From Baku to Mexico City

The 13th World Urban Forum convened by UN-Habitat in Baku, Azerbaijan, brought together leaders from government, academia, civil society, business, and faith communities. Attending WUF13 was one of the most clarifying experiences I have had as a city movement leader — and not always in comfortable ways.

Walking the corridors of WUF13, I became more conscious of something that city movement leaders can sometimes overlook: the gap between how the church talks about cities and how urban planners, policymakers, and civic leaders actually approach them. These are serious professionals grappling with serious problems. The questions they are asking are not theological abstractions. They are urgent, technical, and deeply human.

"WUF reveals the scale and complexity of the actual challenges facing cities."

That is not said to minimize what the church brings. It is said to name what it must first receive: a clearer picture of what cities are actually facing.

The Housing Crisis Is a Church Issue

A dominant theme at WUF13 was the urgency of the global housing crisis. The numbers are not abstractions:

• 2.8 billion people lack adequate housing or basic services
• 1.12 billion live in informal settlements
• Nearly 300 million people face homelessness

These are not statistics that belong only to development economists. They are a pastoral reality. The people who live in those conditions are the same people the church is called to reach, serve, and dwell among. Understanding the housing crisis is not a detour from mission. It is part of mission.

Michael Crane, who has attended five World Urban Forums, captured it plainly:

"The church needs to know the city in order to love the city."

He contends that the church must learn from cities — understand their genuine needs, their planning logic, their structural challenges — while also offering its distinctive assets: presence, prayer, compassion, and practical contribution. Knowing and loving are not opposites. Knowing is what makes love specific and useful.

Faith at the Table: From Presence to Influence

One of the most significant developments at WUF13 was the expanding influence of the Faith Pavilion and its Call to Action on Housing. Christopher Elisara of the World Evangelical Alliance described the moment when a statement was adopted that positioned faith communities not merely as charity providers but as partners in serious policy conversations:

"Adequate housing is not only a policy issue but also a matter of human dignity."

That framing opened new conversations with policymakers. When faith communities speak the language of human dignity in rooms where urban policy is made, they gain access and credibility that they cannot manufacture through mere advocacy. The Faith Pavilion at WUF13 was a demonstration that the church has something substantive to offer in urban development — not only services but a framework for why those services matter.

Cities Want the Church at the Table

Perhaps the most personally striking moment came through a story shared by Tim Svoboda, a long-time urban transformation leader. He recalled a conversation with the mayor of Masaka, Uganda — a city experiencing rapid urban growth. The mayor was not debating whether faith communities should be involved in her city's future. She was asking how. She wanted guidance on how faith leaders could contribute practically to her city's flourishing.

That exchange reflects a broader WUF13 trend: city leaders increasingly want partnerships with faith communities. Not to be preached at, but to work alongside. Not as a token religious voice, but as genuine collaborators who know their neighborhoods, hold trust, and can mobilize resources that governments and NGOs cannot.

For city movement leaders, that is both an invitation and a responsibility. It is an invitation to show up with competence, not only conviction. It is a responsibility to develop leaders who can operate credibly in civic spaces.

Faith and the Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals formed a central thread throughout WUF13 — not as bureaucratic checkboxes but as a shared language across sectors for what urban flourishing requires. Housing, poverty reduction, public health, education, environmental sustainability: these are not foreign categories for the church. They are arenas where the church already works, often quietly and without recognition.

What WUF13 made visible is that faith communities possess distinctive assets for urban development that are often undervalued:

• Trusted relationships in local communities
• Moral influence and convening power
• Physical facilities and property
• Volunteer networks with long-term commitment
• Sustained neighborhood presence across generations

The question is whether city movement leaders can help local churches and city networks articulate and deploy those assets intentionally — not just organically.

The Road to Mexico City

WUF13 opened a door. WUF14 in Mexico City in 2028 is the next one. Between now and then, there is real work to do — gathering city stories, identifying housing and urban flourishing initiatives, contributing case studies, and building the kinds of relationships that make faith communities credible partners in urban development conversations.

The Lausanne Cities Network, together with CitiesCollab and the World Evangelical Alliance, is committed to that work. Not as observers at the table, but as contributors to cities' actual flourishing.

Baku was a beginning. Mexico City can be a milestone.