World Cities Day

2024 Theme: Youth Leading Climate and Local Action for Cities

Cities are projected to house 70% of the world's population by 2050, facing unprecedented challenges in the context of climate change. By 2030, an estimated 60% of people will live in urban areas, with up to 60% of urban dwellers under 18. Despite progress towards Sustainable Development Goals, cities, particularly in the Global South, continue to grapple with poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, necessitating urgent action.

Experts emphasize the importance of involving youth in urban decision-making to harness their creativity and drive sustainable development. World Cities Day 2024, themed "Youth climate changemakers: Catalyzing local action for urban sustainability," aims to showcase the crucial role of local governments and young people in addressing urban climate challenges. The event will highlight youth-proposed innovative ideas and explore ways to transform these into concrete actions.

International initiatives like the Pact for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations seek to prioritize youth voices in shaping sustainable urban environments. The Summit of the Future was an opportunity to integrate youth perspectives into global policy and ensure the multilateral system responds to younger generations' needs.

Proposed actions include establishing youth councils, integrating youth representatives into local governments, and maintaining ongoing dialogue between young people and policymakers. These efforts aim to create cities that are not only sustainable and resilient but also reflective of all inhabitants' diverse voices and needs, both present and future.

Learn more at UN-Habitat [PDF]

Background

The United Nations General Assembly designated 31 October as World Cities Day, by its resolution 68/239. The Day is expected to greatly promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, push forward cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities addressing challenges of urbanization and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world.

Urbanization provides the potential for new forms of social inclusion, including greater equality, access to services and new opportunities, and engagement and mobilization that reflects the diversity of cities, countries and the globe. Yet too often this is not the shape of urban development. Inequality and exclusion abound, often at rates greater than the national average, at the expense of sustainable development that delivers for all.

Urban October was launched by UN-Habitat in 2014 to emphasize the world’s urban challenges and engage the international community towards the New Urban Agenda.

Sustainable Development Goal 11, which formulates the ambition to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable - underlying the relevance of UN-Habitat’s mission. Inequalities in cities have grown since 1980. The world largest cities are also often the most unequal, and this year’s theme is embraced by the action and implementation of the New Urban Agenda, which is putting the topic of inclusive cities as one of the main pillars for the urban shift.

In October 2016, the HABITAT III Conference, held in Quito, adopted a new framework, which will set the world on a course towards sustainable urban development by rethinking how cities are planned, managed and inhabited. The New Urban Agenda will set the pace on how to deal with the challenges of urbanization in the next two decades, and is seen as an extension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed on by the 193 Member States of the UN in September 2015.

Find out more and register for the event here.

Sources: UN News and UN-Habitat