The Settlement Profiling Tool, developed by UN-Habitat in partnership with UNHCR, sets out the framework for preparing cross-sectoral spatial profiles which are intended to help inform urban development policy decisions. The settlement profiling tool particularly focuses on situations where protracted displacement has occurred and supports a shift towards prioritising development interventions.

In cities and urban areas in East Africa, livelihoods and incomes of populations are seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for those living in informal settlements. These urban populations are more vulnerable to food insecurity and unstable livelihoods as they mainly depend on the informal sector. It is estimated that the number of food insecure people in East Africa will increase to more than 41 million people because of COVID-19 including 14 million urban dwellers.

The UN Secretary-General has launched the UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19 to save lives, protect societies, recover better. As part of the response, the UN Secretary-General is issuing policy briefs to provide ideas to governments on how to address the consequences of this crisis and COVID-19 in an urban world is part of this series .

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…

Local authorities have played a major role to curtail COVID-19, particularly in vulnerable urban settings, while maintaining critical services.
To identify problems and suggest solutions, UN-Habitat assessed 34 Unions of Municipalities and 5 individual municipalities, covering 52 per cent of Lebanese municipalities. The report highlights key urban challenges and proposes several mitigating measures.

COVID-19, a global pandemic declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), is crippling the global economy and upending people’s lives thereby threatening sustainable development across all its dimensions. Africa is also facing the dire consequences of the crisis, necessitating timely response, recovery and rebuilding policies and strategies. Globally, urban areas are the epicenters of the epidemic accounting for most of the confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The Guidelines focus on the current situation of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, developing an approach that aims to build upon normative research on climate resilient, energy and resource efficient planning principles to develop tools for the development of net-zero carbon village guidelines.

This guide focuses on the processes involved in developing community-based Vulnerability and Risk Assessments and Action Plans, providing general content, tools, and guidance on participatory methodologies and techniques. It may be used to support slum and informal settlements upgrading initiatives or can be used as a stand-alone process tool in support of local action. Case studies from different regions exemplify the processes and methodologies described.

This Placemaking toolkit is based on the experience of UN-Habitat Palestine and its partners, mainly Ministry of Local Government in designing and implementing placemaking interventions in 11 Palestinian communities under the framework of the Spatial Planning Support Programme for Area C, West Bank.