According to most statistics, Somalia is one of the few countries whose population still resides predominately in rural area, although it is experiencing rapid urbanization, and projected to become predominately urban by 2050.

This manual is part of a UN-Habitat strategy for building up capacity of local and state government in Somalia and laying the foundation for the establishment of functional urban development departments able to cope with the tremendous urban development challenges of the country. Mapping is only one of the technical skills at the base of urban planning.

The National Guidelines on Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) takes a fresh, forward-looking approach for a relatively new field of action by municipalities and their partners in Kosovo. Considering existing guidance from the European Union and our real experiences from implementing SUMPs in the Municipality of Mitrovica South and the Municipality of Mitrovica North, the aim of this publication is to provide guidance on developing sustainable urban transportation systems.

The Handbook for “Building Participatory Accountability Systems for City Policies” offers guidance on how to develop urban projects and interventions through a participatory and consultative approach with city stakeholders, while allowing for flexibility to tailor interventions to the specific needs of individual cities and regions.

In 2020-2021, UN-Habitat was funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to develop the Qoloji Spatial Profile for the largest internally displaced people settlement in Ethiopia. This study focuses on establishing the existing conditions, identifying challenges and opportunities, developing the scenarios, and outlining recommendations for a durable settlement in Qoloji.

Since 2020, UN-Habitat has been funded by the EUTF Programme entitled ‘Enhancing self-reliance for refugees and host communities in Kenya’. The spatial profiles produced during the first phase of the project have focused on establishing the existing conditions of the refugee hosting areas, identifying challenges and opportunities for inclusive development, and outline recommendations for improvement of the settlements.

Since 2020, UN-Habitat has been funded by the EUTF Programme entitled ‘Enhancing self-reliance for refugees and host communities in Kenya’. The spatial profiles produced during the first phase of the project has focused on establishing the existing conditions of the refugee hosting areas, identifying challenges and opportunities for inclusive development, and outline recommendations for improvement of the settlements.

The overarching goal of the Lebanon 2021–2023 Habitat Country Programme Document (HCPD) is to contribute to improving the living conditions of children, youth, women and men in Lebanon – regardless of their nationality – by creating liveable urban areas that are effectively planned and managed, environmentally sound, financially viable and competitive, and socially cohesive through good and inclusive governance and equitable distribution of resources.

The city-wide public space assessments in Palestine are prepared to provide verifiable data on women’s experiences in public spaces. The assessments are conducted in five (5) urban areas, namely: Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Bethlehem cluster in the West Bank and Khan Younis in Gaza Strip. The assessments have utilized UN-Habitat’s city wide public space assessment toolkit and adopted an active participatory approach with high engagement of the targeted municipalities.