Following the UN-Habitat Governing Council resolution 24/3 in April 2013 on “Inclusive and sustainable urban planning and elaboration of international guidelines on urban and territorial planning”, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted an expert group meeting on 24th and 25th April in Paris, in cooperation with UCLG and the ISOCARP planner network.
Following the spirit of the resolution, the proposed Guidelines will provide a global framework for improving policies, plans and designs for more compact, socially inclusive, better integrated and connected cities and territories that foster sustainable urban development and are resilient to climate change.
The planning guidelines set to highlight and work on principles for Sustainable development that have a spatial and territorial dimension: from sprawl to compact, segregated to inclusive and integrated, from fragmented to connected territories. During the meeting in Paris, a roadmap, structure, format and outline was proposed.
These 3rd international guidelines should further build on the Guidelines on Decentralization and Public Services that UCLG actively contributed to defining and whose implementation is now being promoted, through the Global Observatory on Local Decentralization and Local Democracy.
Building on the work developed by the Committee on Urban Strategic Planning, notably its policy paper, UCLG underlines the importance of subsidiaries, the public interest of land, the key role of public space and the need to ensure participation of communities in planning and establishing the proximity of services.
The Guidelines that are envisaged to be put forward at the Governing Council in 2015 will also be key for the New Urban Agenda that will be defined in Habitat III.
Planning is a key topic of the Local and Regional Governments’ Agenda that UCLG is defining with its members. It is also a priority for the work of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments.
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