The Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements - Supporting Evidence-based policy-making for Equitable Urban Futures

Within this training, we will showcase and provide hands-on experiences on SDG 11 and New Urban Agenda (NUA) indicator applications using Earth Observation data available via the Toolkit (https://eotoolkit.unhabitat.org). The Toolkit provides ready-to-use data products that are addressing major urban challenges on housing, open spaces, urbanization and public transport. Furthermore, the Toolkit collects user stories and showcases the role of EO for urban-related indicators, supporting evidence-based policies for sustainable urban development in the context of the SDGs and the NUA. The Training will illustrate how EO data can support local and national governments, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), community groups and other urban actors in addressing reporting needs and guiding policy actions. In this context, during the training, we showcase the potential of EO-based data to support activities of government users, NGOs and community groups as well as to combine community data with EO data. For example, to support responsible climate adaptation, local dialogue must be supported by high-quality, timely, reliable and disaggregated data at the local level, taking into account the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. For this purpose, we will illustrate on some example datasets within the Toolkit how relevant local data can be generated in the form of hands-on exercises and group discussion on the role of such data for evidence-based policymaking on increasing equity in urban spaces.