UN-Habitat Press conference 30 October 2020

So good afternoon everyone for this press conference by UN Habitat on the launch of the UN Habitat World Cities Report 2020 on the value of urbanisation and also an opportunity to promote World Cities Day which will be celebrated tomorrow, 31st of October.

I believe you should have all received the Secretary General's message on this occasion where he says that of course we must recognise the extraordinary contribution made by grassroots communities in our cities and towns.

Urban areas today are already home to 55% of the world's population and that figure is expected to grow to 68% by 2050.

He recognises the how innovative, resilient and proactive communities are and how much of A vital role they play in building economically, socially and environmentally sustainable cities.

Today, for this press conference, we are joined from Nairobi.

We are joined by Ms Maimuna Mod Sharif, the UN Habitat Executive Director, who is online.

Welcome to this press conference.

Also she is joined by Eduardo Moreno, the Head of Knowledge and Innovation at UN Habitat, also joining us online from Nairobi.

Welcome.

And then here in Geneva we have Paula Deda, the director of Forest, Land and Housing Division at the UN Economic Commission for Europe.

Welcome Paula And Daria Chiberario, the director of the Geneva Cities Hub.

Each will say a few words and then we will, as usual, take some questions from the journalists.

So without further ado, let me hand over the floor to Ms Mod Sharif.

Good afternoon.

Do you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you very well.

Can you hear me perfectly?

Yes, we we hear you.

So please go ahead.

Thank you, Mr Moderator, Miss Paula Deda, Director of Forest, Land and Housing Division at the United Nation Economic Commission of Europe, Miss Taria Kibario, Director of Geneva City Hubs.

Friends, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen of the media, I'm very delighted actually with you today here to discuss about the launch of the UN Habitats flagship publication, the World Cities Report 2020.

And this is the first World Cities Report since 2016.

And therefore this is an important moment to all of us in UN habitat and also in the world.

UN Habitats World Cities Report are internationally renowned for providing the latest thinking of world experts on trends and ideas around a timely topic on urban affairs.

The.

The previous World Cities report has been downloaded for over 166,000 times.

So this report was prepared by UN Habitat in collaboration with an impressive group of experts and partners from all over the world, contributing in various capacities to the production and review of the chapters under the leadership of our Knowledge and Innovation Branch in UN Habitat.

So the theme of UN Habitat World Cities Report is the value of sustainable urbanisation and it is very timely, I think given the current COVID-19 challenges in urban areas, the importance of cities and the global recovery and the resilient building and to build big to build back better and and greener.

So this very fitting that the launch of inhabited World Cities Report takes place on the World Cities Day tomorrow on the 31st of October during the main global observance of World Cities Day in Kenya and which is a home to a headquarters of UN Habitat.

So the World Cities Day marks the end of urban October, which has been an extraordinary months of innovative online and physical events celebrating our city's towns and communities.

So I'm told that by the end of the urban October, 558 events in 68 countries and 180 cities would have taken place.

And we and we are still counting up to now.

I hope you can all follow the World Cities Day proceeding tomorrow online.

And we are delighted that His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya will attend the our Our World Cities Day and the launching of the of the World Cities Report.

So we really hope that the report will inspire further study, further debate and analysis on the value of sustainable urbanisation and and none other.

This is at this very timely.

During this COVID-19.

So to know the details of the World Cities Report, the my colleague Eduardo Moreno, who hates the UN Habitats Knowledge and Innovation branch will brief you further on the substance of the reports.

So thank you very much for this opportunity to meet you online and I'm here to to have to get every question.

Thank you very much.

Over to you, Mr Madureta.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Miss Sharif for these introductory remarks.

As you said, we'll go now to Eduardo Moreno, Head of Knowledge and Innovation for more details, more specifics about this report.

I might just remind everyone, as we had stated on the announcement that the the content of the press conference, of course, is under embargo until 11 AM tomorrow, 11 AM Geneva time.

So just Please note this embargo.

Mr Moreno, good afternoon, good afternoon from Mexico Le apposo le bil de Le Monde said to you at the in publication file de Uno avatar ELA presented to you don't have geography de SE que SE pas de le bil de Monde, EG suite press on our head to you all the MI adresse Abu danse E score of the overture Big 12.

