IFSUD and the City Partnerships Challenge Launch
One UN RoomOne UN Room
Lead organization:
- UN Global Compact – Cities Programme
Partners:
- UN Habitat, World Bank UNDP, Realdania, Denmark , RMIT University
The City Partnerships Challenge is a model process for accelerating and enabling the formation of sustainable urban projects that can attract private and public finance. It is structured as an implementation mechanism under the Implementation Facility for Sustainable Urban Development (IFSUD). The IFSUD was passed as a resolution on 12 May 2025 at the UN Habitat Governing Council in Nairobi, Kenya.
City Partnerships has been developed by the UN Global Compact - Cities Programme. The UN Global Compact is the world's largest corporate social responsibility initiative. City Partnerships is an implementation and capacity building program that accelerates and enables the development of urban projects to support sustainable, safe, resilient, inclusive cities and towns globally, specifically advancing the SDG 11 and 17 while progressing numerous interlinked SDGs relevant to context and priorities of each municipality.
City Partnerships incorporates inputs from several initiatives of the UN Global Compact including:
Local Networks - Corporate networks in 65 countries
PRiME - Principles for Responsible Management Education applied in 650 universities and business schools
PRI - Principles for Responsible Investment as the largest global responsible investment group
This event’s main objective is to strengthen global partnerships for IFSUD, calling for new partners to collaborate in progressing IFSUD and launching the City Partnerships Challenge for cities and towns, businesses and universities to participate to develop urban projects that implement the New Urban Agenda and progress the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Challenge will identify and enlist city governments to commit time, resources and political will to participate in a structured capacity building and applied development process to create new multi-sectoral partnered projects for sustainable urban development. City government investment in the process can be leveraged for sub-national and national government investment and support.
