Anthony Chosen as Delegate for First UN Habitat Assembly

Jerry Anthony, Associate Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning, UI Graduate College, and Researcher in the Social and Education Policy Research Program, was chosen as a delegate to the first United Nations Habitat Congress (UN-Habitat) in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Anthony is one of only five delegates, who will represent all Urban and Regional Planning programs in the United States, as part of The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP).

The Assembly will gather May 27 to May 31 at the headquarters of UN-Habitat in Nairobi, at which time they will establish the Executive Board of UN-Habitat and elect members. The Assembly will construct global policies to guide how cities and communities are planned, managed and governed, and will also determine strategic priorities for accelerating implementation of the New Urban Agenda to achieve the sustainable development goals for the next six years, through UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan (2020-2025). The UN-Habitat Assembly will be the highest-level decision-making body focused on sustainable urbanization and human settlements.

The Assembly is universal, with all 193 United Nations Member States, and is expected to make decisions and adopt resolutions that will frame the global urbanization agenda, look at major trends, develop norms and standards related to sustainable urbanization and human settlements and provide strategic guidance to UN-Habitat in its work.

The other delegates representing ACSP are Genie Birch of the University of Pennsylvania, Elisabeth Hamin of the University of Massachusetts, Kris Wernstedt of Virginia Tech, and Bruce Stiftel of the Georgia Institute of Technology.