By the middle of this century, at least two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. Global urbanization presents enormous challenges for sustainable development, but also offers great opportunities for a better future. Habitat III – the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development that will be taking place in Quito, Ecuador from the 17th to the 20th of October, 2016 – will be dedicated to those challenges and opportunities. The conference will be adopting a “New Urban Agenda” (NUA) for sustainable urban development.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation is taking the Habitat conference as an opportunity to reflect on the conditions for sustainable urban development in a conference of its own entitled “Co-producing sustainable cities?”. The relationship between local governments and civil society in the cities of the global North and South play a special role in this regard: the New Urban Agenda places high hopes on local governments as change agents for sustainable urban development, as they play a central role in the implementation of global sustainability goals. An urban agenda can only be sustainable if local civil society is involved in their implementation, however.

This dossier highlights key controversies of the Habitat III process and provides a platform for experts on civic engagement as well as urban practitioners.