Column Actions

This process indicator places particular emphasis on the aspect of national and regional development planning that supports positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas. The method to quantify this indicator is based on policy analysis evaluation that can be supported by adopted policies, conventions, laws, government programs, and other initiatives that comprise a national/regional urban policy. 

This indicator assesses the progress made towards creating an enabling environment that will ensure the achievement of the outcomes and impacts of the targets of the Sustainable Development Agenda. 

Number of countries developing and implementing national urban policies

NUP that responds to population dynamics:   This first qualifier examines to what extent the NUP addresses issues to do with population composition, trends, and projections in achieving development goals and targets.

•  Population composition includes size, geographic distribution and density, household size and composition, mobility and migration, age and sex distribution and disaggregation, as specified in SDG target 17.18
• Trends are changes in composition of the population from overtime  
• Projections are expected to change over time that the NUP needs to ensure that they are well addressed. 

 
Ensure balanced territorial development:   This second qualifier entails the promotion of a spatially coherent territory that includes a balanced system of human settlements including cities and towns and including urban corridors; that addresses social, economic, environmental and spatial disparities particularly considering the urban-rural continuum

• A National Urban Policy (NUP) is defined by UN-Habitat as a coherent set of decisions derived through a deliberate government-led process of coordinating and rallying various actors for a common vision and goal that will promote more transformative, productive, inclusive, and resilient urban development for the long term.
• Local fiscal space is understood as the sum of financial resources available for improved delivery of basic social and economic services at the local level as a result of the budget and related decisions by governments at all levels without any prejudice to the sustainability of a government’s financial position.  
   

•  by geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts, for example, national vs. subnational level.

It is also further disaggregated by economic (GDP) and human (HDI) development levels.  

The methodology uses a policy evaluation framework that assesses and tracks progress on the extent to which country-level national urban policy or regional development plans are being developed or implemented to cover or satisfy the following criteria: 

1. Responds to population dynamics  
2. Ensures balanced regional and territorial development 
3. Increases local fiscal space   

 To maintain objectivity and comparability in the policy analysis, five categories of assessment are used for each qualifier. These categories correspond to a progressive evaluation of the extent to which national and regional policies in plans integrate elements that contribute to the realization of each qualifier:  
 

•  Category 1: policy document does not make any reference to the qualifier or the country is not developing or implementing a policy (no national urban policy exists) 
• Category 2: policy document makes some reference to the specific qualifier, but this qualifier is not integrated into the diagnosis and recommendations of the policy 
• Category 3: policy document integrates the specific qualifier, but this qualifier is poorly understood or misinterpreted 
• Category 4: policy document integrates into a cross-cutting perspective the specific qualifier without clear policy recommendations 
• Category 5: policy document integrates and mainstreams the specific qualifier with clear policy recommendations derived from the qualifier  

 
Each category is assigned a percentage bracket, as follows:  
 

•  Category 1: 0 per cent 
•  Category 2: 1-25 per cent 
• Category 3: 26-50 per cent 
• Category 4: 51-75 per cent 
•  Category 5: 76-100 per cent  

• As the indicator mainly aims to track progress on the number of countries developing and implementing national urban policies, it does not suppose specific judgments of any individual country’s policies.  
• There might be some limitations in correlating and quantifying the contribution and attribution of urban policy to the overall change and outcomes on the ground. 
• Finally, as the policy evaluation process is qualitative, measures must be taken to avoid subjectivity and bias. This is why each policy evaluation is undertaken by several independent international evaluators. In addition, clear guidelines for the assessment of each qualifier must be provided to evaluators. Capacity development efforts are in fact crucial for the successful implementation and monitoring of this proxy version of indicator 11.a.1; both for the evaluators to assess it, but also for national statistical commissions and governmental actors to understand the criteria against which their policies and plans are assessed, and how to improve on them.   

The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/2020-comprev/UNSC-proposal/.