2024 marked a transitional year for UN-Habitat’s Global Public Space Programme. The Programme delivered impactful action in 13 countries, benefiting over 70,000 people through initiatives advancing climate resilience, social inclusion, and crisis response. From neighborhood delivery to global platforms, the year reaffirmed public space as a foundation for equitable cities and a key enabler of housing, basic services, and sustainable urban development.

This playbook provides governments with a practical, people-centred approach to urban digital transformation. It offers a step-by-step guidance, tools, access to relevant resources and case studies to help cities design inclusive, ethical, and resilient smart city strategies grounded in community needs and human rights.

This Toolkit provides planners and city leaders with practical guidance on applying Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) to urban planning and decision-making. It explains key concepts, applications, risks and benefits, and provides step-by-step guidance, case studies and tools to support responsible, data-driven and inclusive planning for sustainable and resilient urban development.

UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029 places housing, land and basic services at the centre of sustainable urban development. Responding to the global housing crisis affecting billions, the plan drives action on poverty, climate and crises, advancing the SDGs through inclusive policies, partnerships and impact.

UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029 places housing, land and basic services at the centre of sustainable urban development. Responding to the global housing crisis affecting billions, the plan drives action on poverty, climate and crises, advancing the SDGs through inclusive policies, partnerships and impact.

UN-Habitat, as part of the Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building (ISCB) project in Viet Nam, funded by the Government of Switzerland through the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), conducted this comparative legal study of spatial planning laws and governance frameworks in nine countries—Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, Panama, Paraguay, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, Thailand, and the Philippines. The study examined how planning mandates and hierarchies are defined…

UN-Habitat, as part of the Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building (ISCB) project in Viet Nam funded by the Government of Switzerland through the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) as well as in collaboration with the Urban Development Agency under the Ministry of Construction, conducted a rapid assessment of Vietnam’s legal framework for urban development. The legislative analysis focussed on planning, housing, land, and local governance which identified key gaps, overlaps…

This is the Volume 2 of the Heritopolis Working Papers representing the activities of its Research Forum and the diverse studies on Heritage and the Metropolis that were debated by researchers around the world. The document is an effort to reflect on the new role of heritage in the current context, being aware of the ongoing demographic, economic, political and demographic challenges while considering heritage as a resource to be managed in the support of common wellbeing.

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WUF12 Perspectives is a new UN-Habitat analysis capturing the views of participants from the World Urban Forum 12 held in Cairo in 2024, focused on localization. It highlights three dimensions—implementation, representation, and translation—and identifies nine key elements to guide stakeholders in embedding localization into sustainable urban development and advancing global SDG localization efforts.