The World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments (LRGs) was organised by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments at the 11th World Urban Forum. The United Nations General Assembly recognises the World Assembly for local governments’ significance in setting global urban development agendas. The meeting aimed to follow up on the New Urban Agenda’s commitments during the High-Level Meeting held in New York in April 2022. It was attended by Mayors and representatives of city governments from across the world
The session opened with a message from Maimunah Sharif, Executive Director, UN-Habitat. She said, “World Assembly is the official mechanism for local and regional governments to review the implementation of New Urban Agenda. It presents us with the opportunity to assess challenges, discuss action and shape common solutions from the bottom-up.”
Jan Van Zanen, Mayor of the Hague, also spoke about the importance of local bodies as first responders to emergencies. He said, “In times of conflict, it is local to local exchanges driven by transformative city diplomacy that can build bridges in communities. We need to value the actions of local governments as first respondents in crises.”
Berry Vrbranovic, Mayor of Kitchener (also the Governing President of UCLG), said, “Local and regional governments are partners, and they need full support to jointly achieve the urban agenda.” It was highlighted that in this session, critical partners of local governments, that is, civil society organisations were present in significant numbers, which will help promote local multilateralism.
Speaking on the aspect of care from a feminist perspective was Claudia Nayibe López Hernández, Mayor, Bogota. She said, “Municipal governments in Columbia are fairly strong. We are in charge of some of the most important social services such as childcare, at least basic and secondary education, and health services. That’s why we were crucial during the pandemic: we were responsible for providing health services directly to the people.”
Mohammad Mezghani, General-Secretary, International Association of Public Transport, spoke on public transport and urban mobility. He discussed three significant dimensions, i.e. economic, environmental and social. Economically, cities generate more than 80 per cent of the global GDP. Public transport is amongst the largest employers in a city. Its importance in climate action is underlined by the fact that transport contributes significantly to CO2 emissions. Alexandre Aspan Frediani, Principal Researcher, Human Settlements Research Group, International Institute for Environment and Development, reiterated that our current development trajectory is unsustainable. The most pressing challenges ahead of us are climate change and deepening inequalities. He gave five ways how this could be done.
In the closing remarks of the World Assembly, speakers recapitulated and reiterated some crucial points during the entire session. Dr Shipra Narang Suri of UN-Habitat stated that all regional governments are unequal; therefore, there is a need to focus more on the intermediary cities or those not as well-equipped as others.