There is good news: the youth climate justice movement has officially declared that we do not intend to wait until someone invites us to make decisions affecting our own present and future.

The world must invest in its urban future, and this will require innovative financing instruments and new, diversified funding sources.

The development of conflict-sensitive approaches highlights how sustainable development can be made more effective through a consideration of peace and security. 

The United Nations Secretary General’s Policy Brief on “COVID-19 in an Urban World” is an important confirmation of the centrality of urban areas and urbanization to a holistic, local-to-global response to the pandemic. It appropriately emphasizes the need to address inequality and multidimensional development challenges; strengthening local capacities and responses, especially those of local governments; and accelerating inclusive, green economic recovery.

Ultimately, the Tenth Session of the World Urban Forum will be an important milestone event in the lead-up to 2030. We intend to establish as its most lasting legacy the opportunity to transform advocates into participants and policy into practice. 

Habitat III is set to present a historical paradigm shift of urbanization as a tool for development. The Conference conveys a clear message that the pattern of urbanization needs to change in order to better respond to the challenges of our time and to address issues such as inequality, climate change, informality, insecurity and the unsustainable forms of urban expansion.

Member States meeting in Quito will adopt the New Urban Agenda, an action-oriented document that will set global standards for sustainable urban development. The Agenda will shape a new paradigm for building, managing and living in cities, relying on cooperation between partners, stakeholders, and urban actors at all levels of government, as well as the private sector.

Women and girls are not intrinsically vulnerable but their social, economic and political conditions make them susceptible to risks and vulnerabilities. In the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), to be held in Quito, Ecuador, 17–20 October 2016, the imminent threat of climate change must be seriously considered, as it increases the risks and vulnerabilities afflicting women and girls, including rural women and their communities.

It is all too easy to look underfoot and see that the road to Greater Delhi has been paved with unintelligible official regulations, subversive colonization from below and daring acts by real estate predators. It is equally important, however, on Indian Independence Day, to lift one's eyes to the clear blue sky, alive with the soaring and dipping of hundreds of kites flown from rooftops in Shahjahanabad, down to the spacious lawns leading out from the iconic President's House, where dozens of vendors serve street food from all over India, and to wend one's way at dusk to the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, to lose oneself in Sufi music, with words that have echoed down through 800 years, in the fragrance of red roses.

My perspective on transforming settlements of the urban poor is that such change should be a community- and women-centred process, in order to realize sustainability and bottom-up ownership. Transformation should involve mobilizing and sensitizing slum dwellers to understand the importance of change.