Voice of the youth: sustainable urban future

On 22 January 2016, the Water Youth Network, with support from IAHT Young Professionals Network, organized a youth consultation: inviting the voice of the youth for a sustainable urban future.

The consultation was done in order to support the work of United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UN MGCY), which is in charge of collecting youth input for a New Urban Agenda. This will be presented at HABITAT III United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development taking place in Ecuador on October 2016. UNESCO IHE supported the Water Youth Network by providing a venue for the event.

The overall objective of the consultation was to provide a platform for young people to present and/ or give their input for the global HABITAT III process and to ensure their contribution is taken into account. This is of extreme importance, since it is expected that by 2030, 60% of global urban population will be youth. The consultation was done with nearly 50 participants coming from  diverse educational and cultural backgrounds.

Several introductory speeches on theoretical background to urbanization, challenges to sustainable urbanization and HABITAT III process were provided by invited speakers:

  • Dr. Michelle Kooy from UNESCO IHE
  • Cees van de Guchte from Deltares
  • Sanne Vermeulen from Human Cities Coalition at AkzoNobel

Next step

Water Youth Network plans on drafting a Position Paper on HABITAT III process and submitting it to UN MGCY, providing input for the New Urban

Agenda. dsc00793