UN / SDG WORLD CITIES DAY

UN / SDG WORLD CITIES DAY
TRT: 02:22
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / TURKISH / NATS

DATELINE: 18 SEPTEMBER 2023, NEW YORK CITY

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot, exteriors
2. Wide shot, briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, UN-Habitat:
“With nearly 70 percent of the world's population living in cities, the future of humanity is urban. Urbanization presents some of the world's significant opportunities, and, same time, also challenges.”
4. Wide shot, briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, UN-Habitat:
“This year we will celebrate the World Habitat Day on 2 October in Baku, Azerbaijan, and we will start the conversation about cities and their role in addressing the current existential threats - climate, conflicts and a lack of capital.”
6. Wide shot, briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (Turkish) Mehmet Özhaseki, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Republic of Türkiye:
“Our country, as you know, is a country that stretches from the European Alps to The Himalayas, so our country is one of the riskiest countries for earthquake. Our country is earthquake prone country, there were more than 60 mainland earthquakes in the last 100 years.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (Turkish) Mehmet Özhaseki, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Republic of Türkiye:
“Ancient techniques, somehow, old techniques were used to build, to construct buildings in these cities. Majority of the buildings had these old techniques, unfortunately. Majority of them didn't have the opportunity to construct with sound technology. Also, the soil improvements, the soil tests, were not executed as it is today. So right now we have micro mapping activities, when we checked the situation, we were able to identify the places which will not be permitted for residential areas.”
10. Wide shot, briefing room

STORYLINE:
The Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, said that “with nearly 70 percent of the world's population living in cities, the future of humanity is urban.”

Briefing journalists today (18 Sep) on the sidelines of the SDG Summit in New York, the Executive-Director added, “this year we will celebrate the World Habitat Day on 2 October in Baku, Azerbaijan, and we will start the conversation about cities and their role in addressing the current existential threats - climate, conflicts and a lack of capital.”

This year World Cities Day will take place in Istanbul, Türkiye, on 31 October, under the theme ‘financing sustainable urban development’.

Speaking to journalists, Mehmet Özhaseki, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change of Türkiye, said, “our country, as you know, is a country that stretches from the European Alps to the Himalayas, so our country is one of the riskiest countries for earthquake. Our country is earthquake prone country, there were more than 60 mainland earthquakes in the last 100 years.”

Answering a question about lessons learned, the Minister said, “ancient techniques, somehow, old techniques were used to build, to construct buildings in these cities. Majority of the buildings had these old techniques, unfortunately. Majority of them didn't have the opportunity to construct with sound technology. Also, the soil improvements, the soil tests, were not executed as it is today. So right now we have micro mapping activities, when we checked the situation, we were able to identify the places which will not be permitted for residential areas.”

World Cities Day was first celebrated in 2014. Sustainable Development Goal 11, which formulates the ambition to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable - underlying the relevance of UN-Habitat’s mission.