UN World Urban Forum: Focus: New urban agenda for world's cities

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UN WORLD URBAN FORUM China praised at meeting for the success of its urban planning

For the first time ever, more than half of the world's population are living in cities. It's been a steady trend over the past few decades, and it's something which continues to throw up new problems and challenges for city planners and authorities. A UN-sponsored forum aimed at mitigating these issues has been held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and CGTN's Rian Maelzer was there.

Some 25-thousand people from nearly 200 countries are expected to take part in the roundtables, workshops, exhibitions and other events at the 9th World Urban Forum. It's only the second time it's being held in Asia and the first since countries adopted the "New Urban Agenda" to try to forge common rules and goals for the development of cities.

NAJIB RAZAK MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER "The world urban population is expected to at least double by 2050 with cities hosting close to 70 percent of the global population. This growth will be concentrated in Asia and Africa, with Asia projected to have more than half of the world's mega cities."

RIAN MAELZER KUALA LUMPUR "Key themes here included how to make cities sustainable, prosperous, inclusive and resilient, for instance to deal with the impact of climate change."

ABHAS K. JHA PRACTICE MANAGER, WORLD BANK "China is doing some remarkable things and gets a lot of things remarkably right. China is right out there on the cutting edge. They are learning from the outside world but they are also adapting and learning new things. So there's a lot the rest of the world can learn in terms of having good practice in urban planning."

And China seems keen to share its experience with others, especially those involved with the Belt and Road initiative.

NI HONG, CHINESE VICE-MINISTER HOUSING AND URBAN-RURAL DEVELOPMENT "We will work together to make the sky more blue, the land greener, the water cleaner, the air fresher, people's lives better, and contribute to building a community of a shared future."

Lofty goals, perhaps. But that's precisely what the forum aims to achieve, to improve the quality of life of city dwellers even as urban populations swell. Rian Maelzer, CGTN, Kuala Lumpur.