News
December 7, 2021
World Urban Pavilion & Canada: FRONTRUNNER of Urban SDGs
The World Urban Pavilion in Regent Park (Pavilion), a collaborative initiative between Urban Economy Forum (UEF), UN-Habitat, and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, organized a roundtable to discuss one of its main programs titled, Canada: Frontrunner of Urban SDGs. The Pavilion as a global knowledge exchange hub for sustainable urban development and best practices, introduced the Canada: Frontrunner of Urban SDGs as a national platform for Canadian urban society to collective work toward achieving greater urban sustainability across Canada.
The initiative is working within a system of networks to engage and involve Canadian Provincial Governments, Cities, universities, private sector, civil society, and the public to encourage their participation to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Pavilion and Canada will work together to establish a strategy to achieve the urban SDGs that will be recognized globally as a model for other countries to follow. While this program brings opportunities to Canadian cities and society it is also an opportunity for Canada to facilitate and accelerate international cohesion for the SDGs.
The roundtable brought together nearly 50 stakeholders across Canada and the international community to collaborate and discuss the goals of this ambitious program:
1. Focus on actions, guidelines, and approaches to SDG11 based on a coherent national model that acknowledges the importance of decentralization
2. Identify and develop observable and tangible example that are characterized as good and best examples
3. Strengthen UN-Habitat's leadership role in connecting cities
4. Create clear and focused interactions between cities Canadian cities and between Canadian and global cities to generate a continuous dialogue and global cohesion to strengthen the international space around Goal 11.
5. Consolidate resources by creating an international fund to achieve SDG 11 and to support approaches to the SDGs in cities and towns.
6. Assess progress toward SDG11 in a centralized manner
During the roundtable, the participants touched on opportunities and common interest areas for the Pavilion’s programs. They emphasized how the initiative can contribute to the Pavilion's mandate by establishing strong partnerships and creating new opportunities for multi-sectoral collaboration. This provides opportunities for knowledge exchange and sharing best practices across Canada and with the globe. Participants emphasized that cities play a critical role in achieving the SDGs and can provide solutions to global challenges, such as the housing crisis, climate change, growing inequality, gender inequity, and the global pandemic.
The Canada: Frontrunner of Urban SDGs is an ambitious, yet realistic initiative that creates a multi-stakeholder platform for city-to-city learning to explore Canada's innovative solutions to urban sustainability, finance, SDG implementation, social inclusion, energy, and resilience. Through a collaborative model, the initiative can leverage significant opportunities and examples across Canada.
The speakers spoke about the importance of working with the residents of the Regent Park community and forming sister-neighbourhood partnerships to raise awareness and work toward achieving the urban SDGs both in Canada and globally. There are many projects and initiatives that have been very successful in Canada, such as the Regent Park revitalization project, that can provide lessons learned so other communities can incorporate innovative solutions to sustainable urban development scaled. Canada can play a frontrunner role to advance best practices on the implementation of urban SDGs support the international community in their efforts.
UN-Habitat’s SDG Cities flagship program will be at the core of this initiative, and work together with Canadian local communities, cities, private sector, and organizations to showcase innovation, knowledge, and best practices to the globe. Furthermore, UN-Habitat through its SDG Cities program will work together with the Pavilion and private sector and utilize instruments of financial innovation and a system of funding to ensure the successful implementation and monitoring of the SDGs in cities. Urban data was emphasized as a foundation need for the initiative. UN-Habitat's Global Urban Monitoring Framework provides a systematic method to track and measure the urban SDGs and the New Urban Agenda, and will provide the foundation to identify and exhibit those that are excelling and other innovative urban solutions.
