Urban areas account for two thirds of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption, making them major contributors to climate change. Cities are already suffering from extreme weather events, flooding, subsidence, storms, heat waves, water scarcity, droughts, and sea-level rise, among other climate change effects. Additionally, the laws, institutions, and policies governing urban planning in cities have unintended effects on their capacity to adapt to the changing climate.

The purpose of UN-Habitat’s Climate Change Strategy for the Arab Region (2022-2025) is to support curbing the impact of climate change on Arab cities and communities through resilience building, reduction of urban vulnerabilities, advancing adaptation and mitigation actions for the development of sustainable cities and mainstreaming climate considerations in urban policies and plans.

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 provides a global overview of progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, using the latest available data and estimates. It tracks the global and regional progress towards the 17 Goals with in-depth analyses of selected indicators for each Goal.

This guide introduces the urban observatory model and provides a summary of the key requirements and steps in setting up an urban observatory. More details for the requirements and aspects presented in this summary version are available in the full version of the guidebook titled “A Guide to Setting up an Urban Observatory”.

As the world continues to urbanize it is also becoming metropolitan. Whether horizontal spreading, dispersed urbanization or periurbanization, the physical extent of urban areas is growing much faster than their population, thereby consuming more land for urban development. Those phenomena have made many cities grown beyond the boundaries of their central municipality or “city proper” configuring bigger and denser metropolises. This is a trend still present in all world regions and affecting…

This paper on the use of artificial intelligence in cities is part of UN-Habitat’s strategy for guiding local authorities in realizing a people-centered digital transformation process in their cities and settlements.

El caso del Área Metropolitana de San Salvador (AMSS) es inspirador. El trabajo conjunto que realizan sus 14 municipios le ha permitido al AMSS ser la única en El Salvador y Centro América en consolidar sus marcos legales y políticas públicas de largo plazo, habilitando la gobernanza, planificación y financiamiento integrados y coordinados.