Good morning in Geneva or good afternoon to you.

This report is is comprehensive, is subjective and provides a global view of the state of cities.

This is addressed to policymakers, civil society, academicians.

The the report in 2016 that the edition that the our executive director mentioned convey a very difficult message.

At that time urbanisation was unsustainable, it was generating inequalities, it was creating a lot of negative externalities.

It's not that the situation has changed.

On the contrary, we are clear that with the pandemic it it has exacerbated many things.

We can say, unfortunately, that the development clock hands are turning back today.

We are moving in an important drastic reduction of many of the 2030 development agenda and the SDGS.

This report is unprecedented for several reasons.

1 is this way of presenting the report, this hybrid way of presentation?

The second one is that normally it's very difficult to present a report on positive externalities of the urbanisation process.

When we look at the what exists in the media, in the search engines, in databases, we always find negative externalities.

But trying to identify what works and how and where is a different bargain.

This is what this report is doing.

The Secretary General mentioned it for this report.

That sustainable organisation remains central to sustainable development and it can create economic, social and environmental value.

That is the only way that we can fight poverty, inequality, climate change and many other global pressing issues.

This is a very simple but at the same time powerful measures is that with COVID-19 and in the decade of action, only sustainable development can be an important way of addressing these issues.

Sustainability and sustainable urbanisation is recognised as a transformative force today.

Is the generator of inclusive prosperity, is the way that we can address and put societal change and well-being as the most important elements in our society.

Despite the COVID between, there is no doubt that urbanisation will contain.

There is no doubt that cities will continue to remain central to the sustainable development story and that local governments will be the prime movers of sustainable organisation.

It has been mentioned that we moved to a New Urban Agenda, sorry to a new normal, and the New Urban Agenda is the best way to move there.

It is not that the All Normal was tired, it's that the all normals created this situation and we need some special framework, we need guidance, we need mechanics, and this is what SDGS, particularly the Urban and the New Urban Agenda is telling us.

I'm aware that I have limited time, so I would like to highlight only for you and perhaps in the journalist we can open some other discussion, Some of the elements the report addresses the social, the economic and the environmental value.

For the social value, two or three elements that obviously the report touches in.

Much more important, in the last 20 years, 75% of cities in the world grew more unequal, not more equal, even in the in the societies that were considered as egalitarian society.

This means today 2.9 billion people are living in cities where the possibilities of access to opportunities, to resources, to income is reducing, not increasing.

We said that we present positive externalities.

It is clear that in order to generate the social value of urbanisation, we need to change the intangible value that cities are produced.

Urban areas, and this is very well documented in this report, can really fight against social inclusion, poverty and inequality.

We estimate that, in addition to national intervention programmes, cities acting in the realm of their own space can contribute to 2030% to the reduction of inequalities in the world.

This is possible because we can address also, in combination to other policies, the notion of minimum wage, the formalisation of the informal employment and the possibility of addressing some elements of institutions, cultural value and other possibilities.

The report touches on migration because of time.

I'm going to put it aside, but the position of this report is that migrants with the skills, with tools, with perspective, with connections, with some forms of local capital can grow the pie and create more opportunities for cities.

The report also touches on on housing affordability.

It slams poverty and the possibility of responses today.

Before the crisis of COVID, 1.6 billion people were living in inadequate houses in the world and nearly 1,000,000 slum dwellers.

The report presents which are the solutions in terms of affordable housing, changing regulatory regimes, looking in a more integrated manner to the cities, responding with different forms of building materials, housing finance, rental housing and the possibilities of social response.

The environmental value for urbanisation is a fundamental element of this report.

Obviously, as we were producing this report, we were hit by COVID and, and we made an adjustment on many of these analysis.

We know that the cities in the world grew on average three times more larger than what they needed in terms of population needs.

And this this growth brings an important toll to the to the, to the sustainability of the world.

Increase in the consumption of energy, higher CO2 emissions, another negative externalities.

Local responses are important in the adaptation and in the mitigation.

And it's interesting, the report mentioned that more than 10,000 cities, 10,000 cities from 139 countries subscribe commitments and agreements to measure and to respond to climate action.

This is bringing another dimension to the national responses we believe.

