The Urban Performance Index - data, evidence and insights to guide urban policy and investments

Economist Impact and UN-Habitat are working together to elevate the importance of sustainable urban development on the global agenda. As its foundation, the programme includes the development of an Urban Performance Index, based on the UN’s Global Urban Monitoring Framework (UMF).

The bi-annual index, developed by Economist Impact in collaboration and with guidance from UNHabitat, measures the performance of cities across critical areas of urban sustainable development including wellbeing, safety, economy, environment and governance.

Economist Impact and UN-Habitat released initial findings from five pilot cities. The report reached 5.5 million social media impressions and nearly 130k visits in the
first month. Economist Impact and UN-Habitat plan to expand this work to 8–10 more cities in 2024. The first phase has started in Maceio, Ouagadougou, Sfax, Reykjavik, Santiago de Cali, Istanbul, and Maputo. Future plans include expanding to 75 cities by 2026. UN-Habitat aims to incorporate new indicators to make the index more investment-oriented and support cities in unlocking financial resources for sustainable development.

UN-Habitat and Economist Impact will present the latest research findings from the UPI, which builds on the knowledge and insights developed by UN Habitat to support sustainable urbanization. A panel of experts across both the public and private sector will join. Economist Impact will act as a moderator to discuss the possibilities to further develop such a tool, the importance of transforming global city data and the private sector's role as an enabler and innovator.

This robust panel discussion will explore what types of data are needed for financiers, how cities can collect this data to attract investment and how multilateral actors can support bridging the data gap.