The 20th Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS 2025) gathered global leaders, national policymakers, local and regional governments, mayors, and sustainability experts at the WMO in Geneva. The Global Cities Hub spoke at the High-Level Dialogue and moderated two interesting panels.
The special webinar on “Empowering lives through people-centred smart cities” put in the focus the people-centered approach shared by several UN agencies. It covered a range of issues from leveraging technology in an adequate way to developing a digital wellbeing framework concept for urban life and to contributing to citizens’ quality of life.
The 5th UN Forum of Mayors (FoM), held on 6–7 October 2025 in Geneva, brought together representatives from 80 cities from all regions. Centred on the theme “Cities shaping the future,” the Forum aligned with the 2025 UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and tackled key global issues such as health and well-being (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), decent work (SDG 8), climate finance, and housing. Participants unanimously called for reinforcing and expanding the FoM within the UN system, recognizing it as a vital platform that bridges local action and global policy-making.
The Global Cities Hub and the World Economic Forum co-organized a high-level event on 8 October 2025. The Urban Futures Dialogue, held under the theme “Driving Public-Private Collaboration for Future-Ready Cities,” brought together mayors, business leaders, international stakeholders, and civil society to explore cooperation between cities and the private sector.
The Global Cities Hub, together with partners and with the support of the Swiss Confederation, held for the 3rd consecutive year a side event dedicated to Voluntary Local Reviews. Over ten cities from across the world gathered for the event. The session highlighted the growing role of local and regional governments (LRGs) in advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through transparent, data-driven, and participatory review processes.
The event “Cooling and Building for Urban Resilience: Local Solutions, Global Impact,” brought together city leaders, diplomats and technical experts to advance scalable responses to rising urban heat, wildfire risk, and infrastructure vulnerability.
A high-level meeting convened mayors and deputy mayors from around the world with senior representatives from key UN agencies: UN-Habitat, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to discuss areas of collaboration.
The GCH took part in an OECD–German workshop in Berlin on “The impact of decentralized development cooperation (DDC) on local governance and SDG outcomes.” The meeting aimed to better understand how cities and regions engage in decentralized development cooperation, what benefits it brings, the obstacles they face, and how to assess its impact. Participants included cities and regions, city networks, national governments, and international organizations.
The 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly starts on Thursday, 18 September. A record number of heads of states and governments are expected to speak on this Anniversary. The Secretary-General has presented a report providing recommendations to enhance engagement with local and regional governments in advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular the localization of the SDGs. The dialogue with States “identified existing mechanisms that were concrete, practical and cost-effective for enhancing the participation of local and regional governments in United Nations processes.”
Local and regional governments play a crucial role in offering a decent quality of life to their citizens and are key contributors to the common efforts of a people-centered sustainable development. The GCH in collaboration with UN-Habitat and the Quality of Life Initiative organized the Geneva Urban Debate “Measuring Quality of Life in Cities: Connecting Local Action and Global Agendas”. We introduced the Initiative and explored how it can contribute to the different global agendas of international organizations.
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