Nairobi 4 March 2014 - More than 200 participants from 40 African countries took part in three consultation workshops organized by the African Development Bank (AfDB) in collaboration with UN-Habitat to discuss the challenges and opportunities to improve access to affordable housing in Africa.

Manila, 2 March 2015 - An Interactive Conference on “Public Space and the New Urban Agenda” took place in Pasay City, Manila, jointly organized by UN-Habitat, League of Cities of the Philippines and Future of Places in cooperation with Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and United Cities and Local Government Asia-Pacific (UCLG ASPAC).

Nairobi, 26 February 2015- UN-Habitat on Thursday launched call for applications for the Urban Youth Fund.

Bangkok 24 February 2015 - The first Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific 2015 was organized on 11-13 February 2015 in Bangkok, bringing together over 300 participants from the region, mainly mayors and local authorities. It was a lead up to the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held in Senda, Japan in March.

Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 23/02/2015 - The Urban Prosperity Index initiative will assess 130 cities in Mexico. The work will help cities to achieve a thriving urban future in economic, social, political and environmental terms. The announcement was made by the Representative of UN-Habitat in Mexico, Erik Vittrup, at an event at the Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City late February.

Yangon, Myanmar, 20 February, 2015 - A seismic hazard assessment for Yangon City has been launched by the Yangon Regional Government, the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) and UN-Habitat in collaboration with the Relief and Resettlement Department (RRD), the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement (MSWRR) at the Yangon City Hall.

Jerusalem, 20 February 2015 - An integrated approach to planning, across the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), is urgently needed to support the sustainable development of Palestine, an international group of planning experts have said. The experts spent a week looking at the planning of Palestinian communities in the so called Area C, the rural part comprising 60% of the West Bank where Israel still controls day to day decisions about planning and development.

Colombo 19 February 2015 - The Government of India in June 2010 announced that it would construct 50,000 houses as part of its post-conflict rehabilitation efforts. The Project is being implemented as full grant assistance amounting to USD 250 million from the Government of India, making it one of the largest grant assistance projects ever undertaken by the Government of India, overseas.

São Paulo, Brazil, 11/02/2015 - Members of the Red de Áreas Metropolitanas de las Américas (RAMA, Metropolitan Areas of the Americas Network) held their first technical group meeting in São Paulo, Brazil. The major objectives of the meeting were to strengthen land use and planning principles at regional and metropolitan level, as well as addressing financing issues.

Following the success of the first season, which to date has gathered over 25,400 views and is one of the most shared outreach initiatives of UN-Habitat, the second season of the ‘Global Urban Lectures’ continues with 8 new top speakers working with UN-Habitat in the urban arena.