The World Urban Forum is the world’s premier conference on urban issues. It was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies. The Forum is organized and convened by the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHabitat) pursuant to paragraph 10 of resolution 18/5 of the Commission on Human Settlements, in which the Commission requested the Executive Director to promote a merger of the Urban Environment Forum and the International Forum on Urban Poverty into a new urban forum, with a view to strengthening the coordination of international support to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

In order to ensure that there would be effective engagement by African countries in the process of generating an ‘Urban Agenda’ for the 21st century which recognizes the ever-changing dynamics of human civilization, the Governments of Nigeria and Ghana have committed tofacilitate an active, evidence-based and highly inclusive Preparatory Process for Habitat II, with all stakeholders from across the continent in atendance, through a project entitled the ‘Strengthening Partnerships for a New Africa Urban Agenda’. Arising from the above, the Take-offConference on Strengthening Partnerships for a New Africa Urban Agenda was held at the Gigiri Complex of the United Nations Offices, Nairobi, Kenya, from the 4th to the 6th of December, 2013, under the theme: Imperatives for an Africa Urban Agenda.

The main objectives of the Conference consisted in:

• Identifying key imperatives for designing an Africa Urban Agenda based on the “New Pact: Optimizing the Urban Advantage”;• Exploring ways of strengthening partnerships between state and non-state actors in the pursuit of a new urban agenda for Africa;• Introducing the “Strengthening Partnerships” Project, reviewing the road map for implementation as well as the roles of various partners in achieving the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and the national andregional preparations for Habitat III;• Providing an overview of the tools needed in addressing priority areas for action. View it in French.

The African Urban Agenda (AUA) is an initiative by UN-Habitat tailored to establish and strengthenpartnerships between state and non-state actors towards advancing a new urban agenda. The project aims at raising the profile of urbanization as an imperative for development in Africa. It contributes to promoting democratic governance through mobilization, sensitization and strengthening of non-state actors to partner effectively with the national governments of sub-Sahara African countries in articulating Africa’s priorities for the next 20 years with a focus on a transformative national urbanpolicy, compact cities at a human scale, undertaking institutional and legal reform and improved collaboration.It also aims at building an understanding between non-state actors and national governments, thereby building an African consensus with a strong momentum of support for a continent-wide urban agenda for the next 20 years.The project will especially contribute to building collaboration between state and non-state actors through inclusive and participatory preparation for the Post-2015 agenda and national reports for Habitat III, creating a strong balance for the urbanization tripod of Government, CSOs-including academia and the private sector.

View it in French.