The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Disability-inclusive business opens a new horizon to accelerate the effective implementation of disability-inclusive development. Disability-inclusive development ensures the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in all their diversity and the promotion and practice of mainstreaming their rights into all areas of development. Business has a pivotal role to play in …
This policy brief evaluates the current state of the knowledge of and plans to manage urban heat in South Asia. First, the brief examines heat in South Asian cities through the different layers of the urban environment: buildings, communities, and cities. Next, it adds the human element and explores different …
This technical note discusses methods for using these data in combination with locally meaningful jurisdictional boundaries to calculate local measurements of indicators on several themes—including access to urban amenities, air quality, biodiversity, flooding, climate change mitigation, heat, and land protection and restoration—relevant to urban decision-makers, researchers, and other stakeholders.
This volume aims to widen the discussion about the diversity of human-nature relationships and valuation methods and to stimulate new perspective that are needed to build a more sustainable future, especially in face of ongoing socio-environmental changes. Conceptual and empirical approaches, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies have been used …
This new report by UNEP and UN-Habitat has identified urbanization as one of five main drivers of environmental change. It has looked at the impact on cities and city residents of related challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. It has also presented the types of solutions that …
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can help cities address urgent and fundamental environmental challenges by bringing ecosystems services back into cities and rebalancing cities’ relationships with their surrounding areas. By accelerating the implementation of NbS, decision-makers can help cities adapt to effects of climate change, reduce urban heat island effects and cooling …
Worldwide demand for freshwater resources is continuously increasing to satisfy the need for increasing population and growing economies. Further, both biophysical and social patterns and processes are interacting in ways that increase pressure on water and lead to water scarcity. About one-third of the world’s river basins attend their maximum …
Across Asia, cities are contending with a wide range of food-related issues but most lack a dedicated or coherent set of food policies. For most cities in Asia, food has been a policy and governance blind spot, while national food policy has distinctly lacked an urban perspective. Arguing that food …
The rankings under Ease of Living Index 2020 were announced for cities with a population of more than a million, and cities with less than a million people. 111 cities participated in the assessment exercise that was conducted in 2020. The analysis categorises them into Million+ populated cities (those with …
This publication showcases how ADB and the Government of Rajasthan have partnered together to bring sustainable development to the cities and towns of Rajasthan, in northwest India. Since 1998, the Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project (RUIDP), extensive work has been undertaken to address urban challenges such as widespread poverty, inadequate …
Social-ecological transformation in Asian cities is instrumental to achieving many global development and climate targets. As dense settlements of human and economic activity, Asian cities present unique challenges but also opportunities for low-carbon transitions.
COVID-19 pandemic has given us an opportunity to build sustainable cities for a better quality of life says this global report on cities released by UN-Habitat on 31 October 2020. If integrated through inclusive policies, migrants will not only ease skill shortages, but will contribute to the social, economic cultural …
In a rapidly urbanising world, Malawi remains one of the least urbanised countries in Africa. Approximately 16.7 percent of Malawi’s population live in urban areas. Nevertheless, the country is urbanising at a moderate rate of approximately 3.7–3.9 percent per year. If growth continues at this rate, by 2030, approximately 20 …
On 8 April 2019, a Round Table was held in the The Hague, for the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development and its Task Force on Green Urbanization and Environmental Improvement. This is the report of the Round Table.
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming …
This paper surveys the recent literature exploring the causes of urban pollution in the developing world and the implications of such pollution for a city's competitiveness. Within a system of cities, cities compete for jobs and people. Those cities that specialize in heavy industrial activity will gain from a manufacturing …
Urban areas are expected to triple in size between 2000 and 2030. Unmanaged urban expansion increases the costs of service provision, deepens spatial inequities, and imposes heavy economic and environmental burdens. New analysis on 499 cities’ urban expansion confirm the challenge of rapid outward expansion are greatest in lower-income cities. …
Urban areas are growing at an unprecedented rate, with over half of the world’s population of nearly 4 billion people now residing in cities. By 2050, the number is expected to swell to over 6.5 billion−approximately two-thirds of humanity. Rapid urbanization provides opportunities, yet challenges come in tandem. How cities …
National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF) outlines an integrated and coherent approach towards the future of urban planning in India. The NUPF is structured along two lines. Firstly, at the NUPF’s core lie ten sutras or philosophical principles. Secondly, the ten sutras are applied to ten functional areas of urban space …
Environmental reviews, often in the form of environmental impact or strategic environmental assessments, play a fundamental role in the process of urban development. They are institutionalized decision-making arrangements in domestic legislation to address the environmental impacts and risks associated with a project. Strengthened environmental and social reviews in urban development …
