Weekly Urban News Update
In This Update
OneUSAID releases water report for fiscal year 2015

USAID released its Safeguarding the World's Water report for the fiscal year of 2015 earlier this week. The report documents the agency's water sector activities and shares the progress that has been made during the second year of implementing its Water and Development Strategy. USAID has achieved much with its new strategy, including reaching 3.2 million children under the age of five with nutrition-specific intervention in Ethiopia, as well as working in 50 cities across Indonesia to facilitate improved access to safe piped water for over 2.5 million people.

To read the full report, click here.
Two How will the UN oversee the implementation of the NUA?

The New Urban Agenda was officially passed by the UN General Assembly on December 21st, proving that this ambitious initiative will be the UN's main strategy for dealing with urbanization. However whether overall responsibility for its oversight will lie with UN Habitat is not yet determined. This debate over implementation has been going on since before Habitat III, and led to a provision in the concluding section of the New Urban Agenda that calls for an independent assessment of the agency itself. The General Assembly resolution made this provision official, and now it calls on the new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres "to take all appropriate measures to ensure that the evidence-based and independent assessment of UN-Habitat is carried out in a fair, objective, impartial and representative manner."

To read the full article in Citiscope's coverage, click here.
ThreeNew from the United Nations Development Program

The United Nations Development Program has released a new publication, A New Urban Paradigm: Pathways to Sustainable Development. The publication explores new and innovative urban policies, the challenges facing the urban world, and what the New Urban Agenda will mean for urban governance, city planning, metropolitan issues and more.

To read the full publication, click here.

Registration is now open for USAID's second, free, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on land tenure and property rights. Version 2.0 includes tailored study tracks and the option of an independent study to dive deeper into cross-sector issues, including climate change, food security, and humanitarian assistance. Classes will start January 23rd ad will meet for two hours each week until May 31st.

To register, click here.
NewsIn the news and around the web
  • What will cities look like in this new global political era? Find out here.
  • Watch a video describing the least livable cities in the world here.
  • An urbanization signal has been detected in evolution. Learn why, and what it could mean for the future of sustainability here.
  • Are global crises making our cities better? Read this interesting perspective here.
 
The art of the urban: graphic designer Herwig Scherabon visualizes the data behind gentrification in a creative new way. Here, East London's battle with income inequality is represented by the height of each structure, the flattest parts representing the most deprived neighborhoods. Source: Guardian Cities
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