With fewer than five years remaining to achieve the SDGs, this panel discussion provides a candid assessment of our global trajectory based on The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026. Speakers will highlight the tangible gains achieved through purposeful global action, demonstrating that SDG implementation successfully transforms lives at scale. However, the core of the discussion will address the severe headwinds stalling systemic progress. Panelists will unpack how escalating conflicts, slowing economic growth, climate chaos, rising debt burdens, and declining aid have created deeply uneven and insufficient outcomes. The session will outline solutions on what is needed to help accelerate the SDGs before 2030.
Speakers:
– Mr. Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for DESA
– Shantanu Mukherjee, Acting Director, UNSD
– Sarah Hendriks, UN Women Director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division
Moderator: Chelsea Miller, Global strategist, advisor, and CEO of CPM Global
Source: United Kingdom UK House of Lords (video statements)
‘It’s like doing a business deal’
Lord Timpson explains the process of getting legislation agreed by the House of Lords, sharing that ‘It’s about sitting in the room with the other parties, understanding what their concerns were, trying to convince them sometimes that actually what our plan was right, other times then going back to our officials and our policy people…’
Find out more in the full epsiode of Lord Speaker’s Corner:
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Source: United Kingdom UK Parliament (video statements)
MPs on House of Commons Select Committees need to hear from outside of parliament in order to properly investigate issues they are looking into. There are a number of ways they can do this, one of which is with Deliberative Engagement. Deliberative Engagement invites members of the public to take the time to learn from experts, deliberate with other members of the public affected by a given topic, and produce a set of conclusions that select committees can use as part of their investigations.
In early 2026, the Home Affairs Committee held a number of engagement activities exploring public preferences on reducing legal immigration.
The Committee partnered with Demos and King’s College London to deliver the deliberative workshops across the country. Invited members of the public were asked to examine the complex range of factors that influence public policy.
Their report is coming soon, follow the committee’s work on our website: committees.parliament.uk
Source: United Kingdom UK House of Lords (video statements)
What assessment has the government made of the number of people migrating into the UK in each of the last five years? Members raise concerns in this question from Lords Sahota.
Read a transcript of this question https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-07-09/debates/0EEC75BC-0F51-46CD-9F5F-F62108C72300/UKMigration
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On 13 July 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, receives the final report on child safety online from the co-chairs of the special panel of experts.
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Press Conference by Anacláudia Rossbach, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN-Habitat; Ambassador Erastus Ekitela Lokaale, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations; and Shirley Pryce, Jamaica Household Workers Union, GROOTS Jamaica, Huairou Commission and Member of the UN-Habitat Advisory Group on Gender Issues. They briefed on Renewing Commitments on Sustainable Cities and Communities and the launch of the SDG 11 Global Synthesis Report 2026.
UN-Habitat Executive Director Anaclaudia Rossbach said, “adequate housing is the foundation of sustainable cities and communities. Housing is not only about shelter, it determines access to transport, employment, education, healthcare, public space and economic opportunities.”
The world is off track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11) on sustainable cities and communities, ten years after its adoption, according to the SDG 11 Global Report 2026, launched by UN-Habitat during the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).
Prepared with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), UNDRR, WHO, UNODC, UNESCO, UNEP and other partners, the report presents the United Nations system’s joint assessment of progress towards achieving SDG 11.
The report identifies the global housing crisis as one of the greatest barriers to sustainable urban development. Today, more than three billion people lack access to adequate housing, including over 1.1 billion living in informal settlements and slums.
The UN-Habitat Executive Director said, “this report reminds us that housing crisis is fundamentally a crisis of inequality. The people most affected are often those facing multiple forms of exclusion, including women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, migrants, displaced populations, indigenous people, and residents of informal settlements.”
She continued, “addressing these inequalities requires more than building houses. The report calls for in-situ upgrading of slums and informal settlements in partnership with communities. Residents must be recognized as co-producers of solutions with investments that improve housing, security, infrastructure, public transport, public spaces and resilience without displacement.”
Rossbach highlighted that the report “demonstrates that climate related disasters are becoming an increasingly central urban challenge. Encouragingly, countries are strengthening resilience planning more national urban policies meet international standards, and an increasing number of countries have aligned national and local disaster risk reduction strategies.”
She added, “141 countries have national disaster risk reduction strategies, and 116 countries report aligned local strategies. However, planning must now translate into implementation through safer housing, resilient infrastructure, risk informed land use and stronger local preparedness.”
