UN-Habitat has worked for decades to bring spatial and long-term planning into post-crisis scenarios. ‘Urban Planning Responses in Post-Crisis Contexts’ highlights strategies and lessons from UN-Habitat’s Urban Planning and Design Lab during the period of UN-Habitat’s 2014- 2019 Strategic Plan. It endeavours to guide practitioners and to increase understanding between the humanitarian and urban planning communities, and discusses the role that urban planning plays in developing holistic post-crisis responses. 

The publication outlines the ten different strategies that the Lab has developed to provide effective planning support and tools: (1) putting special emphasis on the planning process; (2) using urban planning as a coordinating tool among actors; (3) quickly structuring an orderly settlement of land for effective service delivery and management; (4) setting the area on a trajectory of long-term sustainability; (5) using a principles-based approach; (6) including and consulting to foster social cohesion and ownership; (7) planning within the larger geography; (8) connecting and aligning with the local government perspective and role; (9) identifying and guiding investments strategically; and (10) creating the plan as a management tool for actors and local governments. It further explores the three typologies of support that the Lab has found to be the most useful in post-crisis contexts: (A) supporting settlement profiling; (B) supporting participatory decision-making; and (C) supporting institutional capacity building.

While each post-crisis response must be carefully tailored to the specific context, and sweeping recommendations cannot be applied across the board, these strategies and support areas are explored in this publication to provide guidance and support to practitioners. The appendices include four detailed case studies that illustrate the applicability of these points in various contexts: Appendix A: Canaan, Haiti; Appendix B: Mogadishu, Bossaso, and Gabiley, Somalia; Appendix C: Kalobeyei, Kenya; and Appendix D: Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Appendix E provides further background on the relevant global frameworks and evolving perspectives related to the humanitarian-development nexus and the UN perspective, and Appendix F provides background information on urban planning at UN-Habitat and its Urban Planning and Design Lab. 

The Jubaland State Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Housing (MPWRH) has prepared this Urban Profile to summarise analyses and data collected across different systems, sectors and key actors from the spatial perspective in an attempt to contribute in an effective way to develop a shared understanding of the complexity of urban crisis in the context of Kismayo.

The document builds upon the Kismayo Urban Profile prepared by UN-Habitat with the support of local government and various stakeholders in 2017, within the framework of the Midnimo (Unity) Project.

The profile has a broader scope, compared to the previous one, and illustrates more in depth growth patterns and settlement dynamics linking them to the demands of the various communities living in town (including returnees, IDPs and host community), and contextualize them within the new policy framework of the State

This publication is the result of the project ‘Support to Regional Benadir Administration’s Central Department of Urban Planning’ implemented in technical cooperation between the UN-Habitat Somalia Programme and the Mogadishu Department of Urban Planning (DUP). The data contained in the urban analysis was collected during GPS surveys by UN-Habitat Somalia during 2010-2012 and by the Mogadishu Department of Urban Planning (DUP) during 2013.
The spatial analysis provides general information and helps to develop a basic spatial understanding of the city of Mogadishu, including its main characteristics and composition. Data contained on those maps is not warranted to be error free and should not be used for planning purpose. The maps are a basic tool for strategic urban planning and require further detailed sectoral analysis.