Nairobi/Cannes, 16 February 2022 – UN-Habitat and the world’s leading real estate events organiser have partnered to put more focus on the larger context of urban change in real estate development and promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in cities.

The partnership with the International Market for Real Estate Professionals, known by its French initials MIPIM, will ensure closer exchanges between UN-Habitat and actors in the real estate industry during the March 15-18 events in the French coastal city of Cannes.

The events are organised in collaboration with Reed Exhibitions (RX), as well as with French national and host city authorities.

The MIPIM 2022 theme of Driving Urban Change is meant to engage participants beyond the strict boundaries of real estate to explore the larger context of urban change, particularly in light of UN-Habitat’s commitment to the SDGs in the aftermath of pressing global issues such as climate change, inequality, recovering from and building resilience to th COVID-19 pandemic.

During panel discussions, UN-Habitat experts will underline the urgency to accelerate progress by diverse partners committed to supporting cities in key areas and highlightt the critical role for investors to engage with a growing pipeline of viable high impact projects in cities in emerging and developing economies.

UN-Habitat recognises that the massive financing gap to meet the SDGs in cities can only be met when city authorities and the private sector work hand-in-hand towards shared sustainable development objectives that leave no-one behind. This partnership serves as an important demonstration of new ways of scaling up the achievement of SDGs in cities.

UN-Habitat experts and key partners will also exchange ideas on how cities can advance their achievement of SDGs through joined-up processes of data collection and monitoring, strategic planning, institutional capacity development and investment, as foundations for evidence-based transformation. UN-Habitat will present the SDG Cities Initiativeand the Cities Investment Facility, among others.

SDG Cities is a global initiative aimed at realizing the potential of cities to drive the achievement of the SDGs. The programme supports cities to connect the value chain of data, evidence-based policy, capacity in governance, planning and financing and, impact investments, to accelerate the achievement of SDGs.

The Cities Investment Facility is a multi-stakeholder initiative which aims to leverage the resources and capacity of different parties to support sustainable urban development. Implementation is achieved through partnerships with a broad range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), not-for-profit private companies, and advisory firms, which have track records on building and financing sustainable bankable urban development projects.

UN-Habitat is the United Nations Programme for Human Settlement, working in over 90 countries to promote transformative change in cities and human settlements through knowledge, policy advice, technical assistance and collaborative action. UN-Habitat’s operational work takes various forms of technical assistance, drawing on its unique expertise in sustainable urbanization and crisis response. UN-Habitat implements projects to provide value-added and tailored support to countries.

Established in 1990, MIPIM is the real estate event to meet the most influential players from all sectors of the international real estate industry. It brings the entire value chain together and gives unrivalled access to the greatest number of development projects and sources of capital worldwide.

MIPIM is a unique exhibition and networking platform to forge partnerships.