The United Nations General Assembly has designated the 31 October as World Cities Day, by its resolution 68/239. The Day is expected to greatly promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, push forward cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities and addressing challenges of urbanization, and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world.

FORUM: World Cities Day 2020 - "Valuing Our Communities and Cities."

UN-Habitat’s latest World Cities Report reinforces the benefits of cities that engage all stakeholders, including local communities to foster sustainable cities. The Secretary-General has identified cities and communities as being on the frontline of the COVID-19 response. Collectively, we can truly foster sustainable cities for all. Community activities can no longer be taken for granted or under-resourced. Policy makers and urban managers need to engage communities systematically and strategically in urban planning, implementation and monitoring to co-create the cities of the future. The recognition of communities’ value must be maintained beyond the virus outbreak. In the transition to a new sustainable urban normality, local communities must play an expanded role supporting government stimulus packages for employment creation, delivery of essential services, ensuring a green-economic transformation, the provision of adequate shelter and public space and reestablishment of local value chains.

The details of the Roundtables are below; Roundtable 1 - Towards Africities: Achieving the SDGs through Resilient Intermediate Cities in Africa | Roundtable 2 - Working together to build sustainable cities and communities | Roundtable 3 - Building Back Better communities Through Public space. | Roundtable 4 - The Value of Sustainable Urbanization.

CAMPAIGN: Better Cities, Better Life.

Local communities have played a key role in contributing to keeping people safe and maintaining some economic activities. Community value encompasses local volunteering and people organizing in their own neighbourhoods as well as social movements that challenge poverty, systemic discrimination and racism. In informal settlements and slums in particular, communities are making a significant contribution while individual households in urban areas are providing an enabling environment for work and study in the home.

Statement by the United Nations-Secretary General on World Cities Day 2020, October 31st.

On this World Cities Day, we recognize the extraordinary contribution made by grassroots communities in our cities and towns. The value of communities has been brought into sharp focus during the response to COVID-19. Cities have borne the brunt of the pandemic. Urban areas are already home to 55 per cent of the world’s population, and that figure is expected to grow to 68 per cent by 2050. Our rapidly urbanizing world must respond effectively to this pandemic and prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks. With the pandemic often overwhelming public health and support services, communities have organized to keep their neighbourhoods safe and functioning, engaging with local and national governments to support the official response. We have seen neighbours shopping and cooking for the sick and elderly, residents cheering health workers, and local volunteer and faith-based groups supporting the vulnerable. Communities are innovative, resilient and proactive. They play a vital role in building economically, socially and environmentally sustainable cities. Let us maintain this recognition of their value. As we rebuild from the pandemic and engage in the Decade of Action for Sustainable Development, we have an opportunity to reset how we live and interact. Local action is the key. When urban communities are engaged in policy and decision making, and empowered with financial resources, the results are more inclusive and durable. 2 Let’s put our communities at the heart of the cities of the future.

U.N. Secretary-General.

Statement by the Executive Director of UN-Habitat Maimunah Mohd Sharif on World Cities Day, 31 October 2020.

Local communities are the lifeblood of our cities and towns. And during the COVID-19 outbreak – their contribution has been extraordinary. As urban areas were hit by one of the most serious economic and social crises for generations, communities helped to keep people safe and healthy in countless ways. In my webinar sessions with over 1,000 cities since we all started working virtually, I have witnessed first hand, how communities have come together to form self-help networks providing food for the most vulnerable, carrying water to the elderly and creating apps to help match donors with recipients based on what was needed the most. Community leaders and their teams continue to play a key role working with local governments and national government agencies to find quarantine spaces and help set up makeshift clinics. Youth and grassroots women continue to direct assistance to the most vulnerable. They do this by learning and using local knowledge. In the process, they have found creative ways of disseminating crucial information and empowering the people they serve. We are in the midst of the worst socio-economic crisis in a hundred years. I am grateful to community actors who work with the private sector to help find alternative livelihoods. In informal settlements and slums in particular, communities provide a vital safety net.But their value goes far beyond supporting emergency responses. On this World Cities Day, we must recognise that communities must be at the centre of designing their own, longer term solutions and we must listen to them as their on-ground experience will help us build resilience and equity in the future. Communities can work in partnerships with local governments, the private sector, healthcare, education and other services to maximise the impact of their knowledge and skills. Valuing our communities is an important first step towards the transformational change we need to build back better and build back greener. As we celebrate World Cities Day, let us join hands together to value our community leaders and communities themselves. It is only by going beyond acknowledging their contributions to opening up wider opportunities for them to network, co-create and finance their initiatives can we achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in this Decade of Action.

UN-Habitat Executive Director, Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif.

Joint Statement by Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN‐Habitat) on World Cities Day - 31 October 2020 .

Events: PROGRAMME OF THE GLOBAL World Cites Day OBSERVANCE hosted by NAKURU, KENYA;

During the morning of 31 October the virtual high-level opening ceremony will take place and in the afternoon, starting from 12:45 pm (East Africa Time, GMT+3) the four Roundtables with influential global speakers will take place.