Milwaukee Announces Membership to UN Cities Program

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Rich Meeusen, co-chair of the Milwaukee 7 Water Council will announce today that the city of Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee 7 Water council have become members of the UN Global Compact Cities Program.

The United Nations Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative aligned with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.  The Cities Program began in 2003, and seeks to harness the human, material, and financial resources of a city to develop solutions to urbanization-related social, economic and environmental problems.
The announcement will be made later today at a presentation by Paul James, director of the Cities Program. James will speak to the Milwaukee 7 Water Council on the topic of cities and the crisis of sustainability.

“We have been working on this for the past year,” said Dean Amhaus, president of The Spirit of Milwaukee, and a Milwaukee 7 member. “Where it takes us is a process that involves us and our better understanding of not only the economics and quality of water, but also the politics and the culture that surrounds water in a community.”

Milwaukee is only the second U.S. city to become a member of the program, one of fourteen cities in the world, and the only one focusing on the importance of water quality. The city will focus its efforts on four facets of a community and its water, and a number of integrated sub-projects that make a difference in water quality in the city of Milwaukee and the surrounding region.

The presentation will take place April 29 at the Discovery World, Digital Theater, 500 N. Harbor Drive at 3 p.m. The presentation is free and open to the public.