With a final draft of the New Urban Agenda now agreed and ready, the hard part begins.
That is, creating the actual policies, partnerships and financing commitments that will put into concrete action the lofty ideals and political visions that tend to comprise high-level intergovernmental documents. One of the main goals of the Habitat III summit that kicks off on Oct. 17 will be to launch that implementation process of the New Urban Agenda.
Putting meat on the bones of any U.N. agreement is inherently a tall order. Every word is carefully scrutinized and negotiated for months — perhaps years — to purposely construct a broad-based document that can get consensus approval. The New Urban Agenda is no exception. It sets high ambitions, for instance, of “an urban paradigm shift” that aims to “readdress the way we plan, finance, develop, govern, and manage cities and human settlements.”