Member states hail UN-Habitat for emerging from austerity

Nairobi, 29 March 2023—The first session of the Executive Board of UN-Habitat came to a close on Wednesday, with the delegates expressing their enthusiasm over the achievements and milestones the agency has made over the past year.

A total of 426 participants registered for the first session on 28 and 29 March 2023 in a hybrid format - some delegates came in person to the UNON conference complex in Nairobi, Kenya, and the rest joined virtually.

Most delegates congratulated UN-Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif and the entire staff for the strides that saw the organization’s coffers move from a deficit to a surplus, a milestone achieved in 2022.

The Executive Director noted that UN-Habitat was finally emerging from austerity with the Executive Board's guidance and support. She said that the organization started 2022 in the negative but ended the year with a surplus attributing to austerity measures and fundraising efforts. UN-Habitat had paid its loan and funded the reserve as directed by the Executive Board. She disclosed that the organization had raised US dollars 540 million to achieve this.

Also eliciting interest at the session were preparations for the second United Nations Habitat Assembly scheduled to take place from 5 to 9 June 2023 in Nairobi and plans for hosting the twelfth session of the World Urban Forum, to take place in Egypt in November 2024.

The upcoming session of the Assembly would exercise its role in reviewing major trends and examining global norms and standards toward advancing global urban policies. The goal of the Assembly is to position UN-Habitat as the prime legislative platform for global urban policymaking.

During the session on the second day of the Executive Board, it was disclosed that the government of Egypt and UN-Habitat had identified a main theme for the upcoming twelfth session of the World Urban Forum around “Localisation: concrete and tangible implementation of SDG and NUA.” UN-Habitat also started developing a new programme document with refined objectives to cover the subsequent three cycles of the World Urban Forum.