Summary

The Urban Agenda for the EU (UAEU) represents the first of the EU’s three voluntary commitments to implement the United Nations universal New Urban Agenda (NUA). The Pact of Amsterdam (2016), which launched the UAEU, states that the UAEU is meant to ‘contribute to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the global NUA, as part of the Habitat III process’. In this context, the European Commission launched a review of the UAEU contributions to the NUA.

It is with these considerations in mind that a review was produced to thoroughly analyse these contributions, by exploring the UAEU characteristics, the work of its partnership sand its implementation in the period between 2016 and mid-2021. It also presents the links with the EU Cohesion Policy (2014–2020) and outlines contributions to UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’. Some of the main findings highlight that the UAEU and the NUA are strongly linked to each other, as they share key principles of urban governance (multi-level governance, integrated approach, partnership approach and co-creation, place-based approach). The UAEU and NUA also tackle similar urban challenges as the Priority Themes addressed by UAEU Partnerships (such as urban poverty, climate adaptation, or urban mobility) can also be found in the NUA.

Finally, the final report provides main conclusions from the analysis conducted, as well as concrete recommendations for a possible continuation of this review, and for establishing a review framework of the next phase of the UAEU.