UN-Habitat is responding to a growing volume of requests from both national and local governments to help them prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on more than 40 years of urban experience, much of it in humanitarian situations, we are focusing on the city-level response to the crisis.

In Kakuma-Kalobeyei, northern Kenya, streets, public spaces and shared public facilities have played a critical role in supporting host and refugee communities in their day-to-day activities. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted several gaps in public spaces in Kakuma-Kalobeyei which need to be addressed in the short-, medium- and long-term.

This decongestion note has been jointly developed by Shelter Cluster, CCCM Cluster and UN-Habitat Somalia and outlines the overall guidance for the decongestion and upgrading IDP settlements to reduce the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
Somalia has 2.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have limited access to quality essential healthcare, water and sanitation services and live in more than 2,000 sites in crowded living conditions in urban and semi-urban areas. COVID-19…

The Global Compendium of Practices on Local Economic and Financial Recovery includes experiences and lessons from different cities on COVID-19 recovery. The provision of global practices gives cities across the globe an opportunity for peer-learning in developing and implementing their immediate response and recovery plans.

The novel coronavirus is a global health, economic and social crisis. With over 750 000 confirmed cases in 202 countries, territories and areas, Covid-19 had by the 1st of April 2020 caused over 35 000 deaths (WHO Africa, 2020). The effects of the virus have brought economies to an abrupt halt and will affect the possibility to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report provides an overview of UN-Habitat’s work in the Arab region during 2020. It outlines how we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and provides snapshots of our projects and highlighted interventions under each of the four domains of change of UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2020-2023

UN-Habitat Regional Office for Arab State’s Overview sheds the light on the interventions and achievements of UN-Habitat in the Arab region in the year 2021. The interventions include contribution to urban development, ensuring access to adequate housing and providing safe and inclusive public spaces, as well as COVID-19 response.

The 'State of Addis Vol.II: Towards a healthier city', focuses on how the COVID 19 pandemic unfolded in the city of Addis Ababa. The report explores the impact of the pandemic on the city; the response from the authorities and civil society; and the relation of urban infrastructure to urban health and resilience in the context of Addis Ababa.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 created a temporary crisis of confidence in the future of cities. However, a broad consensus is that urbanization remains a powerful twenty-first century mega-trend; and that well-planned towns and cities remain central to the sustainable development trajectory. There is a sense of optimism that the crisis may provide us with the opportunity to build back differently, more inclusively, greener and safer.