REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is scheduled to inaugurate the third Preparatory (PrepCom 3) meeting of the Habitat III Conference of the United Nations in Surabaya, East Java, on July 25.
"The president has confirmed his attendance to open the three-day PrepCom 3 meeting in Surabaya, East Java," Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono stated here on Tuesday.
The meeting, organized by the United Nations, will be attended by some 4.5 thousand participants from Indonesia and other countries, the minister noted.
"Some 1.5 thousand participants from foreign countries and three thousand others from Indonesia will attend the Prepcom 3 meeting. It will be attended by delegates, stakeholders, and non-governmental organizations from 193 countries," Hadimuljono remarked.
The Surabaya meeting is the continuation of PrepCom 1 held in New York on September 17-18, 2014, and Prepcom 2 in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 14-16, 2015, before the Habitat III Conference is organized in Quito, Ecuador, on October 17-20, 2016.
Outreach and Liaison Officer at the Habitat III Secretariat Tobias Kettner affirmed that the Surabaya meeting will finalize documents that had been discussed in previous meetings.
The documents will be discussed further at the Habitat III Conference.
"The Surabaya meeting is important as it will finalize the documents that will be discussed at the Habitat III Conference to become a new urban agenda for the coming 20 years," Kettner pointed out.
The Habitat Conference of the United Nations is held once in 20 years. Habitat I was held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976 and Habitat II was held in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1996.
The Habitat Conference has an international agenda that focuses on sustainable urban and settlement development for implementation across the globe.