Under the G20, the presidency of India shall continue from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023. In the light of this, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is organising the Urban 20 event.

What is Urban 20?

• U20 is an important initiative which reinforces the role of picking up the idea of sustainable development in cities.
• It also provides a platform for discussion on various important issues of urban development such as climate change, issues of mobility, and challenges of economic development along with goals of sustainability.
• This U20 2023 Cycle will be chaired by the city of Ahmedabad. The leadership of the host city also rotates annually.
• The choice of Ahmedabad is because as the city will showcase it's unique urban development and climate change initiatives along with richness of culture and heritage.
• This initiative was launched for the first time in 2017 at the One Planet Summit in Paris.
• It aims to raise the profile of urban areas, increase their engagement with G20 and develop a mechanism for continuous dialogue between the two.
• This initiative resonates with India's theme of 'One Earth, One Family, One Future'. It also underlines that the initiatives undertaken by Ahmedabad shall lead to many positive outcomes.
• The effort of this cycle is to bring 'ideas into action' and draft a blueprint for closing the gaps between the policy practice and policy success.

Focus Areas for the Urban 20 Event:

• Promoting the awareness of environment conscious behaviour.
• Ensuring that water depletion is checked.
• Greater expenditure to address the climate change events effectively.
• Helping the local areas to realise their 'potential'.
• Restructuring urban governance and planning frameworks.
• Catalyzing the digital development in these areas.

Urban development has become an issue of major concern. As with increase in industrialisation in almost every state, urbanisation has also increased rapidly. It is estimated that cities will host two-thirds of population by 2050. They also consume somewhere around 75% of world's energy and are also responsible for the emissions largely. As a result, they are the ones which are the first to face the climate change issues. It is expected that this event will be able to attain major success in due course of time.

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References:

• pib.gov.in
• hindustantimes.com