CAF participated in the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

July 15, 2024

CAF – the development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean – participated in the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) held from Monday, July 8, to Wednesday, July 17, 2024, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The theme for this 2024 edition was "Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: delivering effective, sustainable, resilient, and innovative solutions."

During this edition of the Forum, five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were thoroughly examined, acknowledging their interconnected and inseparable nature. These were:
 
- **SDG 1:** Eradicate poverty in all its forms everywhere.
- **SDG 2:** End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
- **SDG 13:** Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
- **SDG 16:** Promote peaceful and inclusive societies, ensure access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels.
- **SDG 17:** Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
 
During the 2024 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), various activities took place, including workshops on the SDGs, exhibitions, and special events organized by different United Nations agencies, including UN-Habitat.
 
As part of UN-Habitat's activities in collaboration with CAF, the panel "Collective Action for the Amazon: Strategies for Sustainable and Resilient Development" was held. This event served as a platform to share experiences and strategies in key areas such as:
 
- Policy formulation.
- Development of National Urban Policies and Subnational Development Policies tailored to the ecological and socioeconomic contexts of Amazonian cities.
- Strengthening multi-level governance.
- Enhancing planning.
- Supporting capacity-building initiatives.
- Creating a portfolio of investable projects with significant potential impact, aligned with the SDGs.
 
“If we are going to talk about the challenges of urbanization in the Amazon basin, we must highlight that it seems to reflect its model of productive development. Amazonian cities need to rethink their public policy approach to seek dual benefits: improving the quality of life for residents – for example, by reducing challenges related to climate change adaptation – and decreasing the impact of production and urbanization on the ecosystems they are part of while promoting new business models as alternatives to extensive natural resource exploitation,” said Emil Rodriguez Garabot, Director of Habitat and Sustainable Mobility at CAF, during the opening of the panel.

Ángel Cárdenas

On July 12, CAF participated in the high-level panel "Transforming Our Neighborhoods: National Policies and Local Actions for Sustainable Urban Development," which aimed to share knowledge about successful neighborhood transformation experiences and urban poverty reduction models. The goal was to catalyze action and commitment toward creating sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban environments in Central American and Caribbean countries, bridging the gap between policy formulation and on-the-ground implementation.
 
The panel included housing and urban development ministers from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Honduras, as well as representatives from Costa Rica and Guatemala. CAF's participation featured a keynote address by Ángel Cárdenas, Manager of Urban Development, Water, and Creative Economies, who illustrated how public-private partnerships, innovative financing models, and integrated urban planning approaches have been successfully used to transform neighborhoods.
 
"CAF's vision of Sustainable Urban Development promotes a holistic approach to transformative actions for our neighborhoods. Housing policies cannot be separated from other social, environmental, and economic policies; this means that a truly integrated urban policy must seek to balance environmental regeneration, social resilience, and economic prosperity within the same intervention," Cárdenas remarked.
 
In parallel with the Forum activities, the CAF team held bilateral meetings with various representatives and a working meeting with the newly elected Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Ana Claudia Rossbach, and Elkin Velázquez, the organization's representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. This meeting established a roadmap to strengthen collaboration between CAF and UN-Habitat in areas such as Housing and Habitat, Access to Subnational Financing, and training for local government members of CAF's Biodiverciudades Network.
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