I would like to begin by thanking you for gathering us today. It is very important to have taken this initiative to gather cities together to discuss the role of cities in the implementation of the 2030 agenda. In a personal capacity, I would like to point out three issues he was struck by in the panel discussion;
i. Cities are increasingly important for various reasons, because maybe they act independently from states, so they can be more direct in contact with citizens themselves, so they can convey or meet the desires of their citizens more directly but also because citizens have more and more people. But it also means they accumulate more and more problems, people also bring problems, it has to be said. And I think this is the message that was heard unanimously, we need to tackle lack of resources to meet these increasing demands and challenges that cities are facing. I think this is a key issue. I heard particularly from a Mayor of Quito. he launched this very good idea that perhaps the UN can help as part of the system, myself I don’t think it is quite up to the UN System because the international financial system is motivated at the Britten wood system than the UN and of course this relates to the IMF and the World Bank as well. Also, the and all the various regional banks and development banks. I think that is where the issue could really be solved, perhaps more than within the UN system. We do need to look at how we can distribute resources to ensure that cities can overcome the increasing challenges they are facing.
ii. By the view of the UN Habitat through the video message, this is the issue of the rural urban dichotomy or divide. We can only agree, this divide has to be eliminated. In practice, already has been eliminated because rural areas are becoming more urban and perhaps urban areas are attracting people from rural areas. We are seeing also a degree of rural development moving into urban areas there is blurring of this divide
We are seeing urbanization of rural areas and I think this leads on to an important challenge which is the accelerating urbanization and disorderly urbanization, perhaps the clearest sign of this is the speculation which means that suburbs around the city are becoming increasingly productive for cities themselves but the mayors of the cities might not be able to control what happens in those outline areas because it might be beyond the mayor’s capacity to act as a result perhaps of an obsolete law or legislation because it was that area belonged to the country side before , so I think that is another issue to be addressed.
iii. The third final issue I would like to highlight it’s the role of cities in food and food production. I think we had seen and heard many important ideas that have been raised on this matter I would like just to pin point two that were highlighted: one as the framework for Agriculture, this FAO’s booklet reflects and you can collect a copy on the way out if you would like or you can download the information form the internet. We can look at the various dimensions that the agenda should involve for the reduction of food and this is something that we are working on of course at FAO and that we are available to provide technical assistance in that regard.
iv. The last issue I wish to mention, as I already mentioned is the Resolution adopted by the UNGA on the 13th of December. I’ll be reading out this resolution in English:
‘Global health and foreign policy: a healthier world through better nutrition’
This is the resolution that calls for better nutrition, not just to feed people but provide people with quality food.
This declaration includes a paragraph that I would like to read out, paragraph 10:
Calls upon Member States to promote healthy diets and lifestyles…
I think this is the major challenge we have, how can we foster diets that are not just healthy but also highly nutritional so that we can deal for instance with visiting, and this is something Mr. Ribo’ mentioned in his statement.
This is a challenge that is particularly pertain for cities because cities are responsible for providing medical assistance and so on and so forth, but this is a major challenge too.
v. I would like to end with two invitations. This year we have two very significant events I would like to invite you to: first there is a meeting at Rio de Janeiro at the end of May, this is a meeting with all mayors from Latin America and the Caribbean working on the nutritional agenda, so that meeting will be in Rio, secondly the meeting of the Milan Pact, this will be held in France in October in the city of Montpellier in France, there will be 150 representatives there and the aim is to promote healthy, high quality nutrition.
I would like to thank you once again for the opportunity to be here and also for convening us here and I would like to thank you very much for attending.
