At this event, the programme associated with a Call to Action on Sustainable Urbanisation in the Commonwealth was launched, under the leadership of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Commonwealth Association of Architects, the Commonwealth Association of Planners, and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, with support from the Prince’s Foundation and the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure.
This session was co-hosted by the Commonwealth Engineers Council and UNSECO and focused on systems level approaches to building resilient and healthy communities through social and physical infrastructure.
Chairs: Prof Paul Jowitt, President of the Commonwealth Engineers Council and Dr Peggy Oti-Boateng, Director of Science Policy and Capacity Building at UNESCO.
Panellists:
- Dr Priti Parikh, University College London, UK
- Professor Murali Chandrashekaran, Vice Provost International, UBC, Canada
- Dr Josh Macabuag, Disaster Risk Engineer, Independent Consultant, UK
- Thandeka Mlaza-Lloyd, Development Planning Unit, Johannesburg
- Dr Juliet Mian, Deputy Executive Director, The Resilience Shift
Key themes:
- Interdisciplinary collaborations are required for cities to better respond to future events
- Opportunities for green recovery and growth
- Capacity building and skills development in engineering and related disciplines
- Potential enablers: energy, ICT, water/sanitation, social networks, paraprofessionals, etc.
- Potential threats: pandemics such as COVID-19, climate change, natural disasters, ineffective institutions, poor governance, etc.
The event attracted over 187 attendees from 29 countries.
Key messages
- The need for systems level thinking – in terms of the resilience response to events and building resilience into cities.
- Impacts on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from COVID-19 and extreme events, and the need to rebuild better for all citizens
- Building capacity and the role of effective built environment professional institutions
- The importance of developing multi-level, inter-disciplinary, cross-sectoral collaboration to achieve sustainable urbanisation
- The role of local governance and city leaders
- The importance of engaging young people in decision making in a meaningful way
- The role of the Commonwealth as a convening force and international collaboration
- Now is the time for an infrastructure led response to the UN SDGs – the Call to Action.
