September 14, 2022
Executive Director of UN-Habitat inaugurates the Mobility Hub of the Urban Living Lab Center on the fringes of the G7 sustainable urban development ministers’ meeting 14 September 2022, Potsdam – On the fringes of the G7 sustainable urban development ministers’ meeting, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, launches the Mobility Hub of the Urban Living Lab Center in collaboration with the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative to emphasize the strong commitment to local implementation action towards sustainable and low-carbon cities. The Center was established earlier this year in May, with support from the International Climate Initiative supported Urban Pathways project. This first Collaborating Center of UN-Habitat is co-hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Technical University Berlin and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. Since its launch, the Living Lab Center is acting as an open platform for policy dialogue, capacity building, city-to-city exchange and pilot testing of innovative solutions with a focus on low carbon urban transformations. It has ongoing collaborations with partners in Brazil, Kenya, Ecuador, and India, among others. The 14th of September 2022 marked the day of launching the first thematic hub of the center: the Mobility Hub. This hub provides a great opportunity for collaboration among ongoing implementation projects in the field of sustainable mobility such as the Urban Pathways project on low carbon basic services, the upcoming ACCESS project on digitalization of public transport, as well as the EU funded SOLUTIONSplus project on electric mobility and the TRANS SAFE project on road safety in Africa. The Mobility Hub, through its implementation projects, is expected to make a great contribution to the global commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement, in terms of ensuring access for all to opportunities, improving road safety and lowering emissions and pollution from the transport sector. During the launch event, after unveiling the plague of the Mobility Hub, Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif said “what I find particularly exciting about the concept of Living Labs is that they provide a space for the co-development of fit-for-purpose solutions. Decision-makers, academia, the private sector, civil society and development partners jointly co-create solutions to support the transition to a lower carbon urban future, and towards the achievement of a better urban future.” The launch event was followed by a panel discussion on “The role of Innovation in Urban Mobility Transitions”, moderated by Prof. Dr. Oliver Lah, Director of the Urban Living Lab Center with participants from Deutscher Staedtetag, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, among others.
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