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16 - 18 May, Lilongwe, Malawi

UNOSD, UNPOG and UNDP Malawi jointly organise 'International mayors' forum' which will be taking place in Lilongwe (16 ~ 18 May) to discuss the agenda 2030 with particular emphasis on the SDG No. 11 'Sustainable cities and communities' at local level. Since 2017, GSEF has been closely working together with UNOSD to promote the SSE in localising the SDGs. And the GSEF will contribute to the successful hosting of the event and advocating the SSE.

For further details, please refer to the UNOSD homepage here: Link and the description below is an excerpt from the webpage. 

The International Mayors' Forum in Lilongwe is to provide an international platform for policy dialogue and knowledge sharing through presentations and discussions on key aspects related to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 11, at local level as a means to achieve a better understanding of successes, lessons and specific mechanisms and accelerate the in-depth transformation needed to make our societies sustainable and resilient.

Cities are essential to sustainable development. Besides, being incubators for innovation, art and culture, cities can play a leading role in economic development of countries, whose global gross domestic product (GDP) is created, for a large part, in cities. However, the current trend of urbanization is also often accompanied by significant social and environmental challenges, such as the lack of access to adequate, affordable urban land and housing options, urban infrastructure and basic services for a growing number of citizens, who suffer from rising inequality and exclusion.

This is particularly true in developing countries, where about one third of urban dwellers - or more than 860 million people - live in slums, their number increasing rapidly as in many cases urbanization is taking place mostly informally, i.e., through uncontrolled urban expansion, poor land use planning and management, lack of environmental degradation, and failures in the design, construction and maintenance of buildings and infrastructure. Besides lacking environmental services, including drainage, waste-water collection and treatment, garbage collection and adequate access to safe water, those settlements are particularly susceptible to hazards with natural or human cause.