Recovering the City Among All: Building the New Urban Agenda

The aim of this side event, led by Madrid City Council, together with its partners, is to reaffirm its commitment to sustainable urban development, given the need for new urban models. Social, environmental and economic inequalities within cities have increased in recent years and, in occasions, the imbalance is reflected in urban spaces, marking differences between the center and the most vulnerable areas in cities. Urban frameworks, spatial development and urban economies are crucial issues that should be tackled in order to generate urban sustainable development and prosperity for everyone. Participation of all involved actors that come together in the city- citizens, the private sector and the public sector- need to take part in these reviewing and proposing processes. Madrid City Council and its partners want to contribute to these global discussions from their experiences and proposals. Technical and political meetings have taken place in Madrid throughout 2016 with the support of UN Habitat. As a result of this process, the Madrid Communiqué on Recovering the City among all will be issued in September. We would like to take the privileged opportunity of the Habitat III Conference to present, discuss and debate this Communiqué with all participants, considering its four pillars: 1) City and justice 2) Innovation and urban governance 3) Equity and inclusion 4) Accessibility and proximity We are confident all innovative discussions held during the event will: - Promote knowledge and sharing generating inputs for the New Urban Agenda and its subsequent implementation - Foster strategic alliances related to new practices and experiences exchange - Bolster political debate and consensus This event will adopt a practice-oriented perspective aiming to ease the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. It has also been
designed to be inclusive in terms of age and gender balance, trying to
be comprehensive of the world’s urban population.