The biennial global conference series on National Urban Policies is led by UN-Habitat and its strategic partners to bring together high-level officials, policies makers, academics, among other urban stakeholders, to discuss how National Urban Policies (NUPs) enables sustainable urban development for countries.

The ICNUP3 aims to serve as a platform to discuss how NUPs can use and promote innovative ways to make cities more sustainable, climate-resilient and low-carbon. It also provides all the participants with an opportunity to showcase country-specific case studies, innovative approaches and tools, emerging knowledge on urban policy, and to learn from each other.

The conference follows the fruitful discussion at the 7th OECD roundtable of Mayors and Ministers, which took place in Athens, Greece, on March 19th 2019, where more than 50 leaders gathered to discuss the role of NUPs in addressing global megatrends. The conference will also be the first opportunity following the First UN-Habitat Assembly in Nairobi in May 2019 to consider the role of National Urban Policy in the ongoing process of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. In the new UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2020-2023 launched during the Assembly, four domains of change were highlighted, namely reduced spatial inequality and poverty in communities across urban-rural continuum, enhanced shared prosperity for cities and regions, strengthened climate action and improved urban environment, and effective urban crisis prevention and response. The focus on climate change is timely as it follows the UN Climate Change Summit in September 2019, and the upcoming revision of Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement in 2020. The focus on innovation is also relevant in the run-up to the 10th World Urban Forum, taking place in Abu Dhabi in February 2020, on the theme of Cities of Opportunities: Connecting Culture and Innovation.