In October 2016, Habitat III will set the agenda for urban development over the next decade, and scaling up sustainable transport infrastructure and services within the world’s cities will be a critical component in the sustainable urban development process.

The Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) represents over 90 international organisations who are actively working in policy development and project implementation of sustainable urban transport projects on a global scale. SLoCaT feels that it is crucial to more closely link Habitat III and the issue papers to 2015 global processes on sustainable development, climate change, and financing for development, specifically as related to the sustainable transport sector. 

Transport has been mainstreamed as a cross-cutting sector in the sustainable development process, and the sector needs to be addressed in a similar manner under Habitat III, as it cuts across several relevant issue papers (e. g. Safer Cities, Urban-rural linkages, Jobs and Livelihoods). In addition, strategies to reduce GHG emissions require action in different spheres, and thus transport’s contribution must also span multiple issue papers (e. g. Urban and Spatial Planning and Design, Urban Resilience, Urban Infrastructure and Basic Services, including energy). Finally, significant resources will be needed to scale up the sustainable transport investments needed to meet sustainable development and climate change targets, and Habitat III issue papers could make more significant contributions in this area by increasing focus on financing in each.

In context of the above, the SLoCaT Partnership has compiled comments from a number of SLoCaT members on how the current draft issue papers could be strengthened from a sustainable transport perspective. The comments have been submitted in a co-signed letter to the Executive Director of the UN-Habitat. 

For the general comments on a select subset of issue papers and the specific comments from the SLoCaT members, please refer to the letter here.