At the XXIXth General Assembly of the Forum of Ministers and High-Level Authorities of Housing and Urban Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (MINURVI) held in December 2020, the member states adopted the decision, through the Declaration of Bogotá, to create a Technical Secretariat within the Executive Committee of the Forum, and that the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) will jointly assume this role.
In their new role as technical secretariat, ECLAC and UN-Habitat will adopt functions to support the Executive Committee in the planning and organization of its sessions and activities, including the preparation and realization of the General Assembly of Ministers and High-Level Authorities of Housing and Urban Development of Latin America and the Caribbean.
For the year 2021 the new Technical Secretariat proposes to: Offer strategic support to member states in the post-COVID-19 Recovery, particularly on issues of housing, temporary vs. structural urban impacts and housing and migration flows; foster the development of integrated national and local urban policies; promote the regional pronouncement on the need for better urban statistics; support the follow-up of the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda; strengthen the regional and sub-regional dimension of the implementation framework of the NAU and its articulation with national levels; and continue with the development of the Urban and Cities Platform of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Recognizing the importance of MINURVI as a space for intergovernmental coordination and cooperation to promote the sustainable development of human settlements, the Technical Secretariat will seek to promote better interaction between the Forum and the various subsidiary bodies and intergovernmental meetings of ECLAC to articulate the analysis and formulation of sustainable development policies.
