UN-Habitat Arena - The Baku Urban Award: Scaling Housing Solutions for Global Impact (WUF13)

Hello, everybody. Welcome. I hope you can hear me. And I hope you're enjoying the 13th session of the World Open Forum and also Baku. My name is Abdinaser Sagar, World Open Forum coordinator. I will be your moderator for this session today on a very important topic and one of the legacies of WOF 13. It's about the continuity of the initiatives that we have here and how we can sustain them going forward in the future upcoming sessions. So it's an honor to have our Executive Director and the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Executive Director for UN-Habitat and the convener of the World Urban Forum, Ms. Claudia Rosbach, as well as Mr. Anar Guliyev, SCOPA chairman as well as WOF13 national coordinator. So first we will hear high level remarks from our special guests and then a video presentation as well as a discussion on these initiatives. So without further words, I am pleased to pass the mic to our executive director. Over to you. Welcome.

Thank you, Adi. Good afternoon to all of you. Your Excellency, my friend, our host, Anar Gulev, I'm very pleased to be here with you today. Well said, I think this day represents another legacy that Azerbaijan is leaving to the world. There are several ones that we have been mentioning across the sessions. I will not repeat those But what I would like to do is to connect a few dots. First of all, recognize the importance of awards for UN-Habitat, for the work, the trajectory of UN-Habitat. I see partners here, Shana is here. We have developed a solid partnership also with other partners in providing awards. And why they are so important, they are important because they help us to a partner up with high level curators, partner up with the academia, partner up with experts, civil society in really, you know, identifying and mapping out solid experiences that can help us advancing the new urban agenda. The second aspect is because in collecting those experiences, we offer to the global urban community, we offer to the society a public good, an asset that can be utilized in a very practical manner, right? So people identify what are the trends in terms of policies, people identify, you know, how, in a very practical way, stakeholders, national governments, civil society, private sector, communities, local, regional governments are really tackling challenges that they face and practical solutions, innovations and solutions. So UNHABDAT has a wide range of partnerships But this one specifically is connected now with the theme of this forum. And the other dots that I would like to connect is that as we have been sharing also throughout the sessions, one very important intergovernmental process that UNHABITAT is supporting is the Open-Ended Working Group on Housing. And thank you again, Azerbaijan is co-chairing today this year with Somalia the work of this open-ended working group and this open-ended working group was created at the UN apt assembly in 23 with the vision of provide member states with uh first robust policy recommendations on how to address the housing challenges that we have. And then secondly, assemble practices through a platform that can be offered to member states, to the overall society, concrete practices and experiences that can be assessed, can be used as a source of inspiration, can be used as a source of expertise and know-how. And this World Urban Forum is about housing because it connects to our strategic plan of UN Habitat provided by member states that are considered last year when they met in Nairobi that housing was a priority challenge to be addressed in our city today vis-a-vis the new urban agenda. So in that sense, we are connecting dots here. Another innovation and another legacy from this World Urban Forum is the Practices Hub. And for the first time, we are bringing, consolidating and seeing 500 plus practices from all over the world. So we believe that this innovation of this World Urban Forum, the assemble of practices that we already have and are showcased and displayed here in real life, of practices together with this, you know, now being born, Baku Award will help us to sustain this effort, Anar, over the years. And then through the next World Urban Forum and beyond, we can keep assembling the practices, we can keep bringing them to the World Urban Forum, but most importantly, most important, making them available to every, to everybody as, as a public good. So we would like to take this opportunity here in Baku to launch this award and to tell you that UN-Habitat is committed to work with the government of Azerbaijan and really with a group of high-level curators that will help us to go throughout this process. So, thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Edie, and really for connecting the dots for us. I think you have outlined a lot of structures at UN-Habitat that will be connected to this initiative, and I think I look forward to having it happen. Next, I would like to invite, as our ED said, our host, Mr. Anar Guliyev, Chairman of the State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, also the WOF13 National Coordinator. Mr. Chairman, over to you.

