Summary of Asia Pacific Urban Youth Assembly at APUF-6

Urban Ecology and Environment

• The ecological footprint of cities must not exceed the biocapacity and must remain within environmental thresholds and local scopes for planetary boundaries.
• The New Urban Agenda should mainstream resilience in aspects by strengthening mitigation and adaptation initiatives to tackle and reverse land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

Urban Housing and Basic Services

Urban services and technology

• While realising its benefits, technology impact assessments on the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of development should be employed to promote harmonious co-existence with urban scapes by avoiding deformation of natural environments, exploitation of resources beyond natural thresholds.
• Widening the technology gap risks further marginalising people in society, in this regard technology should be used to close socioeconomic gaps in cities, enable access to information and basic services, facilitate eco-friendly lifestyles, and provide an infrastructure for sustainable development into the future to match the needs of the next urban agenda.
• Sustainable urbanisation needs to encompass universal access to quality education which includes comprehensive sexual education for all young people. Educational infrastructures should adopt and utilise informal, non-formal education, peer learning, and the inclusion of indigenous knowledge.
• Free and accessible birth certificate registration systems must support the implementation, monitoring and review of above objectives.

Housing policies

• Housing is a human right and should be operationalised as such. The agenda needs to prioritise access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, as well as adequate and equitable access to public spaces and parks (within a 5 minute walk of every household).
• Provision of housing for particular group of populations, including young people, refugees and internally displaced persons must be addressed by planners and local governments through a rights-based approach. In addition, housing policies must be sensitive to people with disabilities.
• Cities should acknowledge that housing is part of human rights.
• Cities should engage all citizens in physical and service planning processes and implementation in an effort to prioritise access
• for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, as well as adequate and equitable access to public spaces.
• Provision of housing for particular group of populations such as young and old people, people with disabilities, refugees and internally displaced persons, must be addressed by planners and local governments through a rights-based approach.