Inclusion of persons with disabilities and elderly in the recovery and response to Covid can no longer be an afterthought. A comprehensive strategy document to make the emergency response and recovery inclusive has been prepared by BASIIC program under NIUA. 

COVID-19 is not over yet, but the cities are slowly opening up. However, when most of the world was under a massive lockdown, many hidden layers surfaced - are our cities truly inclusive even when not fighting a pandemic? Do our cities consider the diversity in population while building their...

The "International Day of Person with Disability" is an annual observance on the 3rd of December, proclaimed in 1992, by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3. The Day's observance aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights,...

The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is an annual assessment of 103 countries’ economic performance that measures how countries perform on eleven dimensions of economic progress in addition to GDP. It has 3 pillars; growth and development; inclusion and; intergenerational equity – sustainable...

WEDO’s Eleanor Blomstrom, collaborated with The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) to write Access and Gender, the first paper in the ACCESS FOR ALL SERIES:...

Reforms spurred by accession to the European Union (EU) boosted productivity and integrated Romania into the EU economic space. Gross domestic product per capita rose from 30 percent of the EU average in 1995 to 59 percent in 2016. Today, over 70 percent of the country’s exports go to the EU,...

Is there a superstar effect? McKinsey Global Institute research uncovers the dynamics of superstar firms, sectors, and cities in the global economy.

There is much discussion about “superstar” firms and “superstar effects” in reaction to the rapid growth of very large...

Vizag Smart City, with an aim to enhance social infrastructure for the ABD area and encourage inclusive development, has pioneered the initiative of creating a special park for “kids with special needs” under Smart City project. The adjoining presentation provides key highlights of its...

Transit-oriented development (TOD)—a planning strategy focused on building compact, mixed-use neighborhoods with access to high-quality public transport and mobility options—is key to sustainable urbanization. However, TOD can be exclusive in its design and implementation, leading to the...

The document briefly highlights the accessibility components for Built & ICT-based interventions for Making Disabled Friendly Smart Cities. 

India is home to approximately 7-10% people living with disabilities and an equal number rapidly acquiring disability on account of medical...

Plan India In an attempt to develop collective perspectives and generate a normative consensus on the status of girls and women in India, has broken new ground and pioneered a gender vulnerability assessment tool designed to be used by policymakers, development practitioners, academicians,...

This report describes the process and results of a learning exchange event held in Johannesburg, South Africa in November 2015, hosted by UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and Cities Alliance. It brought together 12 youth -focused projects – six from each organisation – to...

Cities are growing differently today than before. As much as 70 percent of people in emerging cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America is under-served. Furthermore, cities face challenges in four areas:

• Highest rates of urbanization are in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast...

This century will see a substantial majority of the world’s population living in urban centres. It is now estimated that 54.5% of people live in urban areas. The Habitat III conference was the first Habitat conference to take place a t a point i n history wher e majority of the world's...

The analysis of urban development of the past twenty years presented in this maiden edition of the World Cities Report shows, with compelling evidence, that there are new forms of collaboration and cooperation, planning, governance, finance and learning that can sustain positive change. The...

In Ahmedabad, the larhest city of Gujarat state, the research focuses on two poor localities: Bombay Hotel, an informal commercial siubdivision located on the city's southern periphery and inhabited by Muslims, and the public housing sites at Vatwa on the city's south-eastern periphery used for...

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development of Chile (MINVU) began The Neighbourhood Recovery Program ¨I love my Neighbourhood¨ in 2006 to develop a comprehensive upgrading strategy for deteriorated urban areas through a participative process with the community and the municipality. The...

This Sustainable Urbanization Strategy outlines how UNDP is responding to rapid urbanization in developing countries and its consequences for sustainable development. It outlines how UNDP will support countries and cities, building upon its past and current work on urbanization. The strategy...

UN-Habitat founded its in-house Urban Planning and Design Lab in Nairobi in order to provide assistance to local, regional and national authorities with urban planning and design. The Lab has been a response to a growing demand from cities to UN-Habitat not only to provide tools for their...

UNESCO and CCUNESCO also contribute to the implementation of Agenda 2030’s cross-cutting priorities of gender equality, human rights and poverty eradication as prerequisites for sustainable development. UNESCO is the lead agency for the implementation of SDG #4: Quality Education (Education 2030...

The term “inclusive cities” is increasingly being used as a “catch-all” phrase to signify intent but with little precision in its use. In this note we use “inclusive cities” to mean cities in which we see a commitment to an inclusive politics with the establishment of institutionalized...

This paper examines the situation in Afghan cities for:

• women and girls
• returnees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
• youth
• ethnic minorities

Common to all is their heightened socio-economic marginalisation and vulnerability, exclusion...

The India Smart Cities Challenge is a competition for municipal leaders and their partners to promote economic opportunity in India, improve governance, and produce better results for urban residents.

In this webinar, participating cities hear from Pablo Vaggione, world-renowned urbanist...

This approach paper is prepared as part of the Inclusive Cities Programmatic Approach, a multi-year initiative launched by the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice (GSURR) in October 2013. In line with the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared...

Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans is the result of a four-year effort by the American Planning Association (APA) to define the role of comprehensive plans in addressing the sustainability of human settlements. The comprehensive plan, also called the general plan or...

Afghanistan’s future is urban. The population of Afghan cities is expected to double within the next 15 years and by 2060, one in every two Afghans will be living in cities. In order to manage such a transition and harness it for economic and social development accurate data and information is...

