The sixth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-6) took place on Oct. 19-21 in Jakarta. This meeting, organized every four to five years through the UN, was hosted by the government of Indonesia and brought together policymakers and practitioners to discuss emerging and critical urban development issues.
This year’s forum took place at a pivotal moment, following the recent adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ‘ an inter-governmentally agreed set of targets that will build upon and replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ‘ and leading up to the third United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat III) next year in Quito.
APUF-6 provided an opportunity to focus on the reality of the newly adopted 11th SDG that commits member states to: ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. Half of humanity is already urban, and this level will continue to rise with 95 percent of future expansion happening in the developing world by 2030…
Read the full Jakarta op-ed, written with Richard Friend, here.