This study identifies formal and nonformal land professionals’ categories, their current functions and the additional roles that they would need to take up to improve land governance and establish functioning and fit-for-purpose land administration systems in the Arab region. The study highlights the common challenges faced by land professionals and takes stock of their current capacities, the additional capacities they would need, and the interventions that would enable them to adequately play...

The UN-Habitat Regional Office for the Arab States, located in Cairo, supports 18 countries in the region to promote socially and environmentally sustainable cities. In a rapidly urbanising region, UN-Habitat envisions well-planned and well-governed cities through focusing on adequate housing, urban recovery, access to basic services, public spaces, policy and governance, housing, land and property rights, localisation of the Sustainable Development Goals and climate action.

This report explores some of the critical challenges that converge at the intersection of climate change and land governance. Some of these challenges are droughts, desertification, disaster risk, land and water management, land degradation and restoration, soil erosion and conservation, biodiversity, and food security.

The Urban Recovery Framework (URF) is a key instrument to enhance responses to urban crises. The aim of the URF is to create an enabling environment for more effective recovery in urban areas, affected by natural or man-made crises, including conflict. It clarifies institutional and multi-level governance arrangements, policies and plans, the coordination mechanisms and the financing instruments needed to drive and steer the implementation of immediate and medium-term urban recovery intervention

Riverbank Filtration is a water provision solution that uses riverbank soil as a natural filter. Having implemented more than 30 units in Egypt, UN-Habitat supported the drafting of the “Guideline on Riverbank Filtration in Egypt” to support effective and accurate institutionalization of the technology in the Egyptian codes and practices. The guideline supports planning, site selection, designing, construction, monitoring and maintenance of RBF units in Egypt.

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.

Climate change is becoming one of the main threats to humanity, and the Arab region is one of the most vulnerable to its impacts. The 2012 State of Arab Cities report1 highlighted climate change as a “major emerging challenge” in the region with water security, food security, and urban settlements at particular risk.

Sustainable Urbanization in the Paris Agreement’ – a comparative review of Nationally Determined Contributions for Urban Content”, a UN-Habitat publication coming on the heels of Habitat III, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and COP22. The adoption of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) on 20 October 2016, and the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change two weeks later, on 4 November 2016, are a strong first step toward the immediate implementation of Agenda 2030 for...

There are a number of key areas of local government competencies that city officials may want to target when implementing carbon trading projects; including town and urban planning, infrastructure development, service provision, waste management, energy provisioning and transportation.