sustainable urban development

Catalonia wants to be the first region to implement the New Urban Agenda, a document to be adopted this week at Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in Quito, Ecuador. The aim of this meeting of local and regional leaders is to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable urban development, assess accomplishments to date and provide guidance to states, city and regional authorities, civil society, foundations, NGOs, academic researchers and U.?N. agencies in this field. The Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability, Josep Rull, has offered to the United Nations that Catalonia be the first territory to implement the conclusions of the New Urban Agenda and stressed that the Catalan model "is inclusive, cohesive and committed to sustainable development".

Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability Josep Rull is at the UN Headquarters in New York, together with over 100 representatives of local and regional governments from around the world, in order to prepare ‘Habitat III’, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, which will be held in Quito, Ecuador in October. In his intervention, Rull emphasised Catalonia’s push for independence and the legitimacy of such a process in front of the international community. I am a member of a democratically elected government that is working to become an independent state. Earlier, Rull greeted the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon “on behalf of Catalonia”. The Catalan Minister also expressed the Government’s point of view regarding the draft of the New Urban Agenda, a compilation of pledges and new obligations which set in place a new global strategy on urbanisation for the next two decades and which is expected to be approved at the Quito summit.