According to most statistics, Somalia is one of the few countries whose population still resides predominately in rural area, although it is experiencing rapid urbanization, and projected to become predominately urban by 2050.

The Hobyo Resilience Plan provides an overview of the main features related to resilience in the town and its surrounding landscape. It briefly analyses the current development challenges with a special focus on climate-related and environmental-related risks affecting vulnerable population.

This manual is part of a UN-Habitat strategy for building up capacity of local and state government in Somalia and laying the foundation for the establishment of functional urban development departments able to cope with the tremendous urban development challenges of the country. Mapping is only one of the technical skills at the base of urban planning.

The Jowhar Resilience plan provides an overview of the main features related to resilience in the city and its surrounding landscape. It briefly analyses the current development challenges with a special focus on climate-related and environmental-related risks affecting vulnerable population.

The National Guidelines on Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) takes a fresh, forward-looking approach for a relatively new field of action by municipalities and their partners in Kosovo. Considering existing guidance from the European Union and our real experiences from implementing SUMPs in the Municipality of Mitrovica South and the Municipality of Mitrovica North, the aim of this publication is to provide guidance on developing sustainable urban transportation systems.

The Beirut City Profile offers an important multisectoral and spatial analysis about the City of Beirut, including a diagnosis of the wide spectrum of challenges that the city has encountered over the past decades, including the most recent and devastating shock, the Beirut Port explosion. The profile aims to help offer a common understanding of how multiple shocks and vulnerabilities manifest across the city.

The Volume 2 of the VLR Series, the Guidelines for Voluntary Local Reviews, jointly developed by UN-Habitat and UCLG, provides an overview and analysis of how the linkage between national and local levels is playing out.

The global community is at a critical moment in its pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More than a year into the global pandemic, millions of lives have been lost, the human and economic toll has been unprecedented, and recovery efforts so far have been uneven, inequitable and insufficiently geared towards achieving sustainable development.