The Azerbaijan State News Agency (AZERTAC) presents an interview with Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), as she shared her insights on the importance of the upcoming 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), the cooperation with Azerbaijan, Baku’s urbanization challenges and the importance of human-centered urban planning.

- The World urban Forum is a key platform for shaping global urban policies. What is the growing a of countries like Azerbaijan within the WF framework?

- So, this is the 13th edition of the World Urban Forum that was created 20 years ago to be the stakeholder engagement mechanism for UN-Habitat. It has been hosted by several cities and countries, and each time, it's a moment for both leverage the Urban Agenda inside the country but also gather critical resources that help UN Habitat in the implementation of its mandate. This year, the 13th edition will be focused on housing, and housing is the critical priority for UN Habitat by strategic plan that was approved last year by 105 member states. So, it is a key priority for us. Azerbaijan is also co-facilitating another intergovernmental process, the Open-ended Working Group on Housing, and we hope that these combined platforms will help us to bring the community together, to open up access to practices, to experience, to know how to build critical mass on the pathways to overcome the global housing crisis, the crisis of homelessness, the crisis of people living in formal settlements without access to basic services, the crisis of displaced population and people affected by disasters and conflicts nowadays. It also will help us to bring the UN together so that we work in a more coordinated manner to overcome these challenges, and finally, to support member states in really reviewing our normative work around housing, the critical definitions, policy recommendations and guidance for countries to incorporate in their urban plans, in the national policies.

- Against the backdrop of accelerating urbanization in Baku, what recommendations does UN Habitat offer to improve quality of life, expand public services and preserve green areas?

- I think, first of all, following the principles of the New Urban Agenda. This year, we are celebrating 10 years of this document. This was endorsed by member states in 2016 during the habitat three conference in Quito, Ecuador. The New Urban Agenda brings principles such as compact cities, the respect, the need, the importance of respecting the social and the ecological function of land, embedding informal settlements in urban planning. It recommends cities to plan for people and for nature to bring housing at the center. It recommends multi-level governance and action. We need the national frameworks, but we need the local action to move things forward. So, this is one first fundamental aspect. The second is we have developed, throughout the years, several guidelines and methodologies on how to address, for example, or increase, public and green spaces in cities, how to develop, implement nature based solutions, how to plan cities for women, for persons with disabilities, a whole range of tools, of mechanisms, of guides, AI Technology, how to really work through people centered approaches and improve urban planning, improve access to basic services, to water, to housing and so on. So, the combination of all these tools, all these mechanisms and the key principles will enable cities to be a solid foundation for the implementation of the SDGs, but also to face and to be at the front line of climate action.

- In the next phase of the UN-Habitat-Azerbaijan cooperation which areas should be prioritized, technical assistance, regulatory frameworks, or institutional capacity building?

- I think all of those. We have been working with member states, with cities at all these levels. We are at the point where we need to rethink the New Urban Agenda for the next 10 years. So probably, and actually, we expect, we should expect, to promote systematic changes: the ways our cities, our policies, have been designed. They have not worked in the past. We are facing, as I mentioned before, a global housing crisis. We have cities that are segregated, that are not prone and resilient to disasters. So, all of that needs to incorporate in all the means of work that UN-Habitat has being institutional development, policy design, building capacities, but also technical assistance, because we cannot wait. We need to build, rebuild the systems. We need to strengthen our capacities and institutions, but we need to act now. From Azerbaijan, we can expect a lot of experiences to be shared during the World Urban Forum, and we hope to keep working there in projects that will support cities to be human-centric and nature-centric.

- As the head of UN-Habitat, what key messages would you like to convey to the Azerbaijani public and urban plans?

- I think the key message is, let us understand the importance of cities for our planet. Cities that work for the citizens will also work for the planet, and let's understand how important it is to be active in the process of promoting human and nature focused urban planning processes.

 

AZERTAC

2026, February 6