And the response present interesting positions on nature based solution in terms of design, in terms of management, in terms of creating multiple ecosystems that can contribute to carbon sequestration, local climate regulation, storm water capture and water and air purification.

This is all this can happen only if we have cities that are well planned, that are compact, that are that generate with the possibility of environmental value.

Cities can promote biodiversity through urban greening.

And this is interesting because actually recently it was thought that cities and organisation were the Myers, the major culprit against greening cities biodiversity protection.

But we can show with compelling evidence in this report that well well organised urbanisation, well planned, well managed can be a major contributor to this.

So we need to integrate environmental sustainability into Urban Development.

We need to make sure that the equation of climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience be at the forefront of the climate change.

And finally, it's extremely important to come back to socio ecological assets and to the fundamental notion of the urban.

All this is possible if we bridge a fundamental gap and we look at cities as a major respondents.

We can through cities reduce actual emission reductions and we can perhaps curb the average temperature change.

The report talk about economic value.

There is perhaps an area that has very interesting information in the generation of prosperity.

However, what is important in this part is to say that urban and territorial planning.

This is what is new that cities rethinking the notion of proximity, connectivity, different ways of articulating can increase the possibilities of economies of scale and agglomeration and create this economic value of urbanisation.

The report touches on what we call intangible values, governance, culture, integration, all these fundamental in the notion of a new way of looking at governance and the possibility of a national integration between local and national governments.

We know, for instance, that the best responses to COVID were those that integrated national local government responses.

Finally, I'm I'm sorry to be so, so succinct in these comments, but this is the time that I was given the report talk about the finance needed in order to create all these different type of values.

It is estimated, you inhabit that estimate that from now until the end of the decade of action in 2013, the world will require something like $3.8 trillion million, sorry, 3.8 trillion U.S.

dollars to to respond in terms of infrastructure and to respond in terms of these intangible values.

This money exists you inhabit that estimates that public and private investment capacity generates something like 9.8 trillion.

So we surpassed the investment needs.

But what's important is to know where and how this money should go.

And in order to do that we need to rethink the way we reorganise society, participatory mechanisms and decision making processes.

If we do that, it will be possible to think that, as this report is saying, we'll plan, manage, finance cities and create different forms of value to harness the resilience of cities, to respond to pandemics, to improve the quality of life of citizens, and to to fight against poverty and equality and employment, climate change, many other pressing challenges.

The World City Report is a regard of hope, and we hope that with some of these recommendations, the world will have the capacity to rethink development in the midst of this global crisis.

Thank you very much, Mr Morano.

Thank you very much for these this overview of the some of the essential elements of the report.

We please stay, stay on the line with us and I'm sure the journalists will have additional questions to ask you and you can elaborate on some of these points.

We're going to now go to Paola Deda from the UN Economic Commission for Europe, who probably has an interesting perspective also on the the this report and the role of sustainable cities.

So Paola, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I'm actually very honoured it was asked to actually participate in this press conference and comment on on this extremely important publication.

First of all, Many thanks to Madam Sharif for inviting me to be here.

And it's very interesting that the executive director of UN Habitat was also a mayor.

I think that she embodies very much what the new multilateralism should look like.

And if I have to say what is the main news for journalists through this report is that indeed cities need to have a better place also in international agenda.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only shown that this is not the end of city, but perhaps that this is a new beginning for cities.

Cities where on the forefront of the battle there are still we are still in the middle of it.

And it has appeared very clear also through this publication that there is a need for a new environment to empower local governments, not only to face the pandemic, but actually to build back better.

And this is the message of the secretary general.

I would add one additional adjective.

It's building back better, faster.

Because what the COVID-19 pandemic has shown is that the city are ready to react fast.

Just to build on the report, the report look at four key areas of what a well planned city should look like.

Talks about economic value, for instance, on functions and transport and we the pandemic has showed very, very clearly the importance of a properly planned public transport and what we call so the 15 minute cities, the need to have your services very, very near to you so that public transport doesn't need to be overcrowded and in particular also that the private car is not the only means for moving in a city and to make the city more sustainable.

Another important aspect of the airport is the environmental value that is generated by compact cities.

And I stress compact cities because I had seen a lot of discussion after and the first wave of, of the pandemic monitor.

