NEW YORK / GENEVA (29 June 2016) – A group of twelve United Nations human rights experts today called for a New Urban Agenda that recognises the human rights deprivations caused by unrestrained urban economic growth, and commit to concrete human rights responses, including the regulation of private actors consistent with human rights norms.
“Who is the first Urban Agenda of the XXI Century for?” – the experts asked in an Open Statement* to government delegates gathering this week in New York to negotiate another draft of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III, to take place October 17-20, 2016 in Quito, Ecuador.
“If it is not aimed at improving the lives of those living in poverty, in appalling conditions in ever-growing informal settlements, if it not for those who are homeless, or for the groups who often experience discrimination and exclusion –persons with disabilities, older persons, women, internally displaced persons, minorities, indigenous peoples, migrants, and refugees– then we must ask, who is it for?”
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, Leilani Farha, warned that for millions across the globe, economic growth has resulted in ghettoization, development-based evictions, displacement and excessive increases in the cost of housing, services and other necessities in cities.
“The economic development and growth of cities are prominent issues in the revised zero draft, but all too little attention is paid to the impact of urban growth on poor people and groups in extremely vulnerable situations,” Philip Alston, independent expert on extreme poverty, said.
The experts, appointed by the Human Rights Council, highlighted the need for the New Urban Agenda to include mechanisms to ensure that those engaged in development –financial institutions, infrastructure developers and land and real estate conglomerates – do so in a manner that is consistent with human rights.
“Without a strong commitment to human rights protections in the New Urban Agenda, and to regulating land and housing policies in a manner consistent with human rights principles, we will simply see more of the same: exclusion and Ms. Farha cautioned.
