Experts will debate in Guatemala on housing and development
Guatemala will host Thursday the 15th edition of the National Meeting of Entrepreneurs (ENADE), an event in which experts, members of the productive sector, officials and civil society leaders will discuss housing and development.
The event, which will be held in a capital hotel and is organized by the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (Fundesa), will be developed under the slogan "Here we are living: Houses, neighborhoods and development."
Participants will include exhibitors such as Spaniards Joan Clos, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Director of UN-Habitat (2010-2017), and Pedro Ortiz, Urban Planner and Senior Consultant of the World Bank in Metropolitan Management, Public Policy Management and Planning .
Clos, born in Catalonia, was responsible for the promotion of sustainable, resilient and prosperous cities and during his tenure at the UN led the development of the New Urban Agenda and was named Secretary General of the Habitat III Conference.
Ortiz, for his part, held political positions as councilor of the city council of Madrid, mayor of Salamanca, general director of Urban and Regional Planning of Madrid, and has been working for more than 16 years on metropolitan issues outside Spain, the last 5 in Washington with the World Bank and the European Union in Africa and Asia.
This year's theme of the business forum aims to give continuity to the last two (Intermediate cities in 2016 and Road Infrastructure in 2017) because the population of the Central American country continues to grow and it is expected that between 2080 and 2085 will be 27 million inhabitants, compared to the 16 that are estimated to exist today.
But this growth will mainly affect the cities, as it is expected to increase in the urban area and it is necessary to do more planning to avoid this problem, which has already surpassed the capital.
Therefore, they seek to cover three fundamental axes: housing (to resolve the conditions of habitability of the territory based on criteria of order), neighborhood (seek community integration with criteria of security, sociability and public spaces) and city (seeking a sustainable model) .
