Madrid, December 2020 - UN-Habitat and the Andalusian Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AACID) held an online dialogue on tools for Sustainable Urban Development implementation. The dialogue discussed the importance of National Urban Policies, the Sub-National Urban Agendas (case of Andalusia, Spain), Capacity Development Programmes for locating SDGs in cities, participatory processes to address urban challenges (such as the lack of adequate housing or climate change), as well as decentralized cooperation projects (supported by the AACID).

Participants included Carmen Sánchez-Miranda, Head of the UN-Habitat Office in Spain, María de la Luz Ortega Carpio, Director of the AACID, María del Carmen Compagni, Director General of Regional and Urban Planning of the Junta de Andalucía, Mathias Spaliviero, Senior Officer of the UN-Habitat Regional Office for Africa, Manuel Redaño, Manager of the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity (FAMSI), Raúl Muñoz Jiménez, Technician of the AACID in Central America and Esteban de Manuel Jerez, Professor at the University of Seville.

María de la Luz Ortega, Director of the AACID, highlighted that the SDG11 is "a hinge objective" and an engine of sustainable growth. She stressed that the Agency prioritizes projects that are linked to policies that improve people's quality of life, such as land, housing, and transportation policies, among others.

Since 2014, thanks to the support of the Agency and together with UN-Habitat, the National Urban Policy of Cuba, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo has been drawn up and global Expert Group Meetings (EGM) on National Urban Policies and Subnational have been held. In addition, AACID financed part of the support that UN-Habitat provided to the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing of Ecuador in the reconstruction process of the areas affected by the April 2016 earthquake. The Agency also supported the EGM for the preparation of the first Quadrennial Report on Progress in the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda, as well as the EGM on the Synthesis Report of Sustainable Development Goal 11, among others.

The dialogue can be viewed below.