Fragile states typically cannot serve their citizens adequately, and often have weak or authoritarian governments. But local governments and municipalities must still provide services to their residents, and they need revenue to do so. One way to raise revenue is by raising their own revenue through taxes on land and property. This book examines the experiences of UN-Habitat and its partners in setting up or strengthening land-taxation systems in four fragile states: Somalia, Afghanistan,…

UN-Habitat supports cities and countries all over the world to strengthen governance by improving the coordination and transparency of institutional frameworks; empowering representatives of urban stakeholders and constituencies through inclusive sound institutions and mechanisms; and providing predictability and coherence in urban development plans to enable social inclusion, sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and environmental protection. The rationale being that the…

This report provides an overview of the cooperation between the European Union and UN-Habitat over from 2014-2020 which corresponds to the EU’s last Multiannual Financial Framework. It provides key data on funding received by UN-Habitat for programmes around the world and gives impact stories from a selection of programmes. It also outlines next steps for cooperation.

UN-Habitat and UNHCR have been working together to advance their shared mandate to improve assistance for UNHCR’s persons of concern (PoC), and to maximize synergies along the humanitarian-development continuum. This guidance identifies key considerations to build upon organizational mandates to protect vulnerable populations through inclusive and sustainable urban planning.

In 2019, as part of Afghanistan Urban Safety and Security Programme (AUSSP) the first Public Space Safety Audit was undertaken in the country to enable better consideration of safety and security issues through more evidence-based policy planning and implementations. The Audit was done to understand gaps in distribution, quality, safety, accessibility, inclusivity of public spaces, to celebrate and support ongoing initiatives and programmes of the National Government and UN-Habitat.

This midterm evaluation assessed UN-Habitat Afghanistan’s Municipal Governance Support Programme (MGSP). The programme’s overall objective is to “improve stability and stimulate local economic development in target municipalities through enhancing municipal governance, increasing local revenues, improving tenure security and strengthening the social contract between citizens and the state.”

The main objective of the CGC was to improve state-society relations, urban stabilisation and job creation, where urban citizens see municipalities delivering basic neighbourhood services, thus leading to increased hope and government legitimacy.

This project was funded by the Government of Japan with a budget of USD 3,296,800. The evaluation was conducted at the request of UN-Habitat and is part of UN-Habitat’s effort to perform systematic and timely evaluations of its projects and to ensure that UN-Habitat evaluations provide a full representation of its mandate and activities.

"Afghanistan's future is urban. The population of Afghan cities is expected to double within the next 15 years and by 2060, one in every two Afghans will be living in cities. This transition represents already and will continue to represent, an enormous challenge but also an opportunity for the Government, the private sector, Afghanistan's international development partners, and, most importantly, households themselves, to deliver adequate housing for all Afghans. Meeting the…