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. 

Public space has emerged as a critical lifeline for cities and their residents. It has proven to be a timeless risk-reducing infrastructure, an essential urban service and an infrastructure of opportunity especially in times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has exposed critical gaps in the accessibility, flexibility, design, management and maintenance, connectivity and equitable distribution of public space in Nairobi. These need to be addressed incrementally in order to improve health equity across the city, help the city build-back better and future-proof itself and its citizens.

This report highlights the gaps in the distribution, accessibility and quality of public open spaces in Nairobi, and provides a starting point to develop an evidence-based strategy and policy for the protection, revitalization, creation, management and enjoyment of public spaces, and restoration of the city image as the ‘Green City in the Sun’. It covers distribution, types and typologies, and access and inclusivity at the city scale. It also shines light on activities and uses, landscape furniture and amenities, safety, diversity, and custodianship and management at the site scale.

In 2018,an estimated 27 percent (13 million) of Kenya’s population lived in cities and towns, of varied sizes, across the country. Towards the year 2050, this share will approach 50 percent of the total country population, which will be an equivalent of 44 million people. Kenya is thus undergoing an urban transition, which will induce structural transformations in social, economic and spatial development aspects. To effectively and efficiently manage this transition, the country must develop the requisite urban planning and management capacities, both at the national and county levels. At the county level, there are various interventions required to attain a fit-for-purpose planning system, which is responsive to local needs and aligns such needs to the national vision for a desirable urban future. However, to formulate the appropriate interventions required [to achieve the desired planning system], it is important to understand the issues confronting the current planning system, as a critical point of departure.