The Urban Best Practices is an online repository of inspiring breakthroughs on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. It contains practices which have been vetted and made available by different international award schemes. It has a comprehensive search functionality and serves as a useful reference tool for knowledge, success stories and lessons learnt that can be replicated and scaled up. Should you wish to add your Best Practices here, please contact us.
Urban Best Practices
Urban Innovation and the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda
This report showcases how local governments are demonstrating how impactful urban innovation can be and how important it is to engage cities as partners in efforts to implement the New Urban Agenda. This report is meant to be read alongside the 2022 Quadrennial Report. It highlights shortlisted and award-winning finalists from the last two cycles of the Guangzhou Award (2018, 2020) that are also part of the Best Practice Database on the Urban Agenda Platform. These initiatives have been selected to illustrate how cities and regions are attending to the three transformative commitments of the NUA, and how a focus on changes in governance, planning and financing practices take ideas and turn them into action and transformative change. This report also harvests cases from every region of the world, demonstrating how no one region or country has a monopoly on innovation.
Newly Added
Shanghai Manual
A collection of best practices to inspire innovative action by cities and local governments
Established in 2011 following the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the Shanghai Manual is a practical tool designed to support mayors and urban practitioners in advancing sustainable urban development. It integrates the principles of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda, with a focus on key priorities such as achieving inclusive, innovative and creative cities, as well as low-carbon, resilient and liveable urban environments.
Through exemplary urban best practices from around the world, the Shanghai Manual offers concrete, actionable solutions to contemporary urbanization challenges. Each edition explores core dimensions of society, economy, environment, culture and governance, framed around an annual specialized theme aligned with World Cities Day.
To access previous editions of the Shanghai Manual, please click here.
