Since 2015, Kota Kita has been an active member of the Global Platform for Right to the City (GPR2C), a global network to inspire a better future for all human settlements through the promotion, defense and fulfilment of the Right to the City at all levels, paying special attention to people and communities affected by exclusion and marginalization. 

As delegations of UN-Habitat and Member States gather for the second session of the UN-Habitat Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, on 5 - 9 June 2023, we stand with our friends and peers from the GPR2C who are calling on the UN-Habitat and Member States to act on their commitment to accelerate a complete realization of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) commitments towards a better urban future for all. 

As a civil society organization in Indonesia that’s focused on citizen participation and urban development, we have been closely involved in the monitoring and implementation of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in Indonesia, particularly during PrepCom2 in Surabaya, Indonesia and Habitat-III in Quito, Ecuador in 2016. Over the years, we’ve continued to realize our mission in promoting a city for all across all of our focus areas, including leveraging participatory design approaches to create more inclusive public spaces, advocating for inclusive and accessible low-carbon transport infrastructure for all, and promoting citizen participation in the effort to tackle the impact of the climate crisis. 

The following is the collective statement of the GPR2C for the second UN-Habitat Assembly.

As UN-Habitat and member countries gather to agree on strategies to leverage the current and upcoming UN-Habitat strategic plans, we urge them to focus on concrete action paths anchored in the NUA key commitments. We call them to:

1. Commit to an accelerated implementation of the New Urban Agenda, leveraging the Right to the City as a driver for its realization, agreeing on concrete mechanisms for enshrining NUA commitments towards the transformation of urban and economic development models, with the central commitment of protecting the social and environmental function of territories, supporting community-led and social and solidarity initiatives and programmes, as well as advancing the democratic management of cities and territories through inclusive participation and collective decision making;

2. Recognise and support local governments and civil society and community-based organizations as key stakeholders for NUA monitoring and effective implementation, building upon the transformative initiatives being driven by such actors, considering the city as a not-for-profit common good whose management must include the active involvement of the entire social fabric, promoting direct participation to incorporate the priorities, knowledge and practices of those directly affected by projects and policies, such as in the case of the proposed “Global Action Plan for transforming informal settlements and slums;

3. Engage in a truly participatory assessment of the UN-Habitat strategic plan, supporting the participation of civil society, local and regional governments, and other stakeholders through a democratic, inclusive and self-organized Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism consistent with best practices across the UN System. This envisions UN Habitat, governing bodies and all relevant stakeholders advancing policies that lead to actions that support the transformative initiatives being led by those actors, under the principles of decentralization and democratic management of territories. This includes enhancing the people-centered approach by operationalizing the NUA principles and commitments with a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework, in stark contrast with the current reality of limited channels for participation in the monitoring framework. These measures would enable concrete action toward realizing the preventing and remedial purposes of human rights in the territories, considering the intersectional aspects of urban inequalities and the disaggregated and qualitative monitoring indicators to better address just and sustainable development of human settlements across the human habitat.

To read the entirety of the collective statement, including the principles to guide the advancement of NUA commitments, head to the GPR2C website.