To fully harness the potential of sustainable urban development, we make the following transformative commitments through an urban paradigm shift grounded in the integrated and indivisible dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental.

SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION & ENDING POVERTY

We recognize that the growing inequality and the persistence of multiple forms and dimensions of poverty, including the rising number of slum and informal settlement dwellers, is affecting both developed and developing countries, and that the spatial organization, accessibility, and design of urban space, together with development policies, can promote or hinder social cohesion, equality, and inclusion.

We commit to people-centered, and age and gender-responsive urban development, and to the realization of human rights of all, facilitating living together, combating all forms of discrimination and violence, and empowering all individuals and communities, while enabling their full and meaningful participation. We further commit to promote culture and respect for diversity, equity and equality as key elements in the humanization of our cities and human settlements.

We commit to ensure that no one is left behind and to promote equally-shared opportunities and benefits that urbanization can offer, enabling all inhabitants, with temporary or permanent status, whether living in formal or informal settlements, to lead decent, dignified, and rewarding lives and to achieve their full human potential.

We commit to strengthen synergies between international migration and development, at the global, regional, national, sub-national, and local levels. We further commit to support refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants, regardless of migration status, as well as their host communities, taking into account national circumstances, ensuring full respect for human rights and recognizing that, although the movement of large populations into towns and cities poses a variety of challenges, it also brings significant social, economic, and cultural contributions to urban life.

We commit to strengthen the coordination role of local governments in the provision of social and basic services, including generating investments in communities that are affected by recurrent and protracted humanitarian crises. We further commit to provide adequate services, accommodation, and opportunities for decent and productive work for crisis-affected persons in urban settings, working with the local communities and local governments to identify opportunities for engaging and developing local, durable, and dignified solutions, while ensuring that aid flows also to affected persons and host communities to prevent regression of their development.

We commit to promote national, sub-national, and local housing policies fulfilling the right to adequate housing for all as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living that address all forms of discrimination and violence, prevent forced evictions, and focus on the needs of the homeless, persons in vulnerable situations, low income groups, and persons with disabilities, while enabling participation and engagement of communities and relevant stakeholders.

We commit to develop integrated and age and gender responsive housing policies and approaches across all sectors, in particular employment, education, healthcare, and social integration sectors, and at all levels of government, which incorporate the provision of adequate, affordable, accessible, safe, well-connected, and well-located housing, with special attention to the proximity factor and the strengthening of the spatial relationship with the rest of the urban fabric and the surrounding functional areas.

We commit to stimulate the supply of a variety of adequate housing options that are safe, affordable, and accessible for members of different income groups of society, taking into consideration socio-economic and cultural integration of marginalized communities, homeless persons, and persons in vulnerable situations. We will take positive measures to improve the living conditions of homeless people with a view to combat and prevent its criminalization.

We commit to ensure equitable and affordable access to basic physical and social infrastructure for all, without any form of discrimination, including affordable serviced land, housing, energy, safe drinking water and sanitation, nutritious food, waste disposal, sustainable mobility, healthcare and family planning, education, culture, and information and communication technologies. We further commit to ensure that these services are responsive to the rights and needs of women, children and youth, older persons and persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and other persons in vulnerable situations such as refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants, regardless of migration status. In this regard, we encourage the elimination of legal, institutional, socio-economic, or physical barriers.

We commit to promote increased security of tenure for all, recognizing the plurality of tenure types, and to develop fit-for-purpose, and age and gender responsive solutions within the continuum of land and property rights, with particular attention to women’s land security of tenure as key to their empowerment.

We commit to promote appropriate measures in cities and human settlements that facilitate access for persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with other, to the physical environment of cities, in particular to public spaces, public transport, housing, education and health facilities, to public information and communication, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to the public.

We commit to develop safe, inclusive, accessible, green, and quality public spaces, including streets, sidewalks and cycling lanes, squares, waterfronts areas, gardens, and parks that are multi-functional areas for social interaction and inclusion, economic exchange, and cultural expression and dialogue among a wide diversity of people and cultures, and which are designed and managed to ensure human development, build peaceful and democratic societies, as well as promote living together and social inclusion.

We commit to sustainably leverage natural and cultural heritage in cities, both tangible and intangible, through integrated urban policies and adequate investments at the national, sub-national, and local levels, to safeguard and promote cultural infrastructures and sites, museums, indigenous cultures and languages, as well as traditional knowledge and the arts, highlighting the role that these play in the rehabilitation and revitalization of urban areas, and as a way to strengthen social participation and the exercise of citizenship.

We commit to ensure a safe, healthy, inclusive and secure environment in cities for all to live, work, and participate in urban life without fear of violence and intimidation, taking into consideration that women and girls, and children and youth are often particularly affected.

We commit to embrace diversity in cities, to strengthen social cohesion, intercultural dialogue and understanding, tolerance, mutual respect, gender equality, innovation, inclusion, identity and safety, and the dignity of all people, as well as to foster livability and a vibrant urban economy. We also commit to ensure that our local institutions promote peaceful, pluralistic co-existence within increasingly heterogeneous and multi-cultural societies.

We commit to promote institutional, political, legal, and financial mechanisms in cities and human settlements to broaden inclusive democratic platforms that allow meaningful participation in decision- making, planning, and follow-up processes for all.

We commit to support sub-national and local governments, as appropriate, in fulfilling their key role in strengthening the interface among all stakeholders, offering opportunities for dialogue, including through age and gender responsive approaches, and with particular attention to the rights and needs of, and potential contributions from, all segments of society, including men and women, children and youth, older persons and persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, refugees and internally displaced persons and migrants, regardless of migration status, race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. .