This Tuesday IHC, in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Urban Sustainability Lab, USAID, the World Bank and Cities Alliance, hosted the concluding workshop of the 2015 Urban Poverty Essay Competition. Three students traveled to Washington, to present their research related to the poor living in cities in the developing world, and were joined by three expert commentators.

It has been a busy spring, as preparations continue for the upcoming Habitat III conference taking place in Quito, Ecuador in October of this year. The planning and engagement of such a significant conference is immense, and has been made significantly more complex by the tremendous and positive efforts to enable civil society and non-state actors to have a meaningful say in the process.

This Special IHC Update reports on the road map to Quito as well as the current status of several parallel processes feeding into the planning and outcomes of Habitat III and the New Urban Agenda.

IHC recently participated in a workshop hosted by the Shelter Working Group at InterAction. The goal of the half day event was to discuss the potential of integrated programing in humanitarian response. Global humanitarian response is often divided into organized clusters, so that after a disaster those working to provide one type of service can […]

IHC is delighted to announce the appointment of two distinguished urban experts to its council of Senior Technical Advisors: Roger Williams and Thomas Kingsley. They both bring to IHC impressive US and international expertise. IHC’s Senior Technical Advisors serve IHC through their deep subject matter expertise and experience addressing challenges of equitable urban development. They assist IHC as it seeks to advance and share practical policies for greater inclusion, equity and prosperity within cities.

Guest Post by Jessica Johnston
Senior Program Manager, International City/County Management Association (ICMA)

The Durban ̶ Southeast ­Florida Climate Change Partnership began in 2013 when CityLinks, a program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and implemented by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), connected Broward County and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with Durban, South Africa, to address common climate change challenges including sea level rise, flooding, and storm water management, as well as community and municipal engagement.

IHC CEO Judith Hermanson authored a commentary that was featured in Citiscope this week. The article focuses on the challenge and potential of informal settlements as drivers for more equitable urban development. As part of Citiscope’s “Toward Habitat III” series, it discusses the opportunity that the global community now has in this regard. With 860 million people worldwide living in slums and informal settlements, she suggests a new “urban lens” and a comprehensive approach drawing together the strengths of civil society, the private sector and governments.

The IHC is updating our communications hardware and part of that update unfortunately includes a number change. New office contact information can always be found on the bottom of this page, but in the future we may be reached at 202-239-4401. IHC staff emails will remain the same.

IHC is very excited by the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the underlying agenda to eliminate poverty. We see SDG 11 to foster inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities as fundamental to their achievement and will be actively supporting it.

As the expected passage of the new Sustainable Development Goals nears, IHC joins with many organizations, nonprofits and civil society around the world gearing up to support the ambitious new global targets for sustainability and development.

SDG 11 is comprehensive and reflects the complex dimensions of cities. It also represents a sea change in global understanding of the importance of urbanization and guiding the growth of cities in an inclusive and responsible manner. The IHC has long advocated that greater attention be given to cities and particularly the needs of the urban poor, and this goal presents a new opportunity to focus these efforts.