AZERTAC presents an interview with Madina Junussova, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy and Administration and an Urban Development Lead for GSD, the University of Central Asia, as well as a Teaching Fellow of the CERGE-EI Foundation of the Czech Republic.

- What does the World Urban Forum (WUF) represent on the global stage, and why is it significant that Azerbaijan is hosting WUF13?

- The World Urban Forum represents one of the most important global platforms for discussing the future of cities and human settlements. What makes the Forum especially important is that it not only amplifies the voices of major capitals and global metropolitan centres. It also creates rare global visibility for subnational governments, secondary cities, peripheral territories, and vulnerable localities, often overlooked in high-level international debates. In that sense, WUF is one of the few truly global arenas where the realities of remote and less visible towns can enter the international development conversation.

After hosting COP29 in Baku in November 2024, Azerbaijan demonstrated its capacity to convene major global policy events. For Central Asia (CA) and the wider Caspian region, hosting WUF13 in Baku creates an important regional opening. It increases the likelihood that CA national and subnational governments will pay more attention to strengthening urban resilience and climate adaptation, including the need to address the vulnerability of waterfront and coastal urban areas in the Caspian basin and to balance rapid new development with the preservation of urban heritage and historic city fabric.

Hosting WUF13 in Baku can also help reconnect Azerbaijan with the CA region, strengthen dialogue across the Caspian space, and reinforce the idea that the future of sustainable urban development in this wider geography depends not only on national policy, but on the resilience, identity, and adaptive capacity of cities and towns themselves.

- What are your overall expectations for WUF13 in Baku?

Under the theme "Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities," the Forum will bring global attention to the urgent need to make housing, urban safety, and resilience central to sustainable development. We want to show that resilience is not only about large metropolitan centres. It is also about smaller, often overlooked towns, including mountainous and vulnerable settlements, where the capacity of subnational governments is critical for creating safer communities and more resilient homes. In that sense, WUF13 offers an important platform to connect local experience from Central Asia with the wider global urban agenda, focusing on safe, resilient communities and the implementation of the New Urban Agenda.

Another major expectation is to attract donors' and partners' attention to the need for greater investment in capacity-building for subnational governments and local institutions. We want to make the case that local authorities need not only infrastructure finance, but also knowledge, skills, and institutional support so they can act proactively and help make cities more resilient and safer for all residents. At the same time, we want to use WUF13 to network with colleagues from other countries that are further advanced in urban resilience practice, exchange knowledge, and potentially build long-term partnerships for joint fundraising and joint implementation.

- How can Azerbaijan leverage this opportunity to strengthen its urban development profile internationally?

- One powerful way to do this would be to use the Forum not only for presentation, but for concrete coalition-building at the urban level. Azerbaijan could bring together municipalities, universities, major industries, civil society, and business leaders to demonstrate how urban stakeholders can jointly work on economic resilience, climate adaptation, and more liveable cities.

Azerbaijan, and Baku in particular, can use WUF13 to show how urban development does not have to mean replacing identity with generic modernisation. Instead, the country could present itself as a place where historic urban fabric, cultural heritage, and new development are balanced thoughtfully.

There is also a regional leadership opportunity. Azerbaijan can use WUF13 to strengthen collaboration with Central Asian countries that share parts of a common historical legacy. If this momentum continues beyond the Forum, Baku could position itself as a bridge between the South Caucasus and Central Asia and potentially as a hub for a longer-term regional knowledge network on urban resilience. In that sense, the greatest success for Azerbaijan would be not simply hosting a one-time international event, but converting WUF13 into an enduring platform for cooperation, learning, and urban transition across the wider Silk Road region.