As part of preparations for the 2020 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that was due to be held in Kigali, Rwanda this month, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Commonwealth Association of Architects, the Commonwealth Association of Planners, and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, with support from The Prince’s Foundation, the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, the Rwandan Ministry of Local Government, the Commonwealth Engineers Council and others, have been working together to promote sustainable urbanisation in the Commonwealth.

With nearly 50% of the projected increase in the world’s urban population to 2050 forecast to be in the Commonwealth, there has never been a more important time for members of the Commonwealth to come together to tackle the challenges of climate change and rapid urbanisation; challenges which have now been compounded by the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

A Programme of online sessions has been created, all of which focus on engaging with the theme of sustainable urbanisation in the Commonwealth. The programme will be officially launched in this webinar by:

• HRH The Prince of Wales

This event will be chaired by Ms Dyan Currie AM, President of the Commonwealth Association of Planners with contributions from:

• Hon Claver Gatete, Minister of Infrastructure, Rwanda
• Mr Kalim Siddiqui, President, Commonwealth Association of Architects, Pakistan
• Rev Mpho Moruakgomo, Chairperson of Commonwealth Local Government Forum, Botswana
• Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, Council Member, Association of Commonwealth Universities & Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town, South Africa

The launch event will be immediately followed by the first in the series of webinars; this will present the key findings of the Survey of the Built Environment Professions in the Commonwealth. This will be presented by Mr Peter Oborn, Senior Vice President at the Commonwealth Association of Architects, followed by a panel discussion which will include:

• Dr David Howard, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
• Mr VK Madhavan, Chief Executive, WaterAid, India
• Prof Barbara Norman, Life Fellow PIA, University of Canberra, Australia
• Ms Astrid Haas, International Growth Centre, Uganda

We expect to hear from the voices of Youth, City Mayors and others in the Q&A section, during which there will also be time for live questions from the audience.

The webinars that are to follow this session are as follows:

• Wednesday 1st July – Feedback from the Frontline of COVID-19
• Wednesday 8th July - Planning for Rapid Urbanisation in a Post-COVID-19 World
• Wednesday 15th July – Building Political Leadership and Strengthening Decentralisation in Urban Areas
• Wednesday 22nd July – Upskilling Professional Capacity for Climate Change and the Recovery
• Wednesday 29th July – Sustainable Urbanisation and Local Economic Development in the Context of COVID-19
• Wednesday 5th August – Building Infrastructure-led Community Resilience
• Wednesday12th August – Achieving Safe and Affordable Housing for All
• Wednesday 19th August –Climate Responsive Design
• w/c 24th August* – Sustainable Urbanisation and Small Island Developing States
• Wednesday 2nd September – Towards a Call to Action and Next Steps & Close of the Programme

*this session will run twice to ensure participation from all SIDS, dates to be confirmed

We anticipate streaming the majority of the above events live to YouTube, details of which will be shared on our social media.

We are also holding a series of 7 lectures for built environment professionals in parallel to the main programme:

• Thursday 2nd July – Introduction to the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals
• Thursday 9th July – Planning for Rapid Urbanisation
• Thursday 16th July – Planned City Extensions
• Thursday 23rd July – Resilient Infrastructure
• Thursday 30th July – Climate Responsive Design
• Thursday 6th August – Heritage-Led Regeneration
• Thursday 13th August – Sustainable Outcomes Guide

By registering for this event you will receive a unique link to the Zoom Webinar registration page. Due to limited capacity we recommend you register as soon as possible. Please note your ticket does not guarantee you a space in the Webinar. As such we will be providing a YouTube livestream link for those that do not manage to join the Webinar before it reaches full capacity.

We look forward to welcoming you at the launch session on the 24th June and future sessions in the online programme.