Poverty in India has long been rurally imagined. Programmes, policies, missions and resources have followed suit. There are no urban equivalents, for example, of several national missions in work, health, or electricity, among others. This has, in the past two decades, begun to change as the...

A common misconception is that tourism policy primarily focuses on promotion and marketing campaigns. While these activities are essential, another important but sometimes overlooked aspect is how creative city planning can support tourism promotion, and consequently, how the needs and goals of...

Ten Strategies for Keeping Children Safe on the Road is a report from the World Health Organization highlighting ten key recommendations for policies to reduce child road traffic injury. FIA Foundation funding enabled production of the report.

Minister of State launched the Human Resource and Skill Requirement reports across 24 sectors in India which will serve as the baseline for all skill development initiatives being planned across the country. The idea behind the Skill Gap Studies is to understand which sectors are likely to face...

This paper argues that the recent policy rhetoric towards cities in India has been shaped by their increasing economic importance in national output generation, as well as a series of prominent global reports on the role of cities in driving growth. Policymakers have responded to this, designing...

How do questions of urban poverty and inequality, fit into these ‘big plans’? What has happened to urban poverty and inequality since economic reforms in 1991 continues to be debated. Officially, head count ratios of people living below the poverty line have declined in both rural and urban...

This publication is part of the activities of the Global Network for Sustainable Housing (GNSH) managed by the UN-Habitat Housing Unit. The handbook presents practical solutions to outgrow accessibility barriers for persons with disabilities and older persons in the contexts of slum upgrading,...

Urbanisation has created gender and class-differentiated impacts. UN-Habitat seeks to support city, regional and national authorities to implement improved urban planning policies and strategies that will promote inclusive and equitable economic development; enhance municipal finances; and...

The operational guidelines for Social Mobilisation and Institution Development (SM&ID) component of NULM are annexed herewith, which will be followed by all the implementing agencies. These guidelines have also been uploaded on the website of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty...

This component will focus on financial assistance to individuals/groups of urban poor for setting up gainful self-employment ventures/ micro-enterprises, suited to their skills, training, aptitude and local conditions. The component will also support Self Help Groups (SHGs) of urban poor to...

As a result of growing knowledge about the importance and efficiency of the informal sector in India, several policies and rules have been issued for the inclusion of informal sector into waste management programs. These policies recognise the crucial role of the informal sector in solid waste...

A project taken up under NULM includes pioneering approaches, innovations to strategies under NULM, or catalysing efforts in geographical areas where these have not been undertaken before. These projects may also include activities not possible to address through the normal course of NULM...

Street vendors constitute an important segment at the bottom of the pyramid of the informal economy in cities. Street vending provides a source of self-employment, and acts as a measure of urban poverty alleviation. Street vending also has a prominent place in the urban supply chain, and...

Gender refers to cultural interpretation and prescription of roles, identities and values assigned to women, men, girls, and boys. Gender is highly variable across cultures, socially constructed and subject to changes over time. Gender further defines the unequal conditions between women and men...

This issue guide focuses attention on urban basic services in order to illuminate the effects of gender on equality of access and inclusion in the areas of urban energy, urban transport and water and sanitation. This issue guide further seeks to broadly outline the where and how of gender...

Access to adequate housing is a fundamental human right and is enshrined in numerous international agreements and conventions. Yet millions of women and men continue to live in towns and cities without security of tenure and with inadequate housing and related services. This guide’s objectives...

This issue guide focuses attention on urban basic services in order to illuminate the effects of gender on equality of access and inclusion in the areas of urban energy, urban transport and water and sanitation. This issue guide further seeks to broadly outline the where and how of gender...

Addressing the problem of mismatch between suppliers of housing and those needing them and bringing down the housing shortage, if not completely eliminate it, would be the major challenge. It is only when the nature and magnitude of the shortages are known in various income and rental categories...

The aim of this report is to raise awareness about the way the planning of urban settlements affects gender equality, and women’s empowerment. A secondary aim is to ensure that urban planners and those involved with planning understand that urban planning has a role to play in assisting women to...

Urban planning is part of the larger context of urban governance and management. The local government must recognize the systemic impacts of discrimination. The examining of urban governance with gender and socio-economic dynamics of the city in mind is a critical starting point in the assurance...

While many cities are hubs of economic growth, employment, and cultural life, urbanization has resulted in pronounced socioeconomic inequalities, exclusion, and segregation. The objective of this gender issue guide on urban planning and design is to:

• Increase understanding of gender...

The Cities Alliance has long supported strategic planning activities to improve the efficiency and impact of urban development in support of city-based, consensus-building processes. These processes enable cities, local authorities and stakeholders to define a common vision for their city and...

Informal housing in fact presents complex land tenure system. This research categorizes different levels of tenure security and links them with social protection.

Urban poverty being multi-dimensional, various vulnerabilities faced by the poor in cities and towns: occupational, residential and social need to be addressed simultaneously in a comprehensive and integrated manner with a targeted focus on the vulnerable groups so that a definitive impact can...

This guide is a broad introduction to the process of creating safe cities for women and girls. It introduces the key concepts of safe cities work and offers practical tools for how to begin building a safer, more inclusive city. The information in this guide combines knowledge from scholarly...

Towns and cities are increasingly important places for tackling gender inequalities. This book highlights some of the key gender issues we face in the context of rapid urbanisation in the developing world. It also provides an overview of UN-HABITAT’s work in promoting gender equality in all its...