Urban economy is focused on promoting urban strategies and policies that strengthen the capacity of cities to realize their full potential as drivers of economic development, and of wealth and employment creation. Special attention is paid to the formulation and implementation of urban strategies and policies that promote and boost the participation of both men and women, enhance municipal finance and contribute to the creation of decent urban jobs and livelihoods that increase economic empowerment, in particular for youth and women.

Objective and Strategy

The overall objective of Urban economy area is to improve urban strategies and policies that are supportive of inclusive economic development, the creation of decent jobs and livelihoods, and enhanced municipal finance.

Urban economy area is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of cities to create resources that enable equitable economic development, employment creation and financing of urban growth, with a focus on the specific needs of youth, women and other vulnerable groups. It takes the lead in applying urban economic approaches to realize the objective of sustainable urbanization. It also seeks to scale up interventions, and plays a catalytic role, along with established partners, in building capacity for integrated economic approaches to management, planning and financing of cities. The urban economy area applies its tools on economic analysis, strategies and approaches to support economic development components, articulation and linkage with the work of other areas, such as planning, basic urban services, land and housing.

The strategies for achieving the planned results include the following:

• Working through regional offices and key partners at national, regional and global level, the subprogramme will customize region-specific tools, strategies and policies to provide cities with innovative economic solutions to manage their growth in a sustainable manner;

• Using as leverage the experience gathered by UN-Habitat in developing and field-testing a number of local economic development and financial management toolkits, the subprogramme works with cities to develop integrated approaches to improve their productivity and competitiveness by building upon local capacity. This is achieved by supporting the design and implementation of inclusive city-wide economic development policies and strategies in partnership with local authorities, community leaders, the private sector and other intergovernmental organizations;

• Advocating best practice in the area of city-wide economic development, shared through the implementation of projects in partner cities;

• Identifying, developing, testing and disseminating appropriate forms of municipal financing to fund urban development in cities to manage their growth more effectively. The subprogramme will work closely with the urban legislation team to ensure an enabling legislative environment for municipalities to operate and improve upon;

• Assisting local authorities in improving current operational efficiency and accessing sources of finance by building capacity to deploy innovative municipal revenue generation mechanisms and harnessing local assets, leading to improved local service delivery and infrastructure;

• Supporting the design and implementation of economic empowerment models for young men and women, based on UN-Habitat experience of implementing one-stop centres and managing Urban Youth Fund projects;

• Increasing the access of young people to entrepreneurship, livelihoods and incomes, and developing model programmes derived from best practice to build the capacity of local authorities and youth non-governmental organizations to mainstream such factors into their programmes and services;

• Stepping up existing partnerships with Habitat Agenda partners and United Nations agencies to provide partner cities with state-of-the-art tools, thereby building better synergy between local authorities and other key partners, to seize emerging economic development opportunities, and to tackle the challenges posed by unemployment and the lack of income-generating opportunities.