Cities are the world’s greatest assets for pursuing sustainable development. How we plan, build and manage our cities today will determine our future. Harnessing the city as an asset requires the commitment of all … We commit to take action and change cities for a better urban world.
--Manifesto for Cities
Called the Manifesto for Cities, the document represents the consensus of all partners engaged in the World Urban Campaign on the critical role that cities play in building a sustainable future. It aims to develop an urban agenda that will be presented at the Third Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat III) in 2016.
The World Urban Campaign approved the Manifesto in a meeting at the sixth World Urban Forum in Naples 4 September 2012.
Its key messages focus on the inevitability of urbanisation and the fact that the current models are socially, economically and environmentally unsustainable.
The Manifesto commits to crafting a new global urban agenda based on the following principles:
- Accessible land, infrastructure, services, mobility and housing
- Socially inclusive, gender sensitive, healthy and safe development
- Environmentally sound and carbon-efficient built environment
- Participatory planning and decision making
- Vibrant, creative and competitive local economies promoting decent work and livelihoods
- Assurance of non-discrimination and equal rights to the city
- Empowering cities and communities to plan for and effectively manage adversity and change
It invites all development stakeholders to come together as equal partners to formulate and adopt a global action plan for cities. The document also urges national and local governments to work together to create planning frameworks for cities, and the international community to include targets for sustainable urban development as part of future development goals.
About the World Urban Campaign
The World Urban Campaign is the partners platform for the preparation of the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) to be held in 2016, 20 years after the Habitat II Conference (Istanbul, 1996). It is also a global partnership designed to promote a positive vision of sustainable urbanisation and place the urban agenda at the highest level in development policies.
The Cities Alliance provided preliminary funding for the launch of the World Urban Campaign.
