Urban poverty moves into focus

With the new SDG 11, the UN and other development actors recognize that poverty increasingly is an urban phenomenon. Cities, not least in the global South, face huge challenges in terms of inclusive, sustainable development, but they can also play a decisive role in solving the problems at local, national and global scales.

A new DIIS Brief notes that the proposed SDG 11 is extremely ambitious and universal in scope. This is both its strength and its weakness. As a framework it can bring multiple actors together and mobilize a range of necessary resources, but cities are also extremely different in terms of size, problems, resources available and population trends.

This DIIS brief recommends that development actors 1) focus on citizen engagement at city and sub-city levels, 2) seek ways to support city and sub-city governments that lack resources for shouldering the challenges, and 3) pay attention to how security can be achieved in urban areas affected by violence.