Executive Director participates in experts group meeting on metropolitan solutions

The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and UN-Habitat have a framework agreement to cooperate on addressing metropolitan issues worldwide and continue the search for “metropolitan solutions”.

In light of the Second Session of the UN-Habitat Assembly taking place in Nairobi, Kenya in June 2023 the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and UN-Habitat hosted a group of global experts to discuss and debate issues ahead of the worldwide event on 8-9 May 2023 in Barcelona.

Rashid Seedat, the Executive Director of the GCRO, was invited to attend the event. More than 45 metropolitan representatives, representatives of city and metropolitan networks and experts and representatives from UN-Habitat, academia and think tanks participated.

During the meeting, the importance of understanding the value of metropolitan regions as well as the challenges associated with it were discussed. In order to meet the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda, there is a need to develop metropolitan solutions to build a sustainable urban future and for inclusive and effective multilateralism in the context of global poly-crises.

Experts acknowledged that enabling metropolitan governance arrangements facilitates both vertical and horizontal cooperation amongst all stakeholders and connecting urban and rural spaces to their geographical and natural contexts in environmentally sustainable ways.

Key takeaways from the meeting were to:

• Mainstream metropolitan policies, financing mechanisms, institutions and regulatory frameworks to enhance metropolitan management and development.
• Establish a global platform for cooperation, knowledge exchange, innovation and international action for metropolitan and regional development.
• Incorporate people-centred urban and metropolitan approaches into international treaties to facilitate cross-border metropolitan management mechanisms
• Promote a specialised metropolitan forum focusing on the exchange of metropolitan innovative solutions that promotes an international cooperation approach to metropolitan affairs
• Recognise that metropolitan management requires inter-sectoral skills based on the principles of collective action, cooperation and solidarity
• Advocate for new tools for localising the SDGs and implementing the New Urban Agenda at the metropolitan level

A number of specific proposals were made including the creation of a set of Metropolitan Management International Guidelines, the promotion of an international event (such as the World Metropolitan Forum) and the inclusion of a World Metropolitan Day. The improvement of knowledge exchange and the development of skills was featured prominently in the proposals with the promotion of the Milano MetroHUB Centre, Metropolitan Exchange Global Platform and Metropolitan Heritage International Society.