Thank you, dear Madam Executive Director, our dear friend, Anna Claudia Rosbach. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, partners, friends, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the launch of the Baku Urban Award. We come together at the moment when more than 3 billion people lack access to adequate, affordable housing, and the number is rising. And housing has become a determining question for whether the sustainable development goals can be reached and whether our cities will be just inclusive and resilient. And yet, solutions exist. They are being designed and delivered every day in cities around the world. The problem is that too many remain too local, too quiet, and too unseen. And they are not scaled and they are not learned from. That is the gap the Baku Urban Award is created to close. We believe it is definitely a legacy project. It is not just an event. And our partnership with UN-Habitat began a long time ago with the establishment of our National Urban Forum in 2022, an annual platform that has placed sustainable urbanization at the center of national policy in Azerbaijan. It deepened through our hosting of World Habitat Day and has risen to its current level with the decision to entrust Azerbaijan with WUF 13, the first session of the World Urban Forum to be held in Central Asia and South Caucasus region. But WUWV 13 was never intended to be only an event. From the very first day of our preparations, we agreed with UN-Habitat that the forum lasts six, but not five traditional days. And that what truly matters is what survives the seventh. Today, we are launching what we believe will be the most enduring of those legacies, a permanent global instrument that will carry the values and ambitions of WOV 13 forward for as long as cities need them. So what the award is for? We will hear about the award structure and other excellence requirements to be presented by our UN-Habitat colleagues. Allow me as host to say briefly what we believe it is for. It is designed to connect three things, which today too often operate in isolation. The practice, the real working solutions that mayors and practitioners have already developed. Knowledge, the rigorous documentation of why those solutions work. And policy, the uptake of those lessons by governments, by international institutions, and by global urban agenda itself. Each cycle will not end with a ceremony. It will continue through learning, capacity development, and active support for replication. The award is meant to move solutions, not merely to upload them. The global award is only as valuable as the credibility behind it. The Baku Urban Award will be judged by an independent, internationally recognized jury drawn from leading authorities in architecture, urban planning, housing, finance, climate science, and civil society, and balanced across the regions of the world. The full composition will be communicated in due course, and the caliber of vision this award seeks to honor will be reflected in few moments in a video message from Lord Norman Foster. Let me be equally clear about our ambition. We don't envisage the Baku Urban Award as a national award with international guests. We envisage it as a global award with Azerbaijani home. Its future cycles will be open to every region and every income level. If a decade from now, a city anywhere in the world is housing its people better because of a solution this award helped to surface and to scale then it will have done its work. Azerbaijan's commitment to the global urban agenda is long term and substantive. We hosted COP29 and launched multi-sectoral action pathways for resilient and healthy cities and the Baku Continuity Coalition. We co-chair, as it was mentioned, UN Habitat Intergovernmental Working Group on Adequate Housing for All. with our friends from Somalia currently. We're hosting WOV 13, and today we are co-founding a permanent global instrument with UN-Habitat. We've been every step of this, and we invite governments, cities, financial institutions, academia, practitioners, and civil society partners around the world to walk through this road with us. None of this would have been possible without UN-Habitat. On behalf of the government of Azerbaijan, I express our profound gratitude to the UN-Habitat for its leadership and its dedicated team. And the low means thank personally and warmly, Madam Executive Director, our dear friend, Ana Claudia Rosbach, for your leadership at a critical moment for the global urban agenda and for your personal commitment to this initiative from very beginning. Excellencies, dear colleagues, the Baku Urban Award is from today open to the world. May it bring forward the very best of what our cities are already doing. May it move good ideas across borders. And may it stand long after WUF 13 has closed as the legacy of which Baku is proudest. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chairman. That is our first high-level segment. We will have an upcoming segment where we will unpack their word, the components, what is in it. For now, I recommend picture. Yeah. Photo. And then we will move to the second segment. Okay, now we will move to the second segment of our event. She had to. Yeah. I would like to request Ombretta to join us on stage. So, you've heard our high-level segments which presented the Baku Urban Award as a legacy of WUF13 and really quite important for the agenda for WUF13 and post WUF13. Before we have the presentation, I would like us to watch a video by Norman Foster explaining to us and his vision for this as well. Video, please.

I'm delighted to be able to help launch the new Baku Urban Award and I'd like to express my appreciation to the Republic of Azerbaijan for hosting this important World Urban Forum, with its emphasis on sustainable development and housing. These are linked to cities, and cities generate some 80% of global wealth, but they also generate 70% of greenhouse gas emissions, and they're going to absorb most of the increase in population of 1.5 billion over the next 25 years. So they hold the key to issues of climate change, inequality, and mayors, city governments, civic leaders hold the power to be able to influence for good through the essence of these awards, sustainable urban development and housing. So I'm also honored to be invited as a jury member for the Baku Urban Awards. And I'd like to pay tribute to the UN-Habitat and the government of Baku for hosting this very, very important event.

