If you have an interest in sustainable urbanisation, take part in the Virtual Pacific Urban Forum on Thursday 26 August 2021 at 11:00am Fiji Time. Register to participate using this link.

It is now more than two years since the Fifth Pacific Urban Forum (PUF5) was held in Nadi, Fiji, in July 2019. At PUF5, participating countries made voluntary commitments to implement the Pacific New Urban Agenda and ambitious sustainable urban development targets. Since PUF5, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on urban areas and livelihoods creating new global, regional, national and local development challenges that must be addressed. There is clearly a new need to accelerate action on the New Urban Agenda now and as we begin to recover post-pandemic.

The Pacific Partnership for the New Urban Agenda (PP-NUA) is a new regional partnership formed following PUF5. The PP-NUA is responding to the commitments of Pacific Urban Forum delegates to build and strengthen regional partnerships, and to increase resources and action towards the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. As part of PP-NUA’s outreach, a series of activities are planned, the first of which was a webinar on Local Economic Development in the Pacific held in October 2020. We now propose a Virtual Pacific Urban Forum event which will provide a regional platform for discussion and knowledge sharing on the current state of progress and challenges towards sustainable urban development. Event Purpose and Objectives

The objectives of the Virtual Pacific Urban Forum are to:

• Formally launch the PP-NUA with Pacific country partners and regional urban practitioners.
• Assess the status of national PUF5 commitments across the Pacific region and hear updates on key urban development priorities and progress from country delegates.
• Identify key areas where the PP-NUA and individual members can support and accelerate PNUA implementation.
• Provide countries with a platform to share updates on their COVID-19 responses and recovery.
• Report on key outcomes from the UN-Habitat Pacific COVID-19 impact assessments and relevant policy recommendations on social equity, financing and informal settlements
• Have an open discussion on how Pacific country partners and the PP-NUA can best work to develop a program of support to implement voluntary commitments and sustainable urbanisation in the region.
• Advocate the financing and mobilisation of additional resources for urban development across the Pacific.

A Regional Status Report will be developed in the leadup to the event to form a baseline understanding on Pacific countries’ progress towards their PUF5 commitments in achieving the PNUA. The report will also provide a list of priority/common development issues that countries have raised as areas in need to support, dialogue during VPUF will especially focus on such issues. Relevant resources will be distributed to partners and attendees in the leadup to the event. Inputs include:

• National level urban development country profiles.
• Updates on PUF5 commitments drawn from key informant interviews and analysis of country VNRs reports.
• Findings from consolidated UN-Habitat COVID-19 impact assessments.
• Other publications and repositories on Pacific urban development challenges.

With a host of expert stakeholders, including Karibaiti Taoaba, Director - Commonwealth Local Governments Forum (CLGF) Pacific, the event will be held virtually via Zoom. Registration details can be found in the opening paragraph of this story.