GAP Plenary Aligning The New Urban Agenda and the SDGs: Partners' Contributions to the UN Development Framework

Organized by the General Assembly of Partners (GAP) and open to all WUF attendees, this side event will feature a brief business meeting for updates and then focus on GAP's role as a multi-stakeholder partnership platform in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and associated global agreements referenced in the New Urban Agenda (Sendai, Addis Ababa, Agenda 2030, Paris Agreement). Featuring representative presentations from the co-chairs of GAP's 16 Partner Constituent Groups (PCGs), it will emphasize knowledge-sharing and capacity-building in forming and realizing local level voluntary commitments. The side event has two objectives: 1. knowledge/practice-sharing and capacity-building aimed at effective implementation via strengthened voluntary commitments and 2. Developing a self-organized system to monitor and report voluntary commitments.

To achieve the first objective of this session, representatives of GAP's 16 Partner Constituent Groups will present current work and explain how others can develop similar projects. The aim here is to share existing projects, enumerating current and anticipated voluntary commitments and to demonstrate to the attendees how to develop projects that encompass voluntary commitments both to the New Urban Agenda and the urban focused elements of Agenda 2030. The intent is to increase their number as occurred with the Oceans Conference last June.

The second objective will focus on developing a framework for monitoring and reporting the voluntary commitments. GAP will present a draft outline to serve as the foundation for monitoring and reporting in order to address any issues of accountability and transparency involved in the projects. After WUF9 GAP will produce a draft framework circulating it to interested parties for comments with the objective of presenting a final document at the HLPF in July 2018 to serve as guidance to GAP and other interested multi-stakeholder groups working in this arena.