New Urban Agenda reporting = a contribution to the future of the sustainable urbanization
The New Urban Agenda is the world’s roadmap for sustainable urbanism. It was adopted in 2016 during the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, and endorsed by the UN General Assembly two months later during its 71st session (Resolution RES/71/256). The agenda serves as the implementation framework for the urban components of the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 11 on sustainable cities and communities.
In the final section of the agenda on “follow-up and review”, the UN Secretary-General is requested in paragraph 166 “…to report on the progress of the implementation of the New Urban Agenda every four years” with “… voluntary inputs from countries and relevant regional and international organizations.” In line with this request, the Secretary-General has, since 2016, produced two quadrennial reports on the progress in implementing the agenda – in 2018 and 2022 – and will produce his next report in 2026 as a special mid-term review of the agenda.
UN Member States are also requested in the agenda to play a significant role in supporting the Secretary-General in his quadrennial reporting. Specifically, the agenda requests that Member States “…carry out a periodic follow up and review of the New Urban Agenda, ensuring coherence at the national, regional, and global levels, in order to track progress, assess impact, and ensure the Agenda’s effective and timely implementation” (paragraph 161) while also “encouraging] voluntary, country-led, open, inclusive, multilevel, participatory and transparent follow-up and review” of the agenda (paragraph 162).
The guidelines contained in this document are meant to guide Member States in this role by advising them on their preparation of New Urban Agenda National Progress Reports (NUA NPRs) that serve as critical inputs to the Secretary-General’s quadrennial reports. This year, in 2024, the guidelines have been updated to reflect important developments over the past few years in our understanding of the agenda’s implementation. These include the publication of the influential New Urban Agenda Illustrated Handbook in 2020, the endorsement of UN-Habitat’s Global Urban Monitoring Framework (UMF) by the UN Statistical Commission in 2022, and the key finding from the 2022 Secretary-General’s report that the world is far behind in achieving the principles of the agenda – all of which have explicitly contributed to the contents of these guidelines.
The guidelines have similarly been updated to include new reporting modalities and processes that aim to lower the reporting burden for Member States in response to feedback from Member States of an excessive reporting burden.
The new guidelines have been organized into two parts. Part 1 details the reporting framework, beginning with an overview of new reporting modalities available to Member States. This part then continues with important principles and procedures to consider when preparing National Progress Reports and concludes with a description of the various synergies between reporting on the New Urban Agenda and other reporting and monitoring processes. Part 2 then provides an outline for a New Urban Agenda National Progress Report, including specific instructions about what to write and which data indicators to include for each section of the report.
Click here to view the revised guidelines