Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona

AMB has participated in the international seminar The New Urban Agenda and its Implementation: towards better urban governance, organised by TransJus (the University of Barcelona Faculty of Law Research Institute) which welcomed participants from all over the world. This event was a follow-up to the Habitat III summit, which took place in Quito, Ecuador, a year ago. Habitat III was the major event, which is convened by the United Nations every 20 years, which examined and established the form that cities around the world should take in the future, and how they should be organised to address the major global objectives of humanity.

Oriol Illa, director of the International and Cooperation Area at AMB, took part in the round table discussion The regional and metropolitan dimension of the Habitat III Programme, which considered the application of the principles of the summit by local administrations.

The director of AMB's International Area highlighted the importance of metropolitan areas in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, since 55% of the world's population now lives in large urban agglomerations, and estimates suggest that the total population will have doubled by 2050.

As a result, within the importance of all the global objectives, AMB's representative highlighted number 11, which establishes the need to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable'.

Oriol Illa also highlighted some of the achievements that have taken place in recent years, which seemed very difficult when the goals were established: ‘The Millennium Goals suggested a reduction in poverty from 36% to 18%. At that time, in 2000, this was considered a utopian dream based on the need of governments to present themselves to the world as agents that were at least slightly sensitive to an issue that drastically affected more than a third of the world's population. However, by 2015, the percentage of poverty in the world had fallen to 12%'.

‘Accordingly', said Illa, ‘the aim is not for governments to support a declaration of good intentions; it is instead an urgent need that those statements become reality. The future of the planet, and with it the future of our cities, will not be feasible if we are unable to live in a way that respects the environment and with an economy that does not exploit the resources we have'.