72 ND REGULAR MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE OF PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVES TO UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME 10 APRIL 2019

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1 72 ND REGULAR MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE OF PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVES TO UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME 10 APRIL 2019 Agenda Item 8 Thematic / Country Presentation Working with the European Union Institutions (HSP/CPR/72/8) 1

2 Working with the European Union Institutions: from donor-contractor to strategic knowledge partnership Collaboration between EU and UN-Habitat in the area of development cooperation Traditionally, EU both Member States and European Commission have been seen by UN- Habitat mainly as donors to development cooperation, financing key activities of UN-Habitat on global, regional and country levels, whether normative or operational by nature. EU is the largest donor to UN-Habitat work, with a total project value in the last decade of almost 400 Million. The last decade has seen large country recovery programmes funded by EU, mainly in conflict/post-conflict, or post disaster, zones: Afghanistan (total 154 MUSD), Somalia (total 72 MUSD) and Sri Lanka 31 MUSD. Along with these programmes, new instruments developed by UN-Habitat that target programming of humanitarian and recovery work have been recognised by the EU, such as urban profiling in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere. While EU Member States have financed major global programmes for a long time, first major global programme funded by the European Commission was Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme - PSUP (in collaboration with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States) in 2008, with a total value of 36 MUSD in 3 phases from European Development Fund. In 2014 it was followed by Urban Low Emission Development Strategies - UrbanLEDS (in collaboration with ICLEI) with a total value of 17 MUSD in two phases from Development Cooperation Instrument. Support to Global Alliance for Urban Crisis was granted by Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) in A list of past and ongoing projects funded by the European Union is shown in the Annex. The list reveals the diversity of the projects in terms of financial scale, thematic focus, geographical location. It also shows that the projects span the full range from predominantly normative towards predominantly operational, as well as a significant number of large integrated programmes. The current policy and practice as context for enhancing collaboration Habitat III and the increase in the interest in urbanization opened opportunities for UN-Habitat to benefit from review of policy priorities in the EU both internal and in cooperation with the third countries. In preparations to Habitat III, UN-Habitat and REGIO joined forces on developing State of the European Cities report EU announced 3 Voluntary Commitments at Habitat III, thus bridging the preparations and the work in implementing the NUA: - deliver the New Urban Agenda through the Urban Agenda for the EU; - develop a global definition of cities (people-based degree of urbanisation); - promote international cooperation between cities. 2

3 The renewed European Consensus on Development 1 includes multiple references to the NUA and sustainable urban development. In the EU External Investment Plan 2 a $5bn programme targeting Africa and EU Neighbourhood, an Sustainable Cities window has been created. UN-Habitat s key role in the field of urbanization has been recognized in Council conclusions on EU cooperation with cities and local authorities in third countries 3 : 18. The EU and its Member States recognise the important role of UN-Habitat in supporting sustainable cities. UN-Habitat strives to be recognised as a knowledge centre that can partner with the EU in policy dialogue on the joint efforts, while also engaging with the EU Delegations at renewed country-level UN and EU priorities. A recent example is a collaboration with DEVCO Supporting the Urban Dimension of Development Cooperation: Increasing financial capacities of cities from developing countries to deliver productive and sustainable urban development, initiated by the European Parliament, which aims to identify and analyse constraints for effective financing of urban development, looking at pertinent practises and possible responses based on experiences from the EU and other cities with relevant solutions. UN-Habitat also contributes to a Foreign Policy Instrument funded programme on International Urban Cooperation (IUC): sustainable and innovative cities in Asia and Americas. This programme encourages city-to-city cooperation on sustainable urban development, on energy and climate change (building upon the EU Covenant of Mayors initiative) and on innovation for local and regional development. Promoting the urban and territorial dimension of the Agenda 2030 paved the way for enhanced collaboration of UN-Habitat with European Commission s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (REGIO) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), and the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. REGIO and JRC took active participation in preparing the First Quadrennial report of the UN Secretary-General to the UN General Assembly on implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the SDG 11 Synthesis Report. The representatives of the EU Austria, Member State at Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second semester of the 2018, and REGIO on behalf of the European Commission presented the Urban Agenda for the EU at UN High Level Political Forum 2018, taking key part at the UN-Habitat-led Side Event, Effective implementation, monitoring & financing of SDG 11. UN-Habitat also works closely with REGIO in Developing a global, people-based definition of cities and settlements - Cooperation between: REGIO, JRC, EUROSTAT, UN-Habitat, OECD, The World Bank, International Labour Office and Food Agricultural Organization. The work will be presented for discussion and approval to the UN Statistical Commission in March The European Consensus on Development a joint document of the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, and the European Commission - is a shared vision and framework for action for development cooperation for the European Union (EU) and its Member States. It is a blueprint which aligns the Union's development policy with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 2 The External Investment Plan (EIP) was adopted in September 2017 to help boost investment in partner countries in Africa and the European Neighbourhood. It aims to: contribute to the UN's sustainable development goals (SDG) while tackling some of the root causes of migration; mobilise and leverage sustainable public and private investments to improve economic and social development with a particular focus on decent job creation. 3 EU cooperation with cities and local authorities in third countries - Council conclusions (25 June 2018) 3

