New SDG urban project assessment tool for Nigeria, others

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) project assessment tool.

This is an interactive guide that integrates a comprehensive set of sustainability principles to help align urban projects with the SDGs and the New urban agenda.

It is designed to improve the effectiveness, inclusiveness and sustainability of projects by facilitating dialogues between public and private sector partners. The SDG tool can be tailored to individual projects, responding to the priorities and challenges of different cities.

UN-Habitat is rolling it out across the 19 cities of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth’s Global Future Cities Prosperity Fund Programme. Developed for the 30 diverse urban projects of the Programme, the SDG Tool covers three thematic pillars; Urban Planning, Transport and Resilience.

Essentially, over the past few months, UN-Habitat and its partners, have conducted workshops with city authorities to tailor the SDG Tool for use in Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.

In Nigeria, the SDG Tool sheds light on the importance of integrating transport modes and affordable housing when planning Transit-oriented Developments (TODs).

In Lagos, stakeholders pinpointed community engagement as imperative for successful Urban Renewal Guidelines; and in Istanbul, the tool sparked discussions on long-term financial strategies.

Following the tailoring of the SDG Tool for the 19 cities of the Global Future Cities Programme, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office alongside UN-Habitat and other public and private sector partners will use it to assess and positively influence how the 30 urban projects of the Programme are developing.

The launch event at the World Urban Forum and the workshops in the 19 cities revealed that many of them had developed a keen interest in making the SDG Tool available to more projects and cities.

UN-Habitat is therefore working on expanding the applicability of the SDG Tool and on refining it based on lessons learned from the Global Future Cities Programme.

UN-Habitat is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1978 as an outcome of the First UN Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976.