogue and exchange, to strengthen collaboration for the development of agreements, and to promote the reaffirmation of these global and national agreements to formulate public policies around habitat and housing.

The National Urban Forum in Serbia was held on the 11th and 12th of April 2022 in Belgrade. It consisted of seven main parts: national urban policies, youth in urban development, gender issues in urban development, urban development in the Balkans, green agenda, housing and quality of urban space. It was attended by 350 participants as stakeholders from different sectors - public, private, civil, academic and professional at local, regional, national and international levels. It was jointly organized by the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities as national association of local-self governments, UN Resident Coordinator's Office in Serbia and UN Habitat.

Following on the recommendations from the National Habitat III Report, prepared in 2016, and in view of the developments noted on the ground, this workshop on the promotion of adequate housing in DR Congo will take stock of the situation in the sector, through the national housing policy, whose relevance will be questioned. It shall have a theme “The promotion of adequate housing in the regions and cities of the DRC”.

The overall objective of NNUF is to promote continuous policy dialogues on various urban challenges and issues through engagement of a wide range of government and non-government actors and development partners. The objective for 2022 is to strengthen joint programming in support of the GRID action plan, seeking for UN Joint programming on urban priorities as committed in the declared actions of first NNUF and WUF. An area of special focus will be to strengthen urban priorities in the UNSDCF 2023-2027.

The Virtual Pacific Urban Forum was held on Thursday 26 August 2021

MUF2021 was Malaysia’s third urban forum and as we embrace the ‘new normal', we believe it is even more important to continue this discussion as MUF has always managed to garner a rich and diverse discussion among our local stakeholders and have been endowed with important inputs, views and sharing from UN-Habitat and our global and local partners and participants.

This session aimed to reveal the impact of urban forums on urbanization and policy making processes. Gathering the representatives from regional, national, or international urban forums, it will address how urban forums contribute to urban development and different levels of policymaking; to what extent discussions held in these forums are taken into consideration by the decision makers; and what should be done to improve the impact of these forums on urban policies.

This forum was organized around four major themes. The main sessions of the Forum were organized around four dialogues that focussed attention on the priority action areas identified. However, each one of them provided the necessary cross-cutting vision demanded by the New Urban Agenda, the Urban Agenda for the European Union and the Spanish Urban Agenda, to achieve their effective implementation. These dialogues are structured under the following

Cape Verde marked World Cities Day with its third National Urban Forum, in preparation for WUF11 debating instruments for implementing urban policies, financing urbanization and urban regeneration. The event was part of the activities of the Urban October that begun on World Habitat Day, whose theme was “Accelerating urban action for a carbon-free world” and culminated with the commemoration of World Cities Day under the theme "Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience" where various activities involving public institutions, educational institutions, the private sector, and civil society are expected.

The World Urban Forum will be held in June 2022 in Poland and will be a major service for contracting countries to carry out a half-way assessment of the main challenges for NUA implementation at local level. It is in this context that Guinea-Bissau, as a contracting party, held its 1st National Urban Forum in the first week of October 2021. The Forum will also mark the beginning of the celebrations of Urban October, which began with World Habitat Day, celebrated worldwide every first Monday of October.

The NUF in Dominican Republic 2021 discussed the challenges and opportunities for cities, within the framework of the implementation of the Action Plan of the New Urban Agenda - NUA. The main objective was to analyze and debate the opportunities and challenges of the cities of the Dominican Republic, within the framework of the Action Plan for the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda.

The National Urban Forum platform was intended to support urban development processes in the country and contribute to international urban policy dialogues and strategies.

The 3rd Akko Convention focused on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda in the Decade of Action, anonymously adopted by the UN member states at the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in 2016, placing emphasis on the “urban economy” in the wake of Covid 19, and in the face of severe climate impact.

As one of the strategies for the implementation of the National Plan for Habitat and Housing, the “Meet-Up for the Habitat and Housing” Forum was proposed to create a space for dialogue and exchange, to strengthen collaboration for the development of agreements, and to promote the reaffirmation of these global and national agreements to formulate public policies around habitat and housing.