Environmental reviews, often in the form of environmental impact or strategic environmental assessments, play a fundamental role in the process of urban development. They are institutionalized decision-making arrangements in domestic legislation to address the environmental impacts and risks associated with a project. Strengthened environmental and social reviews in urban development processes and their integration into broader decision making frameworks will support the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and several of the Sustainable Development Goals by approving projects which are ecologically sensitive, socially-acceptable, and economically cost-effective.
Six case studies in this book, from Uganda, South Africa, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and the USA, present empirical evidence on the relationship between environmental and development decision-making in the urban context. The cases identify key implementation issues and options to address them efficiently at country and city levels. Building upon this, the work also outlines capacity building needs and coordination approaches that are appropriate to resource poor contexts.

Ensuring that planning laws fulfill their functions as effectively as possible means that they are frequently under scrutiny as contexts and needs change. The Planning Law Assessment Framework, developed by the Urban Legislation Unit of UN-Habitat, is a quick self-assessment tool that aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an urban planning legal system. It looks at the laws, regulations and decrees that are applicable in a city, and enacted at different levels.

The Planning Law Assessment Framework uses two sets of indicators to assess urban planning laws. Firstly, the Planning Law Assessment Framework uses indicators of a law’s functional effectiveness. The second set of indicators is technical in nature, related to the core areas of planning, which together provide an overview of urban planning issues relevant for most countries, namely in the categories of: land and urban planning, public space, plots and blocks, development rights, building codes; and land-based financing.

Download Planning Law Assessment Framework in Excel

Al día de hoy, más de 530 ciudades han sido calculadas y analizadas en el nivel básico de CPI. El presente informe se enmarca en este esfuerzo global y presenta los resultados del cálculo del CPI en su versión básica para el municipio de Mérida.

The Report on the Street Connectivity of the Saudi Cities is based on 17 cities that are part of the Future Saudi Arabia Cities Programme, aiming to contribute to the achievement of sustainable urbanization in the Kingdom.

This guide provides a framework for undertaking the feasibility phase of a National Urban Policy (NUP) and draws largely on UN-Habitat’s experience in engaging with countries that have requested support for developing and implementing a NUP.

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) has provided strong rationale for countries to embark on developing and implementing inclusive and participatory National Urban Policies (NUP) and urban frameworks. This Guide provides a framework for undertaking the formulation of a NUP. It provides practical steps and a coordinated process to formulate an urban policy that adheres to five key principles: participation, inclusion, affordability, sustainability and implementability.

This report is based on a dialogue process through 2014,  whose  purpose  was  to  respond  to  the  following  questions:  how  will  the  Post-2015  Devel-opment Agenda be implemented at the local level?; what  local  governance  processes, tools, institutions, mechanisms, and other means of implementa-tion  are  needed  to  achieve  the  future  sustainable  development goals (SDGs)?; and how can the voices of local stakeholders be amplified and their inclusionin  intergovernmental  processes  be  supported?  Localization  is  an  important  element  of  effective  multi-level  governance,  and  provides  the  means  to  make  the  Post-2015  global  discussions  relevant  to  local populations in a framework of greater ownership

Venice City Solutions 2030 – This document  gathers  the  conclusions  and  recommendations  by  participants  to  the “Venice City  Solutions  2030 –Financing  the  SDGs”  that  took  place  in  Venice,  Italy  on  16th and  17thNovember 2018.

The Dolow Urban Profile is part of a series of working paper summarizing major aspects of an urban analysis from the spatial prospective for elaborating on solutions for long term urban development and current displacement crisis in Somalia.

The Sustainable Cities Dialogue was co-organized by UN-Habitat and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) within the framework of the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA) and the Global Taskforce of local and regional governments. It took place in Strasbourg, France on May 24 and 25th 2018, in the European Parliament, at the invitation of Roland Ries, Mayor of Strasbourg, Co-President of UCLG and Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat. It was organized in conjunction with UCLG Executive Bureau and gathered over 350 participants from more than 25 countries, including 70 local elected officials, Ministers, more than 40 national government officials and a range of international partners.