A/HRC/42/22 38. Municipalization is used by some local governments to deliver the commitments made under the Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve Goal 6, the City of Terrassa (Spain) manages water as a public service through a local public business entity, thereby guaranteeing the city’s ownership over the water supply and access to water as a right, not a commodity. Likewise, in Grigny (France), to avoid the commodification of water and ensure equal access to it, the City returned water production, management and distribution to public control. 39. The New Urban Agenda is a unique opportunity to ensure human rights responses are used to address the challenges and problems of urbanization. 54 Local awareness and implementation have been limited, particularly regarding sustainable urban development. 55 Nonetheless, the links between rapid urbanization and the right to adequate housing and other related human rights present an opportunity for local governments to build capacity on using a human rights framework in development planning. This was explored by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context in her report on the centrality of the right to adequate housing for the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda (A/70/270). The Shift Initiative, a global campaign for the right to housing launched by the Special Rapporteur, 56 in partnership with the United Cities and Global Governments Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights and OHCHR, has been joined by more than 30 cities. It aims to reclaim and realize the right to adequate housing, rendering housing a human right, not simply a commodity. 40. Local governments can play a key role in supporting human rights-based implementation of the New Urban Agenda. Montreal (Canada) hosted the Habitat III thematic conference on metropolitan areas in October 2015 to show its support for the drafting process. In Côte d’Ivoire, a Ministry for Urban Affairs was established in 2018 to lead on urban planning and to implement the New Urban Agenda. Given that Abidjan has more than 144 precarious neighbourhoods, the municipalities concerned are working with the National Bureau of Technical Studies and Development and UN-Habitat to improve them. Greater attention is being paid to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda in local government association congresses, for instance, during local government days in Burundi, Cameroon, Mali and Togo. 57 According to UN-Habitat, the New Urban Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are “complementary” and progress in implementation requires coordinated actions at local, national and global levels.58 V. How are local governments connected with the United Nations? 41. Local governments are increasingly connected with the United Nations human rights system by means of the universal periodic review, the treaty bodies, the special procedures and the forums mandated by the Human Rights Council. Links also exist between local governments and United Nations entities. 42. Local governments increasingly contribute to and participate in the work of the universal periodic review. In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, local governments are involved in the drafting and validation of the national report submitted for the State’s review in the context of departmental validation workshops, which provide access to information from, inter alia, municipal governments. State delegations attending the 54 55 56 57 58 10 OHCHR, “Habitat III: ‘Cities for people, with people’, UN rights experts urge”, press release, 13 October 2016. Submission by Mistra Urban Futures. www.unhousingrapp.org/the-shift. Submission by UN-Habitat. UN-Habitat, Tracking Progress Towards Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements, SDG 11 Synthesis Report – High-level Political Forum 2018 (available from https://unhabitat.org/sdg-11-synthesis-report/).