Surabaya (Antara) - Preparations for the third session of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development (PrepCom III U.N. Habitat) to be held here from July 25 to 27 are halfway through.
"We can say now that the preparations have been 50 percent complete. With the appointment of Surabaya as the host of the meeting, we hope Indonesia will increasingly become known at an international level," the Secretary of the Housing, Planning and Urban Development Directorate at the Public Works and Housing Ministry, Rina Agustin Indriani said at a meeting of the consolidation team with the Surabaya mayor at the Grand Palace Hotel here on Thursday.
The consolidation team, which comprises experts and academics from various universities, practitioners and officials of the ministry, is in the process of preparing the substance of materials to be discussed at the PreCom III U.N. Habitat, he said.
Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini proposed that the materials, which will be discussed at the PrepCom III U.N. Habitat, should cover food
security, which has become a central issue at several international seminars.
No single city in the world can subsist itself, she said.
To meet their food needs, cities must be integrated with one another because more and more people will live in urban areas instead of rural areas, she said.
Therefore, a modern city must be food security-oriented, she said.
Tri, who was elected for her second five-year term on December 9, 2015, in a regional election, noted that local wisdom will be one
of the main issues discussed at the event.
The issue refers to the success of Surabaya in taking maximum advantage of public empowerment.
Citing an example, she said the quantity of trash transported to landfills had also declined, while the population had continued to
increase. (*)