4 Collaboration in global reporting has also brought about UN-Habitat s involvement in EU s reporting on implementation of the urban and territorial dimension of the Agenda 2030 in the EU. UN-Habitat collaborates with REGIO and JRC analysing the impact by EU Cohesion policy on attaining SDGs in Europe and monitoring the urban dimension of the 2030 Agenda at the local level. Frequent exchange with the DG Research and Innovation has led to an award of Horizon 2020 Programme funding to a project on Urban Design Governance UrbanMAESTRO, dedicated to exploring and sharing the innovative use of informal design governance mechanisms in Europe. The aim is to reveal practices that have the potential to enhance urban place quality across Europe, to contrast them with international experience, and to network and support key organisations and individuals with the potential to deliver that change at the European and global levels. Next steps towards strategic knowledge partnership The development of policies and practice of collaboration with the EU Institutions encourages UN-Habitat to seek developing a strategic knowledge partnership on urban dimensions of the Agenda 2030 in addition to donor-contractor relationship with the EU and its institutions. The anchor for such new relationship is The Joint communique between the European Union and the United Nations: A renewed partnership in development 4, which sets out the Guiding Principles, Overall objectives, and Strategic Focus and Intent for renewed Un and EU partnership. Across the focus areas of the Joint communique, there is a need to introduce and harness territorial approach based on balanced rural and urban continuum that is supported both by UN and EU in many policy documents as a key prerequisite for the sustainable development. What remains to be done by UN-Habitat to take advantage of this trend? UN-Habitat would benefit from using this unique opportunity for expanding and deepening collaboration with the EU institutions in forging more defined established relationship and engaging in productive policy dialogue on promoting sustainable urban development and urban and territorial dimensions of Agenda 2030 and other internationally agreed frameworks. One of the first steps would be assessing lessons learned from all cooperation programmes funded by the EU in the past decade to inform future discussions on which fields and modalities of cooperation have been the most effective and produced greatest and longest-lasting impacts so far. This trend may also guide UN-Habitat s collaboration with the Member States of the EU and their stakeholders: bilateral development agencies, professional and civil society organisations, and academia. In the collaboration with the EU Institutions and EU Member States, UN-Habitat should fulfil its role as focal point on sustainable urban development in the UN System, and work together with sister UN entities. These new modalities of collaboration have shown good prospects for enhanced collaboration with high impact. Harnessing this new trend will require additional resources at the Office for Europe and European institutions and at the UN-Habitat Headquarters. Finally, similar types of collaboration may be considered with other closely integrated regional economic unions/common markets, including e.g. African Union, ASEAN, Eurasian Economic 4 Joint communique, 4

5 Community, The League of Arab States, Gulf Cooperation Council, Mercosur, creating mutual learning in the new modalities of cooperation. 5

6 Annex: List of past and ongoing projects funded by the European Union 6

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