COVID-19 pandemic is affecting urban areas, especially high-density public spaces and informal settlements. Despite the willingness to act, Mozambique Municipalities often lack technical capacities and tools for planning. To support them, UN-Habitat in the context of the Urban Task Force for COVID-19, supported 12 Municipalities to map vulnerabilities of their urban areas and prioritize response actions.

Final report of the global Expert Group Meeting “Towards a new generation of Voluntary Local Reviews: Connecting VLRs and VNRs” held 23 and 24 February 2021, organized by UN-Habitat, UCLG and the support of Madrid City Council (Spain).

The report “Marib Urban Profile” - developed over the course of one year and the fifth in a series of urban profiles developed by UN-Habitat in the Arab States Region - examines how in the past five years, Marib have ushered in Marib’s transformation into one of the fastest growing cities in the Arab Region and catapulted from the periphery to the very core of Yemen’s political, economic and security dynamics.

The UN-Habitat’s report - Cities and Pandemics: Towards a more just, green and healthy future – evidences how cities can reduce the impact of future pandemics and become more prosperous, fair and environmentally friendly. The Report calls for the response and recovery to pandemics to be based on human rights principles. It outlines how cities should lead the move towards a New Social Contract between governments, the public, civil society and the private sector.

After the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), CMI, OECD, UN-Habitat, UNICEF, UNCTAD, UNESCO, and WHO worked together to support local authorities in advancing the implementation of the two global compacts. The recommendations in the report respond to the needs of local authorities and, while being context-related, inspire adaptation to specific priorities, geographical position and local context.

The National Urban Policy Programme (NUPP) remains a pivotal tool towards promotion and achievement of transformative, inclusive, green, productive and resilient urban development. Over the last six years, NUP has done this through shared responsibility and deliberate consultation between UN-Habitat and respective countries globally. This joint initiative aims at contributing to the successful implementation of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) to achieve sustainable and prosperous human settlements…

UN-Habitat developed the Spatial Development Framework (SDF) methodology with tools like the Matrix of Functions, to assist national, regional and local governments to make spatially informed strategic decisions to achieve policies, plans or strategies, based on the empirical understanding of the territorial dynamics. UN-Habitat implemented the MoF in Maputo Metropolitan Area to support an integrated territorial development for the area and prepared this report to present the results.

This report summarises the proceedings of the EGM, highlighting case studies, best practices, and recommendations from experts and participants.

The city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, within the framework of the "Accountability Systems for Measuring, Monitoring and Reporting on Sustainable City Policies in Latin America" project has produced its first voluntary local report on Rio's progress towards SDG 11. The report presents the city's progress and its commitment to the 2030 Agenda.