New York, 29 April 2022 - The Government of Poland, the City of Katowice and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the organisers of the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11), are ready to receive participants in Katowice as scheduled on 26-30 June 2022.
Last week, the Government of Poland hosted an advance mission of the UN-Habitat Executive Board Bureau Members and stakeholder representatives. The delegation was led by Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme Ambassador Jean Kimani.
The advance mission toured the conference venue and met with key government officials responsible for health, safety and security. They also visited refugee reception facilities and were impressed with the generous hosting services provided by the Government of Poland and the City of Katowice.
Executive Director of UN-Habitat Maimunah Mohd Sharif has expressed her appreciation for extraordinary efforts of the Government of Poland and City of Katowice to support the increasing number of Ukrainian refugees. The programme of the World Urban Forum will also feature a session on the urban crisis recovery and reconstruction.
A special event in the run-up to WUF11, Road to Katowice, takes place after the high-level meeting, convened by the President of the General Assembly on the New Urban Agenda in New York. It will feature follow-on actions on the New Urban Agenda ahead of WUF11.
“As this World Urban Forum takes place in Poland, it is the right time and place to mobilize much needed support for urban crisis response given the dramatic events that are unfolding in this region,” said Maimunah Mohd Sharif, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat.
“Cities have been and will continue to be at the forefront of the refugee, climate and COVID-19 health crises. They are also the place where transformative action can be delivered in response to national and global emergencies,” she said.
“Preparations for the eleventh session of the World Urban Forum are in the home stretch. WUF11 will be very rich in content on the one hand, and many additional attractions for the participants outside the venue, on the other. In the context of the war in Ukraine, destruction of cities and a large number of refugees in Poland, we are including in the WUF11 programme the issue of reconstruction of the cities in the post-war areas and their resilience to crises.”
“Now, I can assure you that all WUF11 participants can feel safe and it will be worth coming to Katowice in June. We very much look forward for our guests to show them our great Polish hospitality,” according to Małgorzata Jarosińska-Jedynak, secretary of state at the Polish Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy and the Government Plenipotentiary for the preparation of the World Urban Forum in Katowice in 2022.
“WUF11 is another event, after the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which Katowice is hosting. This event is not only an excellent promotion but, first of all, an award for the transformation of our city and encouragement for further changes. I am proud that we will discuss the role of cities in the world in Katowice. It is particularly important given the situation we are witnessing now in Ukraine. I would like to thank UN-Habitat, the Polish government as well as our institutions and partners for cooperation - our joint efforts make it possible to hold WUF11 in Katowice in a safe and attractive way," says Marcin Krupa, Mayor of Katowice.
Registration for the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum is open until 22 June 2022. Selections for partner-led events of the programme will be announced soon. Applications for the Urban Expo will close on 13 May 2022. More detailed programme sessions will also be updated in due time.
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More details are available at https://wuf11.katowice.eu/ and https://wuf.unhabitat.org/
For further information contact:
Katerina Bezgachina
Chief of Communication, UN-Habitat
Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy of Poland, WUF11 communication unit
Paweł Nowak
Head of WUf11 communication unit
Iga Osiewała-Cieślik
Iga.osiewala-cieslik@mfipr.gov.pl
Michał Łyczak, Press Officer, City Hall Katowice, Poland