The Executive Director said, “the report concludes with a call for renewed commitment during the remaining years of the 2030 agenda,” reiterating the need for “greater investment, especially in adequate housing, stronger political leadership, improved urban governance and a renewed commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind as cities continue to grow.”
Ambassador of Kenya Erastus Ekitela Lokaale also spoke to reporters. He said, “for Kenya, these findings resonate deeply, guided by our Constitution and the bottom-up economic transformation agenda.”
He continued, “we have placed affordable housing, integrated urban planning and resilient infrastructure at the centre of our national development priorities through the Affordable housing program, informal settlement upgrading initiatives, expanded urban infrastructure and investments in sustainable mobility. We are working to ensure that urbanization becomes a driver of economic opportunity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.”
For her part, Shirley Pryce of Jamaica Household Workers Union and a member of the UN-Habitat Advisory Group on Gender Issues said, “housing is much more than a roof over our heads or four walls. Housing is dignity. It’s safety. Housing is health. Housing is opportunity. It is where children learn, where families recover, where a person finding security and where resilience begins.”
“Haiti’s crisis has become deeper, more complex and more urgent,” said Youri Saadallah, Global Emergency Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, following a mission to Haiti.
Briefing reporters in New York from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he said 6.4 million people, more than half the country’s population, require humanitarian assistance, and only one in ten public health facilities with inpatient capacity are fully operational nationwide.
“Speaking not only as a humanitarian, but also as a father and, quite frankly, as a human being, the situation we witnessed is unacceptable,” Saadallah said. “The strongest message we heard was that people no longer feel safe. They are being stripped of [their] dignity. Women and children are bearing the brunt of this crisis. Sexual violence, including collective rape, is rampant. There is a disturbing sense that such abuses are becoming normal.”
Saadallah said armed groups have expanded in Port-au-Prince and infiltrated displacement sites. “One mother told us that she has to sleep on top of her daughter every night to keep her safe,” he said. “And sadly, this story is only one among the many we heard throughout our visit.”
He added that the recruitment and use of children by armed groups increased by 200 per cent, and grave violations against children rose by 21 per cent in 2025 compared to the previous year. “One community center we visited removed all glass from its windows because staff fear that severely traumatized children may use the shards from these glass windows to harm themselves,” he said. “That’s the reality within the country.”
Maria Moita, Director of the Department of Humanitarian Response and Recovery at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced, the highest number ever recorded due to violence in Haiti.
“Port-au-Prince remains the epicenter of Haiti’s displacement crisis,” Moita said. “Schools have become shelters. Communities have been uprooted. Safe space is almost non-existent in Haiti. Displacement sites are extremely congested. There is no space to sleep or live with dignity. There’s no space to install the most basic services, such as latrines or cooking areas. People are living on top of each other. Privacy is non-existent and therefore protection needs are immense.”
Moita said the displacement crisis extends beyond Haiti’s borders. “In Ouanaminthe and Belladère we witnessed a human impact of large-scale deportations from Dominican Republic. Humanitarian partners reported 600 to 700 forced returns every day through Ouanaminthe alone, many people are arriving with nothing. Many have already fled violence inside Haiti before they were deported.”
Saadallah and Moita are part of a group of Emergency Directors, including UN agency representatives and representatives of large NGOs, who undertook a mission to Haiti.
As hazards become more frequent, complex and interconnected, cities face growing risks driven by climate change, rapid urbanization, population growth and development patterns that place people and assets in harm’s way. Extreme heat, flooding, earthquakes, technological disruptions and other hazards threaten lives, infrastructure and development gains. Ahead of the 2026 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction under the theme “Resilience Starts at Home”, this session poses an urgent question: are our cities built to protect people where they live? With SDGs 6, 9 and 11 under review, this discussion highlights why investing in resilient cities is essential to safeguard communities and sustain progress.
Speakers:
– Mr. Kamal Kishore, SRSG for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR
– Dr. Esam Halawani, Decision Support Center Director, Al Madina Region Development Authority
Moderator: Ms. Elaine Reyes, News Anchor, UN Insider & Americas Now (CGTN America)
Source: Republic of South Africa (video statements)
His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa attends the 110th Commemoration of the Battle of Delville Wood held at the South African Memorial in Longueval, France.
