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For the last 40 years, UN-Habitat - the United Nations Human Settlements Programme - has been working towards a better urban future to improve the lives of people around the world.
With over half of the population living in cities, and with around 3 billion more people expected to live in urban areas by 2050, cities are facing unprecedented demographic, environmental, economic, social and spatial challenges.
UN-Habitat’s mandate has adapted over the time to meet the needs of our growing urban world. At a time when the way we plan and manage our cities is more critical than ever, UN-Habitat’s mission is to promote socially, economically and environmentally sustainable human settlement development and the achievement of adequate shelter for all.
The agency is currently working in more than 70 countries to bring high impact projects to people living in cities. UN-Habitat implements an integrated normative and operational activity. Working with governments and other stakeholders on the ground, our projects combine world-class expertise and local knowledge to deliver timely and targeted solutions to the most vulnerable urban residents.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and its dedicated goal on cities - SDG 11 to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable - puts urbanization as one of the key priorities of the global agendas for development. In addition, under the New Urban Agenda, there is a defined and renewed dedication among the global development community to ensure our cities expand in a sustainable way for all.
Within the United Nations, UN-Habitat has the expertise and role to act as a focal point on sustainable urbanization, including the implementation, follow-up and review of SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda.
In this same context, over the past decade, Urban Resilience has been gaining ever greater prominence in international development discourse, emerging as one of the core principles of sustainable urban development in the post Millennium Development Goals framework.
The main goal of UN-Habitat’s resilience work is to support local governments and relevant stakeholders to transform urban areas into safer and better places to live in, and improve their capacity to absorb and rebound quickly from all potential shocks or stresses, leading them towards sustainability.
UN-Habitat’s understanding of a resilient city is one that is able to absorb, adapt, and recover from the shocks and stresses that are likely to happen, transforming itself in a positive way toward sustainability.
In this scenario, Urban Resilience becomes a hub between the areas of Risk Reduction and Sustainability, and also a link between Humanitarian and Development activity, articulating Climate Action. In words of the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, António Guterres, “Saving lives is the first priority, but we are also looking to build longer-term resilience to shocks.”
UN-Habitat’s urban resilience agenda covers three main work areas: knowledge, advocacy and technical cooperation. These three complimentary work streams reinforce each other by combining practice on the ground, applied research, training and awareness raising work, among others.
The City Resilience Profiling Programme (CRPP) is the technical cooperation pillar of UN-Habitat’s Urban Resilience Programme, engaging with all local level partners and stakeholders. In this line, UN-Habitat developed the City Resilience Profiling Tool (CRPT) to be a robust and comprehensive approach for cities to build their resilience.
This publication outlines the methodology and implementation steps of the City Resilience Profiling Tool and serves equally as an initial guide for cities to UN-Habitat’s methodology, but also an advocacy platform to inform stakeholders about the Tool’s approach.