International conference on housing & urban development

Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu will inaugurate tomorrow an international conference on housing and urban development in Asia Pacific region.
During the three-day conference, ministers and senior officials from 68 countries in the region are expected to deliberate on challenges of urban planning and management, an official release said.
The sixth edition of 'Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing & Urban Development (APMCHUD)' seeks to address issues ranging from crowded city centres to peripheral expansion, metropolitan based urban population growth, megacities and urban corridors, among others, it added.
The conference will come out with a Delhi Declaration and implementation plan for aligning urban development strategies of member countries with the New Urban Agenda adopted at Quito, Eucador for the next 20 years.

The theme of the declaration will be on 'Emerging Urban Forms - Policy Responses and Government Structures'
The conference assumes significance considering that APAC region accounts for 60 per cent of the world population and 55 per cent of global urban population.

It will also help in furthering the new urban agenda adopted at the recent conference of UN Habitat-III.
The APMCHUD is the first such conference after UN Habitat-III global conference on sustainable development held in Quito this September.
According to the release , five Working Groups will deliberate on different Sub-Themes, including integrated planning, management and governance structures (led by India), ensuring access to housing and housing finance in the urban - rural continuum (led by South Korea) and unorganised growth in peripheral areas and slum upgradation aspects (led by Iran), among others.

Delhi is hosting the APMCHUD after 10 years having organised the first such conference in 2006.