National Urban Policies Impacts: From National to Local Actions

With the increasing urbanisation rates national governments have been encouraged to develop and implement National Urban Policies (NUPs), which are considered vital tool and coordinating frameworks to manage urbanization process in an inclusive, resilient and sustainable way. Effective national urban policy process helps achieve lasting policy impacts through sustainable urbanisation including implementation of urban global goals and frameworks such as the SDGs and New Urban Agenda. NUP is rooted in UN-Habitat Governing Council resolution that requests the agency to develop a guiding framework for the development of NUPs, based on international good experiences to also support member states develop and improve their urban policies. It requests UN-Habitat to strengthen partnerships, peer learning and to support national and local governments as they develop and implement such policies. As of 2024, UN-Habitat has supported over 64 countries to formulate, implement and review their NUPs to sustainable urban development and especially impact lives of citizens.
Despite governments commitment to NUPs, including embedding regulatory frameworks to enhance implementation, NUP monitoring and evaluation to ascertain outcomes and impacts to citizens wellbeing remains a big challenge. While governments have developed urban policy indicators aligned to SDGs and other international commitments to ascertain urban policies impacts on economic, social, and ecological terms, their effectiveness and efficiency in their achievement remains unascertained. Impacts of co-creation by national governments with subnational governments among other stakeholders are also not evident. This leads to increasing concerns on efficacy and effectiveness in delivery of public policy and the extent related programme are accountable to the respective stakeholders. Monitoring and evaluation of the policies to identify efficacy and effectiveness has been become even more complex.