国际英语资讯:UN holds first habitat assembly to address global urbanization challenges_时事

国际英语资讯:UN holds first habitat assembly to address global urbanization challenges

NAIROBI, May 27 -- The first session of the UN-Habitat Assembly opened Monday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi as participants gather to discuss ways of improving quality of life in cities and communities amid the rapid global urbanization.

The assembly, the world's highest-level decision-making body on sustainable human settlements and urbanization, has "innovation for a better quality of life in cities and communities" as its theme for its first session. It runs through May 31 and is expected to be attended by over 3,000 delegates, including four heads of state, over 40 ministers and high-level representatives from 116 countries.

Speaking at the opening ceremony on Monday, UN-Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif, said that 70 percent of the world's population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050, and this may pose challenges for some nations in providing basic services such as housing, transport, energy, employment, education, and health care.

国际英语资讯:UN holds first habitat assembly to address global urbanization challenges1

She warned that the increasing urbanization may also give rise to new development problems, including extreme poverty, social inequality, slum, gender-based discrimination, humanitarian crisis, climate change, high unemployment, among others.

"For this reason, I appeal strongly to position sustainable urbanization at the center of development priorities, implement new urban agenda, strengthen the urban governance structure and institutions and adopt integrated sustainable urban development policies," she told her audience.