National urban policies and integrated urban and territorial planning as key facilitators supporting the achievement of SDG and NUA

Objective of the session is a critical assessment of the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and New Urban Agenda (NUA) in the light of COVID-19 pandemic and related economic crises. More specifically, the session asks how national urban policies and the application of the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (IG-UTP) are able to support the achievement of SDG and NUA to improve pandemic preparedness and to assure economic diversity and resilience. The current crisis has revealed the fragility of ’globalisation‘. At the same time the pandemic and economic crises call cities to proof their competence for problem solving and implement a number of challenging regulations coming from higher levels of government. The successful contribution of citizen and urban and rural governments is essential for the overall success of the response to the pandemic and economic crisis. At the same time citizen and local governments look to their national governments and to international organizations for support. Overall, it deems to be appropriate to review the role of cities, of NUP and IG-UTP in the system of multilevel governance. Guiding questions for the session include: What are the problem-solving capacities of local governments and stakeholders in context of pandemic and economic crisis? What is the specific potential for national urban policies and IG-UTP to contribute to cross sector cooperation and SDG achievement? What has been achieved so far by the National Urban Policy programme (OECD, UN-Habitat, Cities Alliance) and the IG-UTP? What needs to be improved in the governance framework for local governments to better respond to pandemics and to ensure economic diversity and resilience of cities and what does that mean for NUP and IG-UTP? The session could be a combination of three elements: - Short keynotes - Presentation of cases - Panel discussion (possibly including ISOCARP, UN-Habitat, Cities Alliance, World Bank, OECD, ...) To be forward looking the session should aim at agreeing on a priority list of activities to be implemented.