Statement by Dr. Eduardo Lopez Moreno, Director of Knowledge and Innovation of UN-Habitat and Habitat in Towns Keynote Speaker

"Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are about people, prosperity, planet, and peace. Partnerships are key in working towards achieving these goals.. In 2015, United Nations Member States committed to the ambitious but achievable 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, charting a new path of balance for humanity and the planet to end poverty, reduce inequalities and address climate change issues."

While some progress has been made in the last five years to achieve these goals, there is still much to do. We have to think harder, do more, and reach more people. Urbanization has offered great potential to achieve the SDG goals in the next 10 years. While there has been much focus to achieve SDGs through cities, we must also consider SDGs in the context of towns and how they can contribute to achieving these goals. The UN Secretary-General, in September 2019, called on all sectors of society to mobilize for a decade of action on three levels: global action to secure greater leadership, more resources and smarter solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals; local action embedding the needed transitions in the policies, budgets, institutions and regulatory frameworks of governments, cities and local authorities; and people action, including by youth, civil society, the media, the private sector, unions, academia and other stakeholders, to generate an unstoppable movement pushing for the required transformations.

The UN Secretary General’s call points towards a great opportunity to accelerate sustainable solutions to the world’s biggest challenges with cities and urbanization as a new entry point for the 17 Goals. Effective and decisive action on sustainable development at the local level, within all cities and towns, is crucial to the success of Agenda 2030
All cities, small, medium sized or big, all are important in contributing their efforts and power of imagination to the realization of SDGs and make important impact in the lives of their residents. It is estimated that half of the world’s urban residents live in towns of less than 50,000 inhabitants, and their combined efforts are needed to make a global transformative change. 

Cities and towns face similar challenges, such as affordable housing, inequalities, climate change, urban sprawl, and exposure to unsustainable practices.

Towns must examine the same challenges but through a different lens to create their own ideas and solutions. While towns have the opportunity to be proactive and get ahead of problems that now plague our cities, towns lack more often than not the benefits privileged to cities: access to financial resources and institutional capacities. This inhibits a town’s ability to better understand the challenges as well as its comparative advantages from a holistic perspective and to take advantage of the smaller size and flexibility to deal with problems. 

UN-Habitat is the custodian agency of SDG11 – make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable – and focal point for the New Urban Agenda, including global monitoring for progress.

UN-Habitat aims to provide the necessary tools and resources to municipalities at all scales to realize their full potential and avoid unintended consequences. For that purpose, UN-Habitat has created the City Prosperity Initiative (CPI) to assess the state of cities and towns to help them monitor the impact of their policies. Today, the CPI is implemented in more than 510 cities all over the world; many of them small towns that benefit from this global monitoring tool to implement transformative actions.

In support of this initiative, the Town of Collingwood, alongside Urban Economy Forum (UEF) and UN-Habitat, is launching the Habitat in Towns: Collingwood World Summit. This will be an annual summit to bring towns, practitioners and academicians together and create a campaign for towns to exchange ideas and generate sustainable responses to achieve SDG targets. This Summit will provide a channel for international dialogue between towns to realize SDGs in the urban environment through knowledge sharing networks and best practices learning. 
Habitat in Towns: Collingwood World Summit recognizes the importance of implementing SDGs in urban environments at different scales, and the need to develop cooperative efforts.

This summit will create many opportunities, for example to enhance resources and collaborative efforts related to urban assessment, sustainable development and investment opportunities, and show case the importance of livable towns, for families, particularly women and youth. 

As Honorary Chair of Habitat in Towns, I encourage all towns’ mayors, councillors, practitioners and the academic world to participate in the inaugural Habitat in Towns: Collingwood World Summit, on the occasion of World Habitat Day. This is a great opportunity to ensure that towns become part of the sustainable development movement and contribute to the world’s goal to realize SDGs.

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