The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
Earthquakes remain one of the most devastating urban hazards in the UNECE region, with recent events exposing critical gaps in preparedness, governance, housing safety, and post-disaster recovery. This ONE UN event will showcase how UNECE, UN-Habitat and UNDRR are jointly advancing a coherent, solution-oriented approach to urban earthquake preparedness, resilience, and recovery - linking housing, urban planning, risk governance, and disaster preparedness under a common framework. The session will present concrete tools, policy approaches and operational experiences emerging from ongoing work on seismic preparedness and response in the Europe and Central Asia region, including comparative analysis of national and local frameworks, lessons from major earthquakes in the region, and emerging good practices in resilient housing, urban infrastructure, and institutional coordination. It will highlight how these efforts are being aligned with the priorities of the Sendai Framework for DRR , global efforts for locally-led DRR through initiative such as the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative and UN-Habitat's urban resilience and housing recovery approaches. Using an interactive format, the event will bring together national and local governments, UN agencies, technical experts and city representatives to discuss how cities can move from reactive response to proactive preparedness—strengthening building safety, land-use planning, housing resilience, and emergency governance before disasters strike. The session will also introduce the upcoming Regional Framework on Seismic preparedness and outline pathways for scaling technical assistance and city-to-city learning across the Europe and Central Asia region. The event will conclude with a forward-looking dialogue on strengthening ONE UN collaboration to support cities in translating seismic risk knowledge into actionable, finance-ready urban resilience measures. Facilitator: Javier Torner Partners: UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (Switzerland) United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction UNDRR (Switzerland) UN-Habitat (Kenya) Panelists: Mr. Anar Guliyev, Chairman, The State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan) Mr. Dmitry Mariyasin, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECE (Switzerland) Mr. Murat Kurum, Minister, Ministry of the Environment Urbanization and Climate Change (Turkiye) Ms. Fatma Şahin, Mayoress, City of Gaziantep (Turkiye) Mr. Batatunde Ahonsi, Resident Coordinator United Nations, United Nations (Turkiye) Mr. Talantbek Imanakun uulu, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Construction Architecture Housing and Communal Services of the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan)
