The ‘New Urban Agenda’ aims at sustainable urbanisation for the next two decades. It is the final document that has developed from the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (referred as ‘Habitat III’) held in Quito, Ecuador, recently. With earlier meeting conducted in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996), the UN’s Habitat conferences are held in a bi-decennial cycle. Even as the draft was approved by representatives of national governments, it took two years for being prepared after preparation lasted two years and involved consultations with various stakeholders, including local governments, civil society groups and urban scholars and practitioners.
The idea of ‘New Urban Agenda’ received a major boost after the approval of a new international development framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals. Last year, the 2030 Agenda, for Sustainable Development with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was approved by the UN general assembly. The aim of Goal 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities is ‘make to cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. Expectedly, sustainability is the main characteristics of the ‘New Urban Agenda’. With themes like social inclusion, urban prosperity and resilience in view, a significant part of this draft is devoted to various ‘transformative commitments for sustainable urban development’.
This agenda seeks an ‘urban paradigm shift’ to readdress the way ‘we plan, finance, develop, govern, and manage cities and human settlements’. It basically is devoted to a ‘vision of cities for all’ where ‘all inhabitants’ are expected to ‘inhabit and produce just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements’. One of the major obstacles in the dialogues for Habitat III was related to the insertion of the provision on ‘Right to the City’, a term used to describe the collective right of ‘all inhabitants’, regardless of their legal status, over the city’s resources and spaces. Despite this phrase being referred in the draft, it has been extensively neutralised because of compromise between its supporters—Latin American countries—and its more powerful opponents: the US, European Union, Russia and India.
The contribution of India in the drafting of the ‘New Urban Agenda’ has been quite less. Even as more comprehensive recommendations for revisions were proposed by other member states, India mostly gave short, cryptic comments voicing dissatisfaction over certain sections. India was in support of provisions to help refugees and migrants circumscribed by a proviso stating ‘where applicable as permitted by laws of the land’. A more generic commitment on the right to housing instead of one that denounced discrimination and forced evictions was proposed by India. Also, restrictions on rules that increased local government autonomy over taxes were also sought by India. The way in which India has been engaged in this draft is bound to attract concern about the government’s seriousness in empowering cities and their inhabitants.
Despite following an urban-centric development agenda seriously, the priorities of India do not seem to comply with those of the ‘New Urban Agenda’. The current urban policy framework adopted by India is not based on a method that offers ‘all inhabitants’ a ‘right to the city’. What is more interesting is that even as ‘smart cities’ form the major attraction of India’s urban agenda, only fleeting appearance has been made in the ‘New Urban Agenda’. Equity, inclusivity and sustainability are instead the regular themes (even though, much to the chagrin of some urban activists, it also uses the language of ‘leveraging’ agglomeration, competition and productivity
This shift in priorities hence poses questions about the appositeness of current urban development approach of India.
The main question that arises is: Will the ‘New Urban Agenda’ will be able to create a paradigm shift in the way cities are built and governed? Because of its non-binding nature without solid mechanisms for application, its ability to effect change is limited. However, instead of dismissing it as hollow proclamations, India should consider whether it can harness some of its key ideas. For example, various policy papers on topics such as urban governance, municipal finance and urban spatial strategies are included in Habitat III proceedings. As proceduralism or adhocism mainly decides the course of decision-making processes in Indian cities, it is worthy to discover alternative strategies and processes. Even as India is expecting to have magnificent cities with good facilities, in contrast to present scenario, the ‘New Urban Agenda’ offers a normative framework for guiding India’s urban future.