The UNECE Ministerial Meeting on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management is taking place at the United Nation in Geneva, Switzerland, on 6 and 7 October 2021, in the framework of the eighty-second session of the Committee on Housing, Urban Development and Land Management.
The Ministerial Meeting is reviewing and discussing the further steps to implement the Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing and the ECE Strategy for Sustainable Housing and Land Management 2014-2020.
Under the title “Affordable, adequate, and resilient housing in liveable cities, including cities which face extreme weather conditions”, Ministers of the ECE region have exchanged experiences and good practices for promoting access to decent, adequate, affordable and healthy housing as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery planning.
Ministers and Heads of delegation have highlighted the challenges facing their countries and progress made in the four years since the last UNECE Ministerial Meeting on the same topic took place in 2017.
The Ministerial Meeting is expected to endorse the Regional Action Plan 2030 for the UNECE region titled “Place and Life in the ECE – A Regional Action Plan 2030: Tackling challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate and housing emergencies in region, city, neighbourhood and homes”.
The UNECE Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management, established in 1947, is the only intergovernmental body addressing the housing and urban development challenges of the UNECE region and the highest policymaking body of UNECE in housing, urban development and land management.
The Committee includes representatives of governmental institutions – ministries, agencies – dealing with housing, economic development, urban planning and development, and land administration and management.
The Bureau of the Committee coordinates the implementation of the Committee’s programme of work between the sessions. Italy is present in the Bureau with the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to the International Organizations, Marie Sol Fulci, took the floor in the ministerial segment, to highlight the actions taken by Italy, as current Chair of G20, to foster the creation of Smart Sustainable and Resilient Cities and to rely in this context on nature-based solutions.
Fulci further described the policies adopted in recent years by Italy “to enhance the quality of the building stock, to promote urban regeneration, resilience of cities, energy efficiency and high performance of buildings”. These effective policies could become a reference model in the whole UNECE Region” she added, also in reference to the recently adopted “National Recovery and Resilience Plan” that will guide Italy towards green transition and climate neutrality.
Finally, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy called for the endorsement of the “Regional Action Plan 2030 that promotes policies for sustainable urban development and affordable housing and identifies a series of actions in the ECE region to achieve these objectives”.
