This report identifies future policy pathways for urban decision makers and stakeholders to reimagine the built and natural environments in Asian and Pacific cities. The solutions address four major development challenges: natural resource management, climate change, disaster risk, and inequalities.
A sustainable future for cities occurs when urban and territorial planning lays a foundation, resilience guards against future risk, smart cities deploy the best technology for the job, and financing tools help pay for it all. Getting these essentials right is vital in order to adapt to the demands of tomorrow and to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda.
As cities are growing in terms of population and physical size, their contributions to national GDP are also increasing due to increased economic activities in urban areas.
Regardless of average income, cities and towns have been acting as the engines of economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region, which now hosts half of the world’s mega-cities.
The "Guidelines for developing eco-efficient and socially inclusive infrastructure" provide practical tools for city planners and decision makers to reform urban planning and infrastructure design according to the principles of eco-efficiency and social inclusiveness.
Habitat III — the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development — will take place in October in a new global context.