World Urban Forum

The World Urban Forum (WUF) has been organized since 2001 by the United Nations with the aim of highlighting one of the most pressing issues of our day: rapid urban expansion and its impacts on communities. , cities, economies, politics and on climate change. Having first taken place in 2002 in Nairobi, Kenya, it has been held every two years since, around the world. This forum initiated by UN-Habitat is the main international conference on urban development involving all urban stakeholders: public, private, civil society, researchers, etc. so that they can exchange their experiences in an organized manner, with the aim of defining major common directions.

In this sense, the French Partnership for the City and Territories (PFVT) brings together the activities of the French delegation internationally, in order to strengthen the consideration of French urban and territorial issues in the international agenda, as for the World Urban Forum in particular. This platform for exchange and promotion of the expertise of French actors includes more than 200 organizations, including States and public establishments, local authorities and associations of elected officials, urban development federations and professionals, the private sector, civil society organizations, or even universities and research and training organizations.

PFVT workshops

These French contributions are organized every two years in the form of working groups. Several major themes are established so that French experts can meet to discuss. Divided into three workshop periods, each group will successively have several objectives:

1. The first workshop consists of deciphering the shared issues and challenges to take stock of the situation, bringing together the vulnerabilities, interdependencies and obstacles encountered, based on prospective scenarios and the recommendations of previous work.

2. This diagnosis then allows us to imagine a possible and desirable future by 2050 through the creation of trajectories. They will highlight the controversies and constraints to be put on the agenda to get out of business as usual.

3. The third workshop aims to set the strategic meetings not to be missed between now and 2050 and to define the priority actions to be implemented at each scale. These operational recommendations, levers and short, medium and long term solutions make it possible to define the means of action to be used and the key actors to be contacted to achieve the objectives while respecting planetary limits.

These three workshops result for each theme in the creation of a deliverable, a summary booklet of orientations and recommendations, illustrated with examples of concrete projects in France or abroad, and available in French and English. To learn more, click this link.