New Asker, Norway, 31 October 31, 2017-- New Asker, a municipality located just North of Oslo, is adopting the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for the reformulation of the new municipality.

Guangzhou, 31 October 2017 - UN-Habitat joined partners around the world in celebrating World Cities Day under the theme Innovative Governance, Open Cities.

The global celebration was marked in Guangzhou, China, where Dr Joan Clos, UN-Habitat's Executive Director, delivered his official statement and in Shanghai, where he unveiled an urban statue dedicated to the day, which promotes the challenges and opportunities posed by sustainable urbanization.

Dubai 31, October 2017 – The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Dubai International Award is meeting in Dubai from 30th October to 2nd November 2017 to undertake the first selection stage of the 11th round of the Award. Consequently, the ten-member Committee will submit their findings, which include a list of submissions to be reviewed by an international Jury and a report detailing their key findings to the Director General of Dubai Municipality on Thursday 2nd November 2018. The Jury will be held in Dubai in January 2018 to select the winners.

Berlin 31 October 2017—The Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on“Refining the Metadata Methodology for Monitoring SDG 11.2: by 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all”, was recently held in Berlin, Germany (http://www.urban-pathways.org/conference-agenda.html).

Quezon City, Philippines., October 27, 2017-- Despite the recent suspension of work and classes due to a public transport strike affecting all of Metro Manila, about 40 representatives from five Philippine national government agencies showed up for the first training workshop on Building Climate Resiliency through Urban Plans & Designs (BCRUPD), a German government funded project with UN-Habitat as the lead implementer in partnership with the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB).

Gaborone, 05 October 2017 – The Government of Botswana in partnership with UN-Habitat and UNECA held an inception workshop to kick-start the process of monitoring and reporting on Sustainable Development Goal 11. Botswana is one of the four selected countries in Africa (Botswana, Tunisia) and Latin America (Ecuador, Colombia) under the project “Monitoring and Reporting on Human Settlement Indicators in Africa and Latin America”.

Nairobi, 3 October 2017 – Thirty days of promoting issues, challenges and solutions around urbanization got underway yesterday with the celebration of World Habitat Day in UN-Habitat’s host city, Nairobi, and in global centres around the world.

Nairobi, 26 September 2017 – Registration for the world’s premier conference on cities and urbanization, the World Urban Forum, has now opened.

UN-Habitat, which coordinates the biennial event, is inviting stakeholders and partners from across the spectrum to register for attendance for the ninth such conference which will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in February 2018.

Guangzhou, 22 September 2017 – The global observation of 2017 World Cities Day will be held in Guangzhou on 31 October, as recently announced in a media briefing in the city. The event is organized by United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China (MOHURD) and the People's Government of Guangdong Province, and hosted by Guangzhou Municipal Government.