Committed to Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for All

In Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK 

Background

The Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS) is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization, legally chartered in the State of New York, USA. Its objective is "Building Sustainable Human Settlements and Promoting the United Nations Habitat Agenda". GFHS is an associated partner of World Urban Campaign, UN-Habitat and holds the Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC.

The annual session of Global Forum on Human Settlements has been successfully held in China, the United States, Brazil, Germany and Colombia for 9 consecutive years. More than 11,500 representatives from all sectors of society have attended the Forums, including ministers, UN officials, mayors, scholars, professionals and business leaders.

In April 2011, the 6th Global Forum on Human Settlements, themed as “Build Low-carbon City in Response to Climate Change”, was grandly held in the UN headquarters in New York. Following that, the 7th Global Forum on Human Settlements took place in Rio as an associated event of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). For more information, please visit GFHS website: www.gfhsforum.org.The preparation for the forthcoming 10th Global Forum on Human Settlements and 10th Anniversary of Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS - X) is on the move in a positive direction.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed "In a world where already over half the population lives in urban areas, the human future is largely an urban future.  We must get urbanization right, which means reducing greenhouse emissions, strengthening resilience, ensuring basic services such as water and sanitation and designing safe public streets and spaces for all to share." World Cities Day is expected to greatly promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, push forward cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities and challenges in urbanization and contribute to sustainable urban development in cities and towns around the world.

More significantly, the year 2015 is the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations, and the UN will adopt the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 2015 is a critical year for both the preparation of United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) to be held in 2016 in Ecuador and the formulation of New Urban Agenda.

Against this background of special significance, the 10th Global Forum on Human Settlements and 10th Anniversary of GFHS (GFHS - X) took place focusing on the relevant and related issues as well as observing the “World Cities Day 2015” at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York on 29 and 30 October 2015. A particular focus was to further accelerate the progress of sustainable cities and sustainable urbanization, promote the implementation of post-2015 SDGs and contribute to the preparations for Habitat III.