Cities are increasingly becoming grounds where global divergence between haves and have nots manifests, including socioeconomic gaps, spatial fragmentation, climate-driven inequalities and the digital divide.
Humanity’s present and future are urban. Now is the time to think, plan and act urban. Urbanization—how cities develop and grow—is now central to determining people’s quality of life. Creating the conditions for environmentally sustainable, economically prosperous, and socially equitable and just cities and human settlements is of paramount importance for present and future generations.
SDG 11 is critical to achieving the 2030 Agenda’s broader vision of global development. Cities and human settlements are the locus of opportunity to accelerate progress on the 5 Ps of the SDGs: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships. Delivering on each of these areas will increasingly be determined by how well we plan and manage our cities and human settlements, the effectiveness of local action, and responses to emerging challenges and opportunities.
A critical predictor of the ability to pursue a healthy, productive and peaceful life is directly tied to where someone lives and what that place offers. Well-planned, -managed and -governed cities and human settlements with access to sufficient resources are a potent positive force for sustainable development, but inadequate or poor planning, management, governance and investment can easily degrade quality of life.
Cities need to adequately monitor and prepare for forecasted shifts in their demographic composition. As the global population ages, urban planning and service delivery must adapt to meet the needs of older persons. At the other end of the demographic spectrum, cities host a large share of the youth population, especially in developing countries, necessitating deliberate investments corresponding to their needs.
By 2030, we will not meet most/all SDG 11 targets without major shifts in urban policy and investments. Halfway into the implementation phase, the world is far from achieving the targets set out in SDG 11. Some progress has been made toward SDG 11 targets related to transport and national urban policies, yet vast gaps remain in the other areas such as slum proliferation, inadequate public space and insufficient waste management. Substantial regional variations prevail, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia lagging on most targets.
Cities are increasingly becoming grounds where global divergence between haves and have nots manifests, including socioeconomic gaps, spatial fragmentation, climate-driven inequalities and the digital divide. The lack of progress towards attaining SDG 11 is bound to exacerbate these global divides. Therefore, measuring progress on SDG 11 and identifying remedies for action is more important than ever to address global divergence.
The response capacity of local and regional governments to crises and threats shapes impacts globally. The disruptive nature of the COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder that urban areas need to be prepared for dynamic and unpredictable futures. Likewise, the climate and biodiversity emergencies, violence and armed conflicts, inflationary pressures, displacement and other natural and human[1]caused disasters manifest most acutely in cities and force local governments to the forefront of the response. Progress toward the SDGs is tied to the ability of countries and cities to localize the goals. Some of the most critical efforts and investments to implement the commitments made in the SDGs occur at the local level. Local and regional governments are the closest to the people by delivering public services, infrastructure and opportunities to their constituents. As such, the shared vision of leaving no place and no one behind requires interventions at the local scale.
The New Urban Agenda is a necessary accelerator for the SDGs. It defines ways in which better planning, design, management, governance and finance will allow cities to enable the realization of the 2030 Agenda. It addresses a wide range of actions and avenues that are necessary for making cities spatially effective for sustainable development and details strategic actions necessary for ensuring that cities and human settlements support and facilitate the implementation of the SDGs.
Our efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda are off track and much is at stake if we fail. The consequences of not achieving SDG 11, in particular are immense, directly impacting billions of people’s daily lives. When urban challenges are left unaddressed, they escalate into global threats that spill over across national borders. To prevent the disastrous consequences ahead of calls for changing the way cities and human settlements are planned, managed and governed. To avoid a collective failure and rescue Agenda 2030, actions need to be taken now and at scale, since the magnitude of the challenges faced requires a comparable level of action.
Rescuing SDG 11 for a Resilient Urban Planet, 2023, (Executive Summary)
Rescuing SDG 11 for a Resilient Urban Planet, 2023 (full report)
