Assem Al-Jazzar, Egypt’s Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities, has inaugurated the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) Regional Office in the country.
UN-Habitat Regional Office for Arab States (ROAS), established in 2011, and hosted by Egypt, has a mandate to provide policy advice, technical cooperation and capacity building for eighteen countries across the region.
It also provides tools and support for regional mechanisms to coordinate cooperation in the fields of urban development and housing in the Arab region.
Since its inception, the regional office of the Arab States has grown exponentially with programs spanning across the four domains of change of UN-Habitat: Reducing Poverty and Spatial Inequality; Enhanced Shared Prosperity; Strengthening Climate Action and Improving the Urban Environment; and Urban Crisis Prevention and Response, thanks to the support of partners.
During the opening, Dr. Assem Al-Jazzar expressed his appreciation for the partnership between the Egyptian government and the United Nations Human Settlements Program where the government of Egypt has been supporting UN-Habitat since the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, October 2016.
Egypt, along with all other United Nations member states, endorsed the New Urban Agenda and committed to work together towards a paradigm shift in the way the body plans, builds, and manages cities; and reinforces the role of UN-Habitat in leading the way towards a sustainable urban environment for all, leaving no one and no place behind.
WN/as/APA