Left to Right: Ambassador Winpeg Moyo, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Kenya and Permanent Representative and Honourable Zhemu Soda Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities at a Ministerial Roundtable at the World Urban Forum recently held in Egypt.

 The 12th Session of the World Urban Forum was convened in Egypt under the theme: It all starts at home; Local Actions for sustainable cities and communities. The forum was spearheaded by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN- Habitat) with an aim to shed light on the local actions and initiatives required to curb the current global challenges affecting the daily life of people including affordable housing, climate change and lack of basic services.

Zimbabwe was represented by the Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities Honourable Zhemu Soda, also in attendance was the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Honourable Daniel Garwe, Ambassador Winpeg Moyo, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Kenya and Permanent Representative to the UNHabitat, Ambassador Taonga Mushayavanhu the Permanent Representative to the United Nations, representatives from Local Authorities and the Urban Development Corporation.

The forum was attended by over 37 000 participants drawn from 182 countries. It was officially opened and addressed by Anaclaudi Rossbach the Executive Director of UN- Habitat. In her dress she stated that ‘’The global housing crisis affecting almost 3 billion people is of paramount concern”. She called upon the transformation of settlements and explained that the World Urban Forum was a perfect platform to scale up and build partnerships.

Zimbabwe shared its housing delivery trajectory in various sessions in which the Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities made presentations highlighting initiatives to ensure affordable housing, the densification model, the programmes aimed at security of tenure for citizens and our commitments towards climate change programmes and the housing policy related issues.

The Minister also met with the Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation N.E Stasishin on the sidelines of the forum. The meeting sought to discuss Russia’s pending visit to Zimbabwe to explore human settlements delivery programmes and projects in which Russia also indicated the vast construction job opportunities available for Zimbabweans to pursue.