Fragile states typically cannot serve their citizens adequately, and often have weak or authoritarian governments. But local governments and municipalities must still provide services to their residents, and they need revenue to do so. One way to raise revenue is by raising their own revenue through taxes on land and property. This book examines the experiences of UN-Habitat and its partners in setting up or strengthening land-taxation systems in four fragile states: Somalia, Afghanistan,…

The third edition of the Compendium of Inspiring Practices on Urban-Rural Linkages showcases 17 case studies from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. These cases highlight the application of the Urban-Rural Linkages Guiding Principles and Framework for Action (URL-GP) and emphasize the importance of an integrated territorial approach.

The cases cover a range of dimensions, including design, spatial planning, project implementation, strategy,…

This study identifies formal and nonformal land professionals’ categories, their current functions and the additional roles that they would need to take up to improve land governance and establish functioning and fit-for-purpose land administration systems in the Arab region. The study highlights the common challenges faced by land professionals and takes stock of their current capacities, the additional capacities they would need, and the interventions that would enable them to adequately play…

The UN-Habitat Regional Office for the Arab States, located in Cairo, supports 18 countries in the region to promote socially and environmentally sustainable cities. In a rapidly urbanising region, UN-Habitat envisions well-planned and well-governed cities through focusing on adequate housing, urban recovery, access to basic services, public spaces, policy and governance, housing, land and property rights, localisation of the Sustainable Development Goals and climate action.

Building resilience must be at the core of planning and designing our cities. Aligned with the Philippine New Urban Agenda vision “Better, Greener, Smarter Cities in an Inclusive Philippines”, this guide provides a platform to equip users with concepts and technical information on urban planning and design for climate resilience. It aims to deliver guidance for national government agencies, local government units, and other stakeholders in pursuing resilient and sustainable development. This…

This paper was initially the input from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Policy, Governance and Legislation Section to The State of Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture, prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) office for the Near East and North Africa (NENA).

This background paper was meant to contribute to the chapter on “Territorial governance and the urban-rural interface” prepared by FAO. However,…

MY Neighbourhood’ provides an extensive ‘check list’ of urban design principles that are applicable in diverse cultural and geographical contexts at the neighbourhood scale. This checklist ensures an integrated approach to neighbourhood design by integrating principles across five key city objectives, across sectors (transport, housing, public space, utilities etc), and across design dimensions (neighbourhood, street, open public space, and building unit).

In the Arab region, as in other parts of the world, there is a growing consensus that securing land tenure for women and men is an essential precondition to achieving socioeconomic and human development. However, the empirical evidence needed to understand the relationship between gender, land tenure, and inequalities is lacking.

The Arab Land Initiative, with the support of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, contributed to address this gap…

This document provides a City-Wide Strategy for Baidoa that defines a clear direction and provides a holistic vision of sustainable urban growth for the upcoming years. Furthermore, the City Extension Plan for Baidoa North defines a clear spatial development framework for the most critical

area of the city, and proposes demonstration projects and fast-track infrastructure projects to prioritize the urgent interventions within Baidoa.




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