But perhaps urban sprawl is better.

Let's not forget that is the compact city, well planned compact city that allows also a reduce, for instance, as we said, uses of, of transport, a better use of distribution of energy, limited consumption.

So it's again, the, the, the shape of the city and it's environmental value, how the green spaces are well planned in the city that will make a difference in terms of, of sustainability in the panda during the pandemic, post pandemic.

And in general to to make cities more resilient, more resilient.

Another very important point of the report is social inequalities.

And I think again, if you look at this through the COVID lens, we have seen that a housing affordability remains a very serious problem throughout the world.

Homelessness, informal settlements, the the places where most, most being hit also by the difficulties of providing services also during a pandemic.

And this is 1 area that not only the report, when in general we would all agree that most attention should be put.

Last but not least is the importance of cities.

This cultural traditions.

We're seeing now how difficult it is to live in cities where leisure is limited, restaurants are closing.

The cities are the centre of our cultural exchanges and their sustainability is also something related to to the protection of cultures, heritage and of course artistic practises.

I stop it here from this perspective.

Just want to stress something we said, I said at the beginning, the news is, is really the new multilateralism that has to involve cities as far as we are concerned here in Geneva.

You inhabited UNEC and the university have have come together.

You might recall just 10 days ago, more or less so two weeks ago, I was here talking to you about the form of mayors, exactly to stress the importance of highlighting the role the local authorities, mayors and cities have in the post COVID time to be resilient not only of cities themselves, but the whole society.

So we do hope that this alliance will get stronger not only in Geneva, but this is this is the three of us here in Geneva so that the agenda of mayors in city will be become higher and, and in in not only when when it comes to a press conference, but also when it comes to intergovernmental processes by working together.

We hope that the this new multilateralism of city will come to the forefront also of the activities of the UNI.

Stop it here.

If there are questions to be happy to answer them.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Paula, for for this insight and for finally for a local perspective, let's go to Daria Chibario from the Geneva Cities Hub.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thanks to Maimuna Mohad Sharif, Executive Director of UN Habitat and of course Eduardo Moreno.

And thanks Paula for referring to the Geneva Cities Hub.

We are very pleased to join UNISON in the support we are providing in the UN Habitats launch of the World Cities Report 2020, which will be released tomorrow, UN World Cities Day, as the platform for cooperation on city and urban issues in international Geneva.

The Geneva Cities Hub is particularly pleased about this launch and views it as a very timely and necessary event as we all go through a dramatic and profound change and transformation which is going to make look the world as we've known it for a century.

Extremely different from whatever we were we've experienced so far.

So the launch of this report is, Mr Moreno said earlier, is absolutely timely.

The COVID crisis has shown that cities, local governments and their communities have borne and are still bearing the brunt of the crisis.

And if we look at the data that were issued in the UN policy brief COVID-19 in an Urban World last July, we all saw that over 90% of cases of COVID are found in cities.

And therefore, cities and local governments are really at the forefront of the response.

At the same time, as communities, citizens, residents and urban dwellers demand from local governments and from cities more services, more support, access to health, access to basic public services, which are going to define whether that is a matter of life or death.

There resources, be them financial or in terms of human resources, and also their powers are not matching the extreme challenges that they're leaving.

So the report that is going to be released tomorrow reinforces that message and highlights that cities, local governments and their communities are very much at the at the heart of inclusive sustainable development.

And by looking even more in depth at the environmental, at the social cohesion, at the urban planning, at the at the housing angles of these challenges, it provides really practicable concrete policy options for policy makers, governments, but also multilateral organisations, academia and civil society that should really consider very carefully including in any recovery package and any strategy to build back better which will come in the next months and years.

And that these policy choices, which ultimately are the ones which are going to determine whether urbanisation is going to go in the direction of inclusive sustainable development.

Whether we're going to be able to Fast forward the implementation of the SDG during the Decade of Action.

Or instead, if we're going to, to, to, to, to witness urbanisation becoming even more a factor of inequality, of divisiveness, of environmental degradation, and ultimately of social upheaval.

Well, this is the time.

And This is why this report provides critical policy options for policy makers.

