The Slum Upgrading Legal Assessment Tool is a diagnostic self-assessment legal tool to identify, in a structured, objective, and systematic way, the strengths and weaknesses of the regulatory framework made up of all legislation and regulations enacted at different levels and in force in a country.

This report has been developed by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) and UN-Habitat based on the outcomes of 2021 Innovate4Cities Conference co-sponsored by UN-Habitat, GCoM and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is intended to inform research, policy and public discussions on the global research and action agenda for cities and climate change science.

As we enter the second year of this United Nations’ Decade of Action, the Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reminds us that we need to ‘turbo-charge’ our efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. More importantly, we need to deliver the goals as One United Nations and strive to pass the finishing line with no one and no place left behind.

Our world is changing rapidly. Technology and information are moving at breathtaking rates. Populations are expanding, political forces are in flux and the climate crisis threatens the planet’s future. A pandemic has swept across the world, claiming millions of lives.

UN-Habitat Regional Office for Arab State’s Building Gender-Inclusive Cities report highlights the mainstreaming and programmatic prioritization of gender in UN-Habitat’s work. This is done through showcasing numerous gender-responsive interventions and projects that were done across countries of the Arab region in 2021. In these projects, UN-Habitat focused on ensuring urban settings, including public spaces and transportation, are safe and empowering for all girls and women.

In 2021, conflict, pandemic and climate emergencies continued to shape the challenges faced by human settlements. UN-Habitat was able to strengthen its efforts to help Member States to respond to new vulnerabilities and risks. Our normative guidance combined with demonstrated projects succeeded in creating conducive conditions for sustainable and inclusive recovery and resilience at the local level.

UN-Habitat - FAO policy paper on Land Tenure and Sustainable Agri-Food Systems highlights the need for securing land rights beyond the farming community and for the array of actors, including micro, small and medium sized agri-food enterprises.
It also notes that secure access to land and tenure rights needs to be considered part of a broader investment and enabling policy environment to support the sustainability of agri-food systems in the long term.

The Urban Recovery Framework (URF) is a key instrument to enhance response to urban crises. The aim of the URF is to create an enabling environment for more effective recovery in urban areas, affected by natural or man-made crises, including conflict.

he future of the world’s population will undeniably continue to be urban albeit with a variety of challenges such as inequalities, climate change, unemployment, including numerous shocks such as floods and drought, conflict, and macroeconomic challenges. In 2050, 68% of the world’s population is expected to reside in urban areas, up from 56% in 2020.