Day 3 – Follow the Summit Live

The UCLG Congress was officially opened :

• Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Acting President of the Republic of South Africa
• Graça Machel, Chairperson of the ACCORD Board of Trustees
• Parks Tau, President of United Cities and Local Governments
• Fabrizio Hochschild Drummond, Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations
• Sihle Zikalala, Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal
• Mxolisi Kaunda, Mayor of eThekwini Municipality

Reinventing Local Democracy was the first focus theme of the Plenary. Delegates were first inspired by UCLG Policy’s Sentinels, Aromar Revi and Debra Roberts, who made a plea for an interurban ecosystem. Re-inventing democracy is a necessity in today’s world that needs to come from the ground, from the local level, representing our communities, in dialogue with our communities, for our  communities, and for the sustainability of our world, to ensure it remains a place in which we can live with rights, responsibilities, and freedoms. The debate was moderated by Open Government Partnership.

The two main tracks of the World Summit, the Assembly and the TownHall Tracks, kicked off on Day 3. Whereas the African Assembly put forward the critical issues of decentralisation and local finance, the European and Eurasian Assembly emphasized on the challenges in making the development agendas a local reality.

Four Special Sessions, aiming at envisioning the future of the international municipal movement on key policy topics. On Day 3, special sessions on Housing, Culture, Biodiversity and Ecology gathered the constituency and their partners, and put forward four manifestos.The Special Session on Housing assessed progress made in the implementation of the right to housing in the territories all over the world, and will discuss the way forward along with the UN Special Rapporteur.

Showcasing the extensive Common Roadmap for the local and subnational constituency towards “Living in Harmony with Nature”, as part of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework consultation and negotiation process, and the development of a consolidated and collective position statement, the Special Session on Biodiversity highlighted which parties align themselves with local and subnational governments’ role in the new global framework towards meeting the Convention’s three objectives.

The Special Session on Ecology, gathering our sister organisations ICLEI, GCoM, C40, allowed to rethink the constituency’s narrative on Sustainability and Ecology.

Eventually, the Special Session on the Future of Culture allowed leading UCLG local governments on culture to explain innovative key policies considering new challenges including gender, and the relationship between culture and the right to the city, advocacy on culture in cities, and the enhancement of the relations with civil society.

The Local4Action Track intensive activity continued throughout the day, with exchanges on the Summit’s guided experience on blue economy, resilience and climate emergency. Regarding the governance of UCLG, the Committee on Statutory Affairs paved the way to the last Executive Bureau of the World Organisation in its 2016-2019 mandate. The Executive Bureau updated on the membership key work areas and disseminated the policy recommendations of the GOLD V Report on the localization of the global agendas.