The King’s Foundation receives UN-Habitat Special Citation award for its pioneering work on sustainable urbanization

The King’s Foundation, His Majesty King Charles III’s charitable foundation, has been awarded UN-Habitat’s prestigious Special Citation award for 2023.

The award recognizes the charity’s role as a pioneer of sustainable urbanization through community engagement and neighborhood planning in the United Kingdom, and as a champion of responses to rapid urbanization across the Commonwealth.

The award presentation took place on Thursday 18^th January at The King’s Foundation’s headquarters, Dumfries House, Scotland, during a visit to the site by the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif. The award was received on behalf of the Foundation by Dame Sue Bruce, Chair of Trustees, at a special event to review and build on the Commonwealth Declaration on Sustainable Urbanization, adopted by Member States at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2022.

Each year, UN-Habitat acknowledges outstanding contributions to human settlements with the Special Citation, a certificate in the gift of the UN-Habitat Executive Director. Notable past recipients include URBAN Intergroup at the European Parliament, Emine Erdoğan, First Lady of Türkiye, Jean Todt, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Road Safety, Yücel Yılmaz, President of the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye, and Rohey Malick Lowe, Mayor of Banjul, Gambia.

Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UN-Habitat Executive Director, awarded the Special Citation, praising The King’s Foundation: “We still have a long way to go to flip the script on sustainable urban development across the Commonwealth. However, what the Foundation started by redesigning urban planning is now a global movement and has global impact.”

Dame Sue Bruce, Chair of Trustees of The King’s Foundation, said on accepting the Award: “The King’s Foundation is honoured to be recognised by UN-Habitat for our game-changing work in helping communities achieve sustainable urbanization. We are very proud of the practical tools we have developed to create real change and the successful initiatives we have been at the heart of.

“Our commitment to realising His Majesty King Charles III’s vision for creating better communities for people and the planet spans 35 years, and we look forward to continuing to develop this work across the Commonwealth this year, particularly as we look ahead to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October.”

The King’s Foundation is His Majesty King Charles III’s charitable foundation, established in 1986, which aims to create better communities for people and the planet.  The Foundation’s Projects Team has a long track record of championing sustainable urbanization through community engagement and neighbourhood planning in the UK and works across stakeholder and community engagement, masterplanning, and community regeneration.

UN-Habitat and The King’s Foundation have most recently been collaborating on a number of projects, most notably on the development of the Rapid Planning Toolkit - a resource aimed at secondary cities in the Commonwealth that lack the capacity to plan and shape sustainable urban growth. The Foundation helped convene Commonwealth partners to discuss a Call to Action for Sustainable Urbanization, which resulted in the creation of the Declaration on Sustainable Urbanization at the CHOGM in Kigali, 2022. The Foundation’s pioneering rapid planning methodology and Mayor’s toolkit has most recently been successfully applied to the secondary city of Bo in Sierra Leone.

In addition to its international work, key projects for The King’s Foundation in the United Kingdom include:

- Supporting local authorities across the UK on the creation of Urban Villages in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, Little Germany in Bradford and Ancoats in Manchester.

- Leading on the vision and masterplan for the Swansea Bay Campus, which catalyzed a £2bn regeneration of the region, and creating the Coed Darcy Urban Village in Wales, which resulted in the remediation of the UK’s first oils refinery and masterplan for 2,000 homes.

-  Pioneering the Neighbourhood Planning process, delivering over 50 workshops across the country and writing the first online neighbourhood planning toolkit.

- Establishing the Enquiry by Design and design coding process, originally piloted in the early 2000s in Basildon and Northampton, which greatly influenced the principles of implementing new developments in the UK.

- Working with local councils across the country to assist with community engagement, including starting work in 2019 with Thurrock Council on their local plan, using digital engagement, which aims to shape the building of 35,000 homes in 18 years, with a focus on walkable neighbourhoods.

To find out more about the work of The King’s Foundation, visit www.Kings-Foundation.org.

To find out more about the work of UN-Habitat in the Commonwealth, check out this report here (https://apo-opa.co/4b0eUiy).

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of UN Habitat.

For further information or interviews, contact:
Ekaterina Bezgachina
Chief of Communications
UN-Habitat
ekaterina.bezgachina@un.org

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Notes to editors:

The King’s Foundation:

The King’s Foundation is His Majesty King Charles III’s charitable foundation and was formed in 1986. Inspired by the vision and values of His Majesty, the Foundation focuses on creating better communities where people, places and the planet can coexist in harmony. For over 35 years, the Foundation’s Projects Team has been working domestically and internationally across stakeholder and community engagement, masterplanning, and community regeneration, developing plans for hundreds of thousands of homes in walkable communities.

The King’s Foundation is headquartered at its flagship regeneration project, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, and acts as custodian of other historic Royal sites including The Castle of Mey and Highgrove Gardens, home to Highgrove Traditional Crafts training programmes. With a focus on education across its offering, the Foundation also manages cultural and educational hubs in London, based at The Garrison Chapel and Trinity Buoy Wharf. 

About UN-Habitat:
UN-Habitat is the United Nations entity responsible for sustainable urbanization. It has programs in over 90 countries that support policymakers and communities to create socially and environmentally sustainable cities and towns. UN-Habitat promotes transformative change in cities through knowledge, policy advice, technical assistance, and collaborative action. To know more, visit www.UNHabitat.org.