Cities for All: Popularizing the New Urban Agenda

The New Urban agenda is a remarkable result. It is the outcome of a laborious intergovernmental process and a compromise between different positions from different governments and actors. As a result, some innovative features -such as "the right to the city"- were treated in a rather tentative fashion. Moreover, the text, despite being relatively brief, contains many repetitions and slightly different formulations of the same objectives. Also, the New Urban Agenda connection to the SDGs and SDG 11 in particular, are rather tenuous.

Slightly over a year has gone by since Quito. If left to intergovernmental processes and business as usual, this remarkable achievement risks becoming just one of myriad of UN wish lists destined for oblivion. It is therefore essential for the global community of citizens to "make the New Urban agenda their own" through a global re-appropriation process. This process will be fundamental in reminding states of their commitment to action for the resurgence of true democracy and the improvement of the quality of life in cites and all human settlements.

In Quito, the President of the General Assembly announced his intention to popularise the SDGs in schools. The same should happen about the New Urban Agenda. But in order to do so, we must produce a concise, clear, and attractive popular version of the NUA. For example, all of the NUA's objectives will be linked to corresponding Sustainable Development Goals.

The WUF 9 side event intend to contribute to t