Linking