I just want to add that cities, local government representatives and their representative networks internationally, such as the Global Task Force for Local and Regional Governments and the UCLG.

The United Cities and local government have already been extremely active in providing policy recommendations in the post COVID crisis and are demanding a seat at the table multilateral processes so that they can become truly inclusive, modern, but also more effective as local governments and cities bring solutions to the table to global challenges.

With these a few reflections again, we would like to welcome the launch of the report.

And I'm particularly pleased also to announce that again, together with UN Habitat and UNESCE here in Geneva, we will be launching the report in Geneva after its release on the 3rd of November.

So you're welcome to join, of course, by Zoom.

There's a link to participate on the website, Twitter and LinkedIn account of the Geneva Cities Hub.

This will be at 3:30 PM Central Eastern Time and there will be a conversation among international organisations representatives, but also civil society representatives and local government representatives from the Geneva international community.

And these will be a conversation resonating with the key competence issues of International Geneva health, migration and housing and creating a dialogue with the main finding of the.

Just to wrap up a last point, I I would like to emphasise, as Paula also did, the critical and key partnership that we are building together with UN Habitat and UNESC here in International Geneva.

We believe that together we can even more harness the power and experience of cities and local governments to and promote their participation in global policy making.

And we've started to do these during a very busy but fruitful urban October, providing of course, support to Unice's SDG 11 day on the 5th of October and the very important Unice's Forum of Mayors, which took place on the 6th of October.

Again, thanks and we're available for further questions if needed.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you very much, Miss Ciabrario.

And to all of the speakers for their perspectives on this important report, which yes, the first major report after since 2016.

So something to to look forward to tomorrow when it is launched.

We're going to take some questions now.

Our speakers are online and in Geneva too.

Answer any questions you may have if anyone wants to raise their hands.

We are and we don't have any questions at the moment.

Who Yes, yes, Miss Sherry, if you would like to to add some comments to this, please go ahead Yeah, Mr Moderator, I'm not to add some comment I'm very sorry that I have to leave now but Eduardo will be here to answer the question because I need to officiate the worst cities days opening in for New York.

So I have to have to switch to zoom now from from from from from this session.

I'm very happy to be here and and hopefully to see you tomorrow at World Cities Day and Eduardo will take charge from now.

Thank you very much, Holly.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

Thank you very much.

Happy World Cities Day and thank you for having joined us this morning this this afternoon rather while we're waiting for we'll just give it a few minutes to see if there are any questions coming in.

Maybe Mr Moreno, you did mention that something that I found interesting about the, the, the opportunities that are created by migration in cities.

Maybe you would like to add a few details on that.

Yes, of course.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I would like to to say about migration, first of all, to recall to, to, to journalists and, and, and to those that are killing us, that today one in every seven people in the world is a migrant.

And that in cities about 1/3 of the urban growth in developed countries is, is, is because of migration.

And this brings very interesting changes.

Of course, it brings cities that are more heterogeneous, more multiethnic, more multicultural, multilingual.

And some people may be threatened by this because of some comfort zones or some ideological views.

But what is interesting to notice in an historic perspective, and this report provides some information on this, is that more migrants and bring more benefits to cities.

Interestingly, for instance, in many cities in several cities today in the world, they are composed of more migrant than local population.

This is a lot in Arab cities, Miami and others.

And, and in, in our studies, we have shown that contrary towards this belief, migrants, they don't dispute local jobs.

They open new possibilities in terms of skills, in terms of sometimes new tools, new perspectives of living and connection.

They bring something fundamental, a different capital.

And this is what I mentioned that it's, it's for us, the idea of growing the pie in, in in Europe.

Some of the analysis that we have shown is that in normal demographic trends, migration will be a must.

The future of Europe is the future of migration and cities and countries need to respond to this.

I like a lot what Paula mentioned in the idea that the multilateral world will be a world of cities and and cities will be the ones that are going to be facing not only living with pandemics but also living with many of the societal situations like migrants.

And this report make the case for migration and migrants to be more and more integrated into cities.

And just because of time, it is presented some of the forms that that this can happen.

Very good.

Thank you.

Mr Moreno, We do have a question now from a journalist online, Peter Kenny, who is based in Geneva.

