Nairobi, Kenya 29 November 2014- The opening of a state-of-the-art medical clinic in Soweto East, one of Kibera's 13 villages marked another milestone for Kibera's slum-upgrading effort.

Cairo 1 December 2014 - As part of a series of regional consultations lining up to the 3rd United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (HABITAT III), the UN-Habitat Regional Office for Arab States (ROAS) facilitated a session with youth – mostly students from the Arab region from various backgrounds – on the challenges of integrated, inclusive and sustainable urbanization in the region.

Naivasha, Kenya, 27 November 2014 - As the African youth population grows steadily and with no employment to match the growth, prudent solid waste management offers a huge opportunity to address the ticking unemployment bomb, a workshop heard on Wednesday.

Participants at the workshop in Naivasha town, to the west of Nairobi were told that rapid urbanisation in Africa was bringing with it the issue of growing solid waste but many countries on the continent did not know what to do with it, leading to pollution with the attendant negative consequences.

Jakarta, 26 November 2014—The government of Indonesia this week hosted the Asia Pacific Expert Group Meeting for Habitat III.

Held under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, the meeting which took place in Jakarta and Bogor reconfirmed Indonesia commitment in taking the regional role in Asia Pacific in the preparations of Habitat III and the promotion of inclusive and sustainable urban development.

Dire Dawa 25 November 2014—The government of Ethiopia held its sixth edition of the National Urban Forum from 15th to 22nd November 2014 at Dire Dawa city under the motto “our cities being centres for enterprise development, will ensure the renaissance of Ethiopia”. The event was attended by high ranking government’s high level officials including the President of the Federal Republic, Dr. Mulatu Teshome , the Deputy prime Minister, cabinet ministers, regional officials and mayors.

Nay Pyi Taw, 25 November 2014 - The president of Myanmar Mr. U Thein Sein recently emphasized urban development and housing as his government’s priority development agenda.

Gangwon 24 November 2014 - UN-Habitat in partnership with the International Urban Training Center (IUTC), organized a training course last month on ‘Land Policy Instruments: Land Readjustment & Land-based Financing’ in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea.

The purpose of the course was to increase awareness of the range of tools available for using land as a base for generating revenue to help fund urban growth and development.

HA NOI, 21 November 2014— The Ministry of Construction and a UN agency have taken the first steps to establishing a City Prosperity Index for Viet Nam.This was announced at a workshop held yesterday in Ha Noi, which was told that more than 50 per cent of the world's population lives in cities.

Nairobi, 20 November 2014: The importance of empowering local authorities to enable them to implement concrete changes to urban development has been highlighted at a recent meeting of more than 1,000 representatives of national, state and local government in the Gujarat city of Gandhinagar.

Manila, 19 November 2014-- Collaborative efforts between local government units, international and national organizations, and UN agencies held sway on November 8 to commemorate the first anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda in the Philippines). UN-Habitat participated in the commemorative events in the cities of Ormoc, Roxas, and Tacloban and the municipalities of Estancia and Guiuan.