Access to affordable, adequate and secure housing presents a major challenge in Lebanon, especially in big urban centres. The housing sector is characterized by a persistent housing–income disconnect and supply–demand mismatch. Besides long-standing issues, the sector’s challenges have also exacerbated due to the multiple crises facing the country – protracted Syrian refugee crisis, 2020 Beirut Port explosion, and socioeconomic crisis.

This guide addresses how housing can be incorporated into policies, specifically the Jordan National Urban Policy, to promote sustainable development. It highlights key issues worth considering and is intended to be utilised as a means of providing direction and guidance to readers through recommendations/checklists to mainstream the several coexisting and consistent housing challenges in Jordan.

The Kalobeyei Photobook 2 builds upon the foundations of the first Kalobeyei Photobook published in 2016. It traces the progress of urbanization since the inception of the Kalobeyei Settlement in Turkana, Kenya, and captures discussions on thematic areas through the perspective of Turkana and Refugee youth. Like the first time, the youth utilized their skills in Photography and ICT, and contributed to the discussions which practitioners can heed moving forward.

This publication - #Housing2030: Effective policies for affordable housing in the UNECE region – was developed within #Housing2030, a joint international initiative of UNECE, UN-Habitat and Housing Europe. It explores housing affordability challenges and existing policy instruments for improving housing affordability in the UNECE region and facilitates the exchange and dissemination of good practices in improving housing affordability among countries and cities of the region.

The purpose of this Goal 11 Status Report is to report on progress towards Palestine’s achievement of Goal 11, “Sustainable Cities and Communities”. The Goal 11 Status Report covers the period from 2015 until June 2021, changing variably depending on the available data for each target and/or indicator. It also captures the policy priorities of the Palestinian government and the impact of COVID-19 on the attainment of all targets and related indicators.

The handbook provides tested approaches and practical frameworks for improving access to affordable housing through the leverage of land and includes a range of tax-based, fee-based and development-based policy instruments. It also features regulatory framework to formulate planning standards that reduce land costs and planning and building regulations that permit incremental housing construction, as well as spatial planning that puts land to efficient use.

The Beirut City Profile offers an important multisectoral and spatial analysis of 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.

From 1 to 5 September 2019, a Community-based Urban Vision Week was organized in Somaliland’s capital city of Hargeisa. Hargeisa is a fast-growing city with limited resources to plan and manage the urban development in a sustainable manner. The Urban Vision Week aimed at paving the pathway to a participatory strategic urban action plan for Hargeisa 2040, pivoting around a Shared Vision on the best possible urban scenario to strive for.