Peter, please go ahead and introduce yourself and direct your question to the to who you would like to ask it to.

Yes, I'm a freelance journalist and I would like to ask this question to the person from Geneva about the role of migrants in Geneva, because apparently Geneva has a population of about 40% of the population of foreign born people.

So would you like to comment about the situation?

Thank you this.

Is a question for you, Darian.

Thank you for your question.

I'm actually not representing the City of Geneva.

This is the Geneva Cities Hub, which is a platform for cooperation for international Geneva stakeholders.

So I cannot speak on behalf of the city, but what I can say if you want from a from a personal perspective as a, as a dweller of Geneva over the past 15 years is that certainly you have two different forms of migration that come to Geneva and to other three cities.

1 is more of an affluent one.

With that you see also in other international cities such as Brussels, New York, where you have professionals who are highly qualified and therefore relocate to Geneva for professional reasons.

But there's also a large share of of sometimes invisible population that lives in the city and that COVID has actually exposed.

There has been images in the newspaper of workers, usually informal, precarious or household or housekeepers who have been lining up to get just some donations for food.

And that has spurred a lot of of of criticism or, or our concern.

However, the city and they invite you to ask the question to the city has taken some action and the Department of Social Affairs and also in the past these issues have been addressed in a very organic way.

So this is as I can say what I can say from the perspective of a Geneva Weller.

I repeat, I don't represent the city.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

We have another question from Lisa.

I assume this is Lisa Schlein from Voice of America.

I yes, it is.

Hi, Rayal.

Sorry, I joined late and so I failed to give my full name etcetera.

Yeah.

First I would like to know if, as and when we are going to receive your press release and report.

We've asked for this.

Maybe I missed receiving it, but I haven't received it yet and it's a little hard to comprehend some of these concepts without having having that.

Could you look puzzled Real.

Have you sent it?

I haven't received anything.

Yes.

I'm under the understanding that Unit Habitat did distribute the the report in advance.

Did you not receive it?

No, I did not receive it.

Maybe, maybe I'm being blackballed, I don't know.

But anyway, could you?

No, I don't think you'll be blackballed, but we'll, we'll try to redistribute, I guess as soon as as we can or if we can do it while this is going on.

Maybe.

But I, I had been assured that this had been shared with you.

Do you have a question nonetheless?

Yes, I, I do that.

That was an observation.

My question is if I have a couple.

In fact, first you were Paulo, I'm sorry, I don't get your names right here, but you were talking about the importance of migration.

I assume that this involves immigrants and refugees as well.

the United States, I'm a citizen of the United States at this moment in time is discouraging receiving immigrants, migrants, refugees into the country.

Do you see this as a kind of failed policy?

And then I'm wondering whether there are different measures that you have for reviving cities in developed and developing countries, whether different measures are needed in in these different categories of cities or whether one situation fits fits all.

And then New York City is an example of a ghost city.

And I think that there are many ghost cities, these very large cities.

COVID-19 has done that to them.

What are the main measures that should be taken to revive them?

Do you believe they can ever come back to the state in which they were before COVID?

Thank you.

I think you were referring to me.

My name is Paola, but I'm another one who spoke about immigration.

I cannot nevertheless give you just a few hints about what unity see, but all as well as our partners are doing in general on to to increase the resilience of cities where you I guess you mean with reviving is really like coming back like stronger after COVID.

And and then I have something also on on housing for migrants in general.

It's interesting what you know, we had a forum of mayors.

SO40 mayors came together 2 weeks ago in in the UN, in the Palais online or in person to discuss the challenges they had to face during the COVID times.

It's a very interesting event because it was really first hand experience.

These were the mayors, Milan, Barcelona, many other cities that really had experienced that.

And one of the points that was stressed by them as well as the the keynote speaker of the event, which was the Lord Foster of really renowned architect is that yes, we are facing a pandemic, but historically pandemic have triggered a fast recovery, have triggered innovation in cities and solutions.

So that's when I meant building back better, faster because cities were able actually to face the emergency in a very inventive and innovative way very often.

Now of course this is emergency.

So the emergency is not sustainable.

What for instance ECS doing is looking at different measures for to increase the long term resilience.

For instance, we are working at an action plan for informal settlements.

