This century will see a substantial majority of the world's population living in urban centers. The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), to be held in Quito, Ecuador, from 17 to 20 October 2016, therefore has as its mission the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, an action-oriented outcome document that will set global standards of achievement in sustainable urban development.

In our highly interconnected and interdependent world, progress in safeguarding the values of sport and in strengthening sport in society requires cooperation. In order for sport to serve humanity, sport must engage with society.

No other event can empower individuals through social inclusion and societal opportunity like the Paralympic Games. Likewise, no other event can change the views of so many millions of people or stimulate Governments to create investment programmes or pass new legislation that will benefit many generations of individuals with impairments.

Youth participation in sport for development is gaining popularity and momentum because of its value in promoting life skills and the essentials of global citizenship.There is increasing recognition of the efficacy of humanitarian programmes that employ sport as a tool for intervention and change in geopolitically and culturally diverse contexts.

The UN Chronicle, under the theme Sport Aims for the Goals, considers sport's role in improving lives and achieving the Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals. This issue explores the ways in which sport can enable individuals and communities to build a stronger, more harmonious world.

The growing and increasingly institutionalized field of Sport for Development and Peace suggests significant opportunities for the world of sport to make positive contributions to overcoming the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time.

Football and other sports are helping to equip our youth with the knowledge to protect themselves and make informed choices about their health, but we need to go further. The world urgently needs to readjust its thinking on adolescent health and well-being. Young people no longer want to be passive beneficiaries they are becoming change-makers in their own right. They can serve as powerful partners for policymakers in building effective responses to the HIV epidemic that are evidence-based and proven to work.

Girls are born leaders. What they lack, almost universally, is an equal opportunity to practice that leadership and to build the resilience required for decision-making in political, economic and public life. It is clear that sport has a role to play in turning the dials of history on gender in this context. Sport builds the vital resilience necessary to venture into the challenging context of political, public and economic office.

Football is the most egalitarian sport. It recognizes no frontiers, classes or backgrounds. FC Barcelona is aware of the hope that football generates in thousands of children and how its own players have become role models. Our objective is not just to win trophies but also to influence and actively participate in structural and transformative changes, and to help people prepare for what really matters in life.

I believe that sport can transform the life of every child. Most will probably not pursue Olympic medals, but they will learn how to dream, pursue their goals and contribute to their families, communities, countries and the world.