The theme of the 16th Forum is "Sustainable Urban Mobility Solutions – Empowering Cities towards Low Carbon Pathways for Achieving Co-benefits & Economic Resilience in the SDGs Era". The theme has a strong urban focus and aims to address three goals of the Aichi 2030 Declaration (2021-2023) that deal with air pollution, economic sustainability and urban access.
Overall, it is envisaged that the 16th EST Forum will have a strong urban focus. This also means that the review and discussion of goal 1c (air pollution), goal 3 (economic sustainability), and goal 5 (urban access) will have a strong urban focus.
Other objectives for the 16th Regional EST Forum in Asia include to:
- Discuss innovative funding and financing approaches for safe, low-carbon and sustainable urban transport development.
- Explore policies and programmes towards catalysing more effective, accountable, inclusive, and transparent institutions and institutional arrangements in transport sectors.
- Address ways to improve gender balance and inclusiveness – a large part of the urban population does not have proper access to services and opportunities, and this especially applies to women, elderly and physically disadvantage groups.
- Share international best practices and cases of sustainable urban mobility solutions.