Formal settlements was were hit harder than anybody else because they don't have the same urban structure and infrastructure that that normal cities have.

But there are also different measures to be taken in terms of urban planning, land administration and transport.

Also, if we talk about urban planning, also transport planning and many cities, for instance, at the forum presented these solutions, including how immediately they focus on reinforcing public transport for reasons you can imagine, of course, not to share too much space on the same bus, for instance, but also because this allows the long term resilience of the city.

And it's true that we are living now, we are in the middle of a second wave that is making cities look like, you know, ghost cities, as you say.

But at the same time, I can tell you that from the, the perspective I, from the place where I see and, and, and being in touch mainly with local authorities, I see how much is being discussed in terms of, of solutions.

And not only for resilience in terms of, as I said, public transport, but also for instance, in term of green in the cities.

One of the realisations was that okay, also doing the lockdown, people were missing nature.

Nature was very helpful, but very often it was not accessible.

So this is another area where many cities are looking into.

There is an initiative, for instance, it's called the Trees in Cities Challenge, where cities are now also committing to plant a certain number of trees by the end of 2021.

So there are a number of initiatives that I would not say they were created because of COVID, but were sort of enhanced because of the pandemic.

As far as migrants are concerned, I would not comment and I cannot comment because I have no knowledge on on policies in the USI can just say that we have recently approved in UEC a publication on housing for migrants, providing example of the most successful policies as well as practises in different cities in the region to house migrants and how also housing can trigger better social integration.

So how the matter of housing and the and social integration are strictly connected.

So if you're interested, I can get in touch and and let you have the link or or send you a copy of such study when it's been finalised.

It was approved.

So now we're just re editing and it will be available quite shortly.

Thank you, thank you.

Paula.

I don't know, Mr Moreno, would you like to add something on this, on this issue?

Yes, I would like to comment on some of the points from that Lisa mentioned.

And to complement what Paula said, we know that the cities it was mentioned and ninety 9095% receiving the the cost of COVID in terms of contagious disease.

But we also know which are the main sources of contagious and there are three in cities.

1 is associated what we call the the risk of place, which is a housing or the environment around housing.

And obviously the more precarious the situation, the the more difficult living conditions, the **** possibilities of contagious.

The second one also, as Paula mentioned, is related to inadequate public transport.

But there is a third one which is related to to some specific jobs.

We have analysed in cities that among more than 100 different jobs, people infected represent something like 12 to 15% of some specific jobs.

And these jobs are related to to risk of proximity, working with the hand, with others, with other people in places that are not protected.

So when these different risks are addressed in cities, a post pandemic that I think will be living with pandemics in the future will tell us that cities will be prepared and resilient.

And, and in addition to the points that Paula mentioned, it's very clear that the the power of urbanisation in the sense of the strings of the connectivity, of the proximity and the very important thing, the economies of agglomeration and the scale will always make people to come back to cities.

And therefore cities will be always the future of humanity.

The other point is how do we measure, develop and develop in cities?

We have created different indexes and we are working with one that will unify, we hope soon, all indexes in the world to measure cities.

But what the listen is to know is that each city is measured against the same city.

In other words, we measure the possibility of realising SDGS in a way that the city has a specific conditions and specific challenges and opportunities.

And we have normal, I would say, comparative conditions to, to have a first layer of comparability.

But important thing is not to compare, to understand the reality.

Actually a very tricky and political question.

I will not dare to respond whether this is a free policy.

But what I know is that history is telling us in the US and many other places that migration is, is, is an engine of growth and development and that migration when it's well structured, will yield in positive outcomes in many areas, including societal, economic and and fundamentally culturally.

So, So we really believe that migration will be even in the US and will continue to be a positive force for growth and development.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Mr Moreno, do we have any other questions from the media?

Please raise your hand.

OK.

I don't see any other hands going up.

So we will close the press conference here.

You should have received the report and the press release about the official launch of this report tomorrow, World Cities Day.

Thank you for joining us and especially to Miss Sharif for the UN Habitat Executive Director, Mr Moreno, Head of Knowledge and Innovation, Paula Deda from the UN Economic Commission for Europe, and Daria Chiberario from the Geneva Cities Hub.

Thank you very much and a very good afternoon to all of you.