Based on a decision of the UN General Assembly adopted in December 2014, this conference was held in Ecuadorin October 2016. The event was prepared by the UN Human Settlements Programme(UN-Habitat). UN regional conferences were organised by the individual regional economic commissions – and it is UNECE that covers the 56 above mentioned member countries (UNECE Member States). The main topic of the conference was “Housing in Liveable Cities”, which the UN approved and highly appreciates - the focus of the event was well chosen and attracted great interest on the part of participants from the whole world.
The European Habitat was the largest (number of participants) and the most significant (geographical coverage) conference among all 11 thematic and regional UN conferences in different parts of the world included in the official preparatory process towards the UN global conference "Habitat III". The conference was attended by approximately
4 000 visitors from around the world (the most important meetings were interpreted into four languages - English, French, Russian and Czech); on top of the UNECE region Member States delegation, delegations from other world destinations – e.g. Indonesia, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Chad and others also arrived.
Some national delegations were leaded by the Ministers (Belgium, Albania, Croatia, Ethiopia); Deputy Ministers (Russia, Lithuania Sri Lanka), some other were leaded by ambassadors. The conference held 96 separate official events and dozens of bilateral meetings.
The conference provided more than 300 hours of expert discussions. The main plenary session hall welcomed presentations of more than 50 experts; dozens of other experts were discussing during the side and parallel events. The conference was accompanied by a series of exhibitions, prepared by the organizers, as well as the academic sphere and participants themselves – the participants could admire around 100 student works, 3D models of proposed buildings and other projects such as the vision of the future shape of cities.
The official outcome of the European Habitat conference was the Prague Declaration whose first draft was discussed in December 2015 at the plenary session of the UNECE Committee on Housing and Land Management, the UNECE executive body for Housing and Urban Development. In October 2014, the Committee discussed and adopted the Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing, which was then approved by UNECE’s Plenary in April 2015 as the official contribution of the relevant region to the Habitat III conference. The Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing is an essential strategic document which the Prague Declaration further develops.
The European Habitat Conference was one of the first UN conferences reflecting the implementation of the Sustainable Development objectives of "The 2030 Agenda".
Official web pages: www.europeanhabitat.com
Documents:
Prague declaration, European Habitat Look back (fotokniha)
Links:
The 2030 Agenda: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld