Kaitiakitanga – New Balances through Planning in the Age of Uncertainty
27–30 April 2027, Wellington, New Zealand
ISOCARP is delighted to announce that the 62nd ISOCARP World Planning Congress (WPC62) will be hosted in Wellington, New Zealand, from 27 to 30 April 2027, bringing a global community together to focus on vital topics in city and regional planning, including sustainable urban development, equity, regenerative practices, technology, and climate change.
Around 500 city planners, policymakers, academic researchers, and urban innovators are expected to attend the world congress, which will take place at Tākina Wellington Convention & Exhibition Centre.
The Congress will be delivered in partnership with our co-host, the City of Wellington, alongside valued partners including WellingtonNZ, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Business Events Wellington, and Tourism New Zealand Business Events.
As one of the world’s leading gatherings of urban and regional planning professionals, the ISOCARP World Planning Congress provides a unique platform for exchanging ideas, showcasing innovative practices, and addressing the pressing challenges shaping cities and regions today. WPC62 will bring together planners, urban designers, policymakers, academics, researchers, and development practitioners from across the globe to engage in meaningful dialogue and collaborative learning.
Set against the backdrop of New Zealand’s vibrant capital city, the Congress will offer participants an opportunity to explore Wellington’s distinctive urban character, sustainability initiatives, and forward-thinking approaches to planning and development. Elisabeth Belpaire, President of the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), says: “New Zealand offers a globally significant vantage point from which to rethink the future of cities and regions”.
“At a time of accelerating biodiversity loss, climate change, social and geopolitical uncertainty, hosting the 62nd ISOCARP World Planning Congress in Wellington places the Pacific at the centre of the conversation – where questions of resilience, regeneration, indigenous knowledge, and spatial equity are not abstract, but lived realities. This is precisely the kind of grounded, forward-looking context that the global planning community must engage with now.”
ISOCARP warmly invites urban professionals, public officials, researchers, and development partners to join us in Wellington for an inspiring exchange of ideas, strategies, and experiences.
Kaitiakitanga – New Balances through Planning in the Age of Uncertainty
The Congress theme is developed in dialogue with Māori knowledge holders and mana whenua. The whakataukī offers an opening for reflection, more than fixed interpretation, inviting us to consider what it means for planning in an uncertain world.
We are entering a new era of planning; one that calls for decisions made not for a single election cycle, but for the generations who inherit them. Climate change, housing pressures, biodiversity loss and widening inequality are redefining how cities and regions evolve. Urban and rural areas, long bound by shared settlement, food, water and resource systems, now face growing strain even as their interdependence deepens.
These interconnected challenges invite a fundamental question: How can we find new balances through planning in a rapidly changing world?
The Congress draws inspiration from Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua — I walk backwards into the future, with my eyes fixed on the past — inviting us to balance the knowledges of the past as we transform for the future. We invite the global planning community to Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, to explore this question through the guiding principle of Kaitiakitanga.
More than stewardship, Kaitiakitanga is a responsibility to care for people, place and the living world, recognising our obligations to future generations. The approach is deeply woven across all programme tracks. Where planning is too often shaped by short electoral and budgetary cycles, it asks us to plan deliberately for those who inherit our decisions decades from now, moving beyond conventional sustainability towards a genuinely regenerative, long-term perspective.
Hosted in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Congress offers a unique opportunity to learn from Indigenous knowledge systems that have long understood the relationships between land, water, communities and wellbeing, explored alongside planning traditions from every continent, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, recognising that not every land shares the same knowledge traditions, and that planning’s future depends on genuine dialogue across this diversity.
Call for Congress Team Members
Dear ISOCARP members and ISOCARP friends,
We are pleased to announce the Call for Track Rapporteurs for the upcoming 62nd ISOCARP World Planning Congress. The Congress is seeking two Track Rapporteurs for each Congress Track to support the overall coordination and smooth delivery of the parallel track sessions throughout the Congress.
Applications are open until 5th of October.
Every year, General Rapporteurs and Track Rapporteurs make our congress possible by bringing their expertise to curate the content of tracks, create and moderate quality sessions and engage participants in the productive conversations that are at the heart of the ISOCARP events. We would like to invite you to volunteer for a position as Track Rapporteur in the Congress Team and to indicate of your preferred Track. We are looking forward to receiving applications from the private, public and academic sectors, from all over the world!
