National Urban Policies: How to Monitor and Evaluate the Progress

This is a high level event which convenes policy makers, government representatives and experts to discuss National Urban Policies (NUPs) with specific focus on how to monitor and evaluate the progress of member states’ efforts, in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. The itinerary for the event includes speeches and presentations by high-level country representatives who share their experience and by international organisations and experts who provide professional knowledge and experience on monitoring and evaluating NUPs. The networking event will also aim to deepen the understanding of NUP and invite more commitment and support of member states. A NUP has been recognized internationally as a tool for the implementation and monitoring of the global urban agenda. The Policy Paper on NUP, developed and submitted by the Habitat III Policy Unit (PU) 3, presents key issues involved in the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of NUPs and provides action-oriented recommendations. The draft New Urban Agenda also recognises critical roles that national governments can play in urban policy and positions NUP as a critical instrument to lead transformative actions, which we highly appreciate as a co-lead organisation of the PU. Despite the recognition of NUP as a key implementation tool for the New Urban Agenda, as the Policy Paper on NUP highlights, there are a number of challenges to implement NUPs. In particular, in many countries, governments often lack the data, knowledge, and tools needed to effectively monitor the progress and evaluate the outcomes of NUPs. This is partly due to the fact that NUPs can take such diverse forms (explicit or inexplicit), legal status, contents, processes (the extent of stakeholder engagement, etc.) and stages of development (consensus building, designing, implementation, etc.) that no comprehensive framework for monitoring and mechanism which can be applied globally exist. The New Urban Agenda indeed anticipates an extensive monitoring and evaluation programme of research to accompany implementation. In this context, the event will demonstrate that various actors including governments, universities, NGOs and international communities need to join forces to develop effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of NUPs, based on different country contexts. A particular focus of the discussion will be the information base that is needed to both implement, monitor and evaluate NUPs against the goals and targets of the New Urban Agenda and the role that institutions such as universities, NGOs and intergovernmental organisations can play is supporting this task.