UN-Habitat’s first Policy, Legislation and Governance (PLGS) Annual Report highlights the section’s implementation of the Strategic Plan 2020-2023 for 2020. The Annual Report features the section’s and its partners’ contributions and results realized across various key programmes and projects at the local, national, regional and global levels between November 2019 and the end of 2020.

The overarching goal of the Lebanon 2021–2023 Habitat Country Programme Document (HCPD) is to contribute to improving the living conditions of children, youth, women and men in Lebanon – regardless of their nationality – by creating liveable urban areas that are effectively planned and managed, environmentally sound, financially viable and competitive, and socially cohesive through good and inclusive governance and equitable distribution of resources.

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.

The city-wide public space assessments in Palestine are prepared to provide verifiable data on women’s experiences in public spaces. The assessments are conducted in five (5) urban areas, namely: Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Bethlehem cluster in the West Bank and Khan Younis in Gaza Strip. The assessments have utilized UN-Habitat’s city wide public space assessment toolkit and adopted an active participatory approach with high engagement of the targeted municipalities.

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.

In support of planning, management, and implementation of actions to address recovery needs and urban durable solutions, UN-Habitat has developed the position paper « The territorial dimension of displacement in northern Mozambique » that aims to advocate for the promotion and joint implementation of integrated urban interventions improving the living conditions of host communities and IDPs, as well as supporting a local governance mechanism to drive sustainable urban development.

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.

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.