Thank you. From Baku to Norman Foster, I think quite energetic and he was quite enthusiastic, as you heard, to be part of the jury for the Baku Urban Award. Next, we would like to hear and see a presentation by Elam Yemiru. who has been involved in WUFI from the beginning. And I'm sure you're quite happy to see this as a legacy of WUFI 13. Elam, over to you.

Thank you, moderator. And please allow me to stand so I can see my PowerPoint as well. Mine is just to provide a brief elaboration on the Baku Urban Award. Of course, you've already heard from His Excellency, Mr. Chairman, Her Excellency, Anna Claudia Rosbach, about the award, why it matters, and the impact that we're trying to achieve. So I'll add a little bit to that. And I'm going to move the slides. Yes, so as you've heard, and to elaborate why, why do we have an award, how is it that it responds to global challenges? At the core of this award is really to address the global challenge of adequate housing. You've been hearing about that throughout this forum, so it's not news to you anymore that almost 3.4 billion people globally today don't have adequate housing. across the world, across the globe. That is a reality that is affecting developed and developed countries alike without any exception. So this is the core challenge that this award is responding to. And as I said, the challenge is of a very great magnitude. But this award and initiative also recognizes that we have solutions. Solutions exist. So it's not that we don't have solutions. The challenge and the missing link, as also emphasized by His Excellency, the National Coordinator of the World Urban Forum, is that we are not linking solutions with practitioners, with those that need the solutions. We have solutions that are primarily local, implemented in a particular location, in a particular city, in a particular country. and so they remain isolated. They are not connected to go to scale. And also, we find that even where there is knowledge and know-how about the solution, capacities might not be there. So capacity development also becomes essential to translate knowledge about practices into action. And so these are some of the key principles that are at the core of this award. And it's very important to highlight that this is not simply about giving out an award. at the end of a journey. It's about the process that we go through. It's about the knowledge that's created. It's about the value, the public good, as the executive director highlighted, that this award, with the generous support of the government of Azerbaijan, will offer to the world. And what we know from our experience at the World Urban Forum is that all of you and all the 30,000 plus participants here have one question on their mind. People would like to understand how to implement solutions, less about concepts, more about action. So this award corresponds directly to that demand. What we want to do through the Baku Urban Award is to identify those solutions that actually exist. We know they exist, but where are those solutions? We want to promote the solutions. in countries, in cities, in places where there is a demand and a need for those solutions. We want to connect actors and action. We want to strengthen capacities for implementing solutions. And much more importantly, we want to support the replication of solutions. As I said earlier, the existence of solutions alone is not sufficient. What is critical is replication and going to scale with those solutions. There is much more to this initiative than just giving out an award. So I think that's very important to keep in mind for us. We are very, very pleased and honored to be collaborating with the government of Azerbaijan on this initiative. This forum, Baku, is the right place to launch this award. We are here talking about housing and urban development. We are here in a city in a country that has its own solutions to offer. And we are here with 30,000 other participants that have come here looking for solutions. So it's the right place to launch this award. As we highlighted earlier also, this award is connected to other global initiatives. It will be at the heart of the World Urban Forum. We hope that it will be a centerpiece at the next World Urban Forum to be held in Mexico in 2028 and we are building on the WUOF Practices Hub which is just behind you in the space just behind here where we have been talking about solutions, practices and how different cities, different actors are addressing global challenges. So for all these reasons, we believe this award is going to be high impact. And what we know at UN-Habitat for sure is that the demand for solutions for excellence and practices in housing and urban development is extremely high. And we believe that this is exactly the kind of initiative we need to respond to the global demand together with the government of Azerbaijan. So really, we're very honored. We're very excited about the impact that we can jointly achieve at a global scale, and we hope that the journey ahead will be fruitful and, of course, of value as a public good as well. So let me stop here and hand over back to you.

Thank you very much, Edlam, for really the details of the award, the scope, and more importantly, the impact it seeks to have. Next, I would like to give the floor to Ombretta to give us more about the rationale, how it can connect to other structures within UN-Habitat, and how this initiative can benefit all of us. Over to you, Ombretta.

Thank you. Thank you, Abdi Nasir. I don't have a presentation, but I'll nevertheless stand. Thank you again for joining this session. And I'm very pleased to be part of the launch of this award. As As Abdinasir mentioned, my name is Ambretta Temperand, the Chief of the Land, Housing and Informal Settlements Session at UN-Habitat. And I coordinate the technical work of the Intergovernmental Open-ended Working Group on Adequate Housing for All, of course, under the leadership of our Executive Director and under the leadership of the co-chairs, Azerbaijan and Somalia. The working group, the Open-ended Working Group, aims primarily at collecting actually experiences of practices that work at scale in providing adequate housing and transforming informal settlement and make sure that these practices actually translate in global policy guidelines that can inform countries in their own adaptation, in shaping their own policies, their programs, their intervention on the ground. So, first of all, I think we are very glad to see that we will have an extra help to collect these practices from the ground and convey them to the global policy discussion. And We also are glad to see that we will have a diversity of examples. As we see, of course, there are, as previous speakers mentioned, that there are a lot of examples, solutions that happen on the ground, but they struggle to reach and the global audience. We see so many examples in this World Urban Forum of solutions that exist, but when we look at the literature, we don't find them. When we look at the literature, we find a recurrence of the same solution that became more popular somehow. Even in the preparation of the World Cities Report that Edlam and team coordinated, we see that, for example, for social housing, although there are so many great examples of social housing, when you look at the global literature, what actually lands on the desks of students there are always two, three, for example, mostly from the global north, that actually shape the way students, new young professional, look at social housing. And this is really impoverishing the global discussion, for example, on social housing. Awards like the to Urban Awards, we hope will help and we are sure will help us to fill this gap, to collect a diversity of lessons, the richness of solution that are out there in all the regions of the world and help us to get this region into the global practices and inspire countries that might be looking for a solution that are happening in context that are more similar to their own context and find ways, for example, of establishing or strengthening south to south cooperation and bilateral cooperation. So in a way we see that this will have value in itself, will have value in in enriching our global normative thinking, will add value actually to the work that students, young professional are going to do in the future and to diversify our own understanding of how to address adequate housing at scale. So with this, I think I can conclude by thanking the organizer and the promoter of this award. And we look forward to continue working with you to find a housing solution that actually work at scale. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the day.

Thank you very much, Ombretta. That was really useful, I think, to understand how the initiative there would help discover knowledge, mainstream and replicate solutions and practices, and really deliver for all of us and address the challenges we have. Before we close, I just want to ask Adam, our director, about the next steps, because I'm sure you're all eagerly waiting what comes next. You've heard from Norman Foster that the jury will soon be put together. He's one of them. And we will share more. But in terms of the initiative, Elham, you can share with us the next steps, and then we will close.

Thank you, Abdennasser. So after this event where we have launched the award, of course, as you heard, We will be identifying the jury members, internationally renowned and globally reputable experts will be working with us in this award and in the process. We will be opening up the award for submissions from around the world and we hope that we will get a good response from the opening. We will then proceed to compile and review and analyze the submissions. And of course, at WEF 14 in Mexico will be where we will give out the award to the selected winners of this award. But it does not stop there. We will be looking very closely at the submissions and the proposals that we receive from around the world to prepare practices that we can share with practitioners and with those that need solutions. So as I said earlier, this award is not about the award winners only. Yes, we will recognize excellence through the award, but we will also be creating practices and solutions that will be shared much more widely beyond the recipients of the award. And so we hope that this will really respond to the demand that we see globally for practices, for solutions that go beyond the usual solutions that we see everywhere and create new knowledge and really have a transformational impact in the coming period. So that's the vision that we have.

Thank you very much, Edlum. In closing, I think this was a very exciting initiative coming up. And this event really highlighted why we're doing it, which is about the challenge we have, the 3 billion people that do not have access to affordable housing. We talked about the how, which is the knowledge that will be discovered, the research products, the solutions that will be put together, the practices, and the capacity development. And we also talked about the impact we seek to have. So I want to thank our team, UN-Habitat first, and our leadership for supporting and championing this initiative. And really to our host, the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan, for really not only promoting, but for championing this initiative and for supporting and really making it a legacy of WOF13. We're excited about the next steps and the partnership that we have had, of course, but also the one that's coming up Thank you all for joining us. I hope you join us in this endeavor and really apply when the award is open. Looking forward to your solutions. Thank you very much.