Great Cities Institute represented at the World Urban Forum in Cairo
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) convened its Twelfth Session of the World Urban Forum from November 4 -8, 2024 in Cairo, Egypt. Teresa Córdova, GCI director attended the Forum where she spoke on a panel at the Forum’s Urban Library.
The United Nations General Assembly established the World Urban Forum in 2001 and is one of the world’s largest platforms to discuss urban issues. This is the first time since the inaugural conference in 2002 that it is held on the African Continent. The theme, “It All Starts at Home: Local Actions for Sustainable Cities and Communities,” emphasized the importance for solutions to emanate from where people live and work. To get an idea of the rich array of assemblies, panels, roundtables, films, and exhibits you can view the program. (Unfortunately, you are only able to see the list of participants via the app.)
Teresa spoke on a panel pulled together by the Nature’s Cities and moderated by its Chief Editor, William Burnside. (We encourage you to check out this transformative journal.) The session was title, “Linking insights for local action and global relevance from scholarly publishing” and convened “editors, scholars, and practitioners to suggest how cutting-edge knowledge products catalyze and constrain sustainable urban transformations.” Other panelists included Fujie Rao, School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Ton University; Amira Osman, Tshwane University of Technology (South Africa); and Christopher Berry, University of Chicago.
There were many sessions at the World Urban Forum on housing affordability, climate action, urban resilience, the role of technology in building new cities, and much more. Teresa was happy to attend a panel with officials from Senegal, launching their “methodological guide for the implementation of the participatory budget for participation and citizen engagement.” Among other sessions, she also attended several linking data with policy.
We were also very happy that Dr. Córdova was able to connect with GCI friend and Senior Associate, Diego Auelestia Valencia, Head of the Human Settlements Unit of CEPAL, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the WTO. Señor Aulestia Valencia spoke on several panels on the work of CEPAL and housing issues across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, GCI Associate Director for Economic and Workforce Development, Dr. Matt Wilson, was in Seattle, Washington, attending the annual conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). He presented his paper, “Real-Estate Speculation and the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago” in a session titled, “Land, Markets, and Sustainable Economic Development.”
