My Top 5 #WUF9 Picks

Your City Promdi with Habitat for Humanity colleagues at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur. (Photo c/o Habitat for Humanity International)

Exhausting, enriching, exhilarating. Those are the three words I associate with my #WUF9 experience.

It has been over a week since I returned from Kuala Lumpur, where I attended the ninth session of the World Urban Forum. I was there as part of the 31-person Habitat for Humanity delegation, to help manage our booth and speaking engagements, as well to speak at and participate in the various sessions about Habitat's commitment to the New Urban Agenda, including my work with the Habitat Young Leaders Build.

With thousands of events and over a hundred exhibitions at the #WUF9 in Kuala Lumpur, it was teeming with opportunities to learn and connect. But I also had to make a few difficult decisions on which sessions to attend, and it was frustrating that I can't participate in all of them! I wanted to be cloned right there and then.

But chose I did, and here are some of my favorite things to have experienced during the week-long forum:

PASSA Youth Training

I really enjoyed the session that the International Federation for Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies implemented about the PASSA (Participatory Approach to Safe Shelter Awareness) Youth Training, with the help of some of my colleagues from Habitat for Humanity. I got to build a model house that we tested on a makeshift earthquake machine and with an 'air' machine. We had an architect and an engineer in our group so our design was pretty and very resilient.

The event itself was short--a teaser, as the organizers  called it, to the eight-week training that is required for the training itself. The goal of PASSA Youth is to train young volunteers in 10 countries to identify hazards in their various communities and to be able to understand how to make houses and their communities safer and more resilient against natural disasters. With climate change causing stronger typhoons and talk of an imminent Big One in the Philippines, I think this is a great addition to what our urban planners and government officials are already doing.

It's starting! Lots of interest here in youth, building communities, safe shelter, and generally learning about #PASSAYouth. #HabitatYLB pic.twitter.com/Fn4x8YpfZ1

— HabitatYLB (@HabitatYLB) February 11, 2018

SDG11 Youth Pledge

Make the pledge: bit.ly/Youth4SDG11

I noticed that there was a very strong push to include the children and youth sector (particularly from the young men and women of the UN Major Group of Children and Youth) in all areas of #WUF9, and I really appreciated that. There was a whole day spent for the Children and Youth Assembly, in which I was part of the panel for human rights and participation. I liked that so many young people are already running their own programs to contribute to the SDGs.

I did, however, note that there is still a lot that must be done in terms of bringing the conversations from regional conferences like #WUF9 to the youth in grassroots communities. I think a good way of doing this is through this Youth Pledge. The document is a companion to the Habitat Young Leaders Build (HYLB) Leadership Academy which is being rolled out through various schools and grassroots organizations across Asia-Pacific. The Youth Pledge itself lists five areas of concrete action which a young person can sign up for, which will then allow them to receive doable suggestions for how to contribute to the New Urban Agenda. Anyone interested can sign up at bit.ly/Youth4SDG11.

Training on Land Tenure 

Admittedly, I attended this event only because I'm covering it on social media. However, the session turned out to be so meaty and interactive that I ended up genuinely enjoying and enthusiastically participating in the activities. The training event gathered stakeholders who are working in the area of land tenure (for shelter), to talk about the various forms of owning land and how secure they are. We participants identified the forms of land tenure in the communities that we are working on, and identified how secure it is. We then talked through the ways that we can move the communities to a more secure form of land tenure. I like it because it gave me hope that an issue that I find daunting--land rights--can be broken up into a number of ways that is solvable by a few incremental steps.

Using Tech for Property Rights

There was a session at the earlier portion of the #WUF9 week organized by IHC Global – A Coalition for Inclusive Housing and Sustainable Cities. Like most of the events I attended, I went to this one because I was assigned to it.

But wow! Was I blown away by the many projects that was presented. Some of the most memorable projects is a mapping project done by a coalition of NGOs in Bangladesh and land titling via drone technology.

There is so much potential for using advancements in technology creatively for sustainability. I think it's really just a matter of being willing to improvise and push the boundaries of the designs of technology that is made available to us.

#WUF9 #WUF | I am a strong believer in collaboration and coordination... When we got the funding, we had enough for mapping--that is something concrete. - John Armstrong, @HFH_BD ND

— Angeli Alba (@angeli_alba) February 10, 2018

Informal meetings

Last on my list (and I'm cheating here) is the many informal meetings that I had with other participants throughout the entire week.

There were new acquaintances, such as the woman architect from Syria who is working on urban renewal. There are members of a volunteer group called EPIC, which also builds houses and trains volunteers in Malaysia. I met representatives from Plan International, UN MGCY, and the Global Shapers, the group of professionals I met at the Mexico Housing Commission event, and the many young people who randomly invited everyone else along for meals and fellowship.

Your City Promdi with youth participants from Malaysia, Philippines
and the United States. (Photo c/o Renard Siew)

There are also old friends in development work, who I was very glad to see at #WUF9. There was Ponce Samaniego, who I first worked with when he was with ADB Youth for Asia over seven years ago. Gella Leano, sister of my heart and university friend, attended the Children & Youth Assembly to gain knowledge that she can use for her consultancy and for the educational outreach program that she is running in Bulacan. There was Emmy Yuniarti Rusadi--fellow Asia-Pacific Urban Youth Forum Alumni--who I was very happy to see at the Habitat booth.

Even though my introvert self wanted to retreat so badly after a long day of networking at #WUF9, those informal meetings were also very energizing. It helped me realize that though work can be difficult and tedious, people here do know have to have fun and that our connections are what strengthens our response to global needs.

Habitat for Humanity staff at #WUF9. Visit bit.ly/HYLBatWUF9
for more photos, and here for our post-event blog.

Although I was there in an official capacity, many of the experiences and lessons are deeply personal. The learning opportunities and the friendly connections I made at the event will definitely inform my work--as well as influence all aspects of my life--in the next two decades. After all, the New Urban Agenda serves as the roadmap on creating sustainable and inclusive cities, and all of us living in the cities and beyond will be rise or fall with the success or failure to implement its elements.