Communiqué on Voluntary Local Reviews by the institutions and partners gathered at the Expert Group Meeting Towards a New Generation of VLRs: Connecting VLRs and VNRs held on February 23 and 24 2021.

To promote evidence-based programming and coordination among state and non-state actors, UN-Habitat and UNICEF have jointly completed 28 profiles of disadvantaged neighbourhoods across Lebanon. This collaboration responds to the long-standing need for reliable, multi-sectoral spatial data required to inform sustainable development and humanitarian response by all actors.

This paper sets out how working towards sustainable urbanization is crucial for the sustaining peace agenda. It builds on the ongoing reforms of the peace, security and development pillars of the United Nations and it illustrates how UN-Habitat’s expertise and experiences add value to the humanitarian development- peace actions of the UN in the region.

This is UN-Habitat’s first annual progress report on the implementation of the strategic plan 2020-2023. The report sets out progress towards planned results against indicator targets for 2020.

UN-Habitat has developed a report, The Abu Dhabi Declared Actions: one year of implementation, as part of its commitment to raising awareness of sustainable urbanization; improving knowledge on sustainable urban development and promoting cooperation between stakeholders and constituencies working to advance sustainable urbanization.

The report details successes and highlights actions partners are engaging in to fulfil their commitments.

The project is implemented in close collaboration with the Benadir Regional Administration/ Mogadishu Municipality and in partnership with World Health Organization, Danish Refugee Council and Save the Children. The aim of the action is to support the preparedness, response and mitigation activities of the BRA.

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.

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

This first-of-a-kind landscape review examines 'urban observatories,' which are boundary-spanning institutions working at the interface between knowledge production and decision-making that perform an explicit monitoring role on a range of urban issues in one or more human settlements. It builds upon earlier scholarly research on knowledge mobilisation for urban governance and developing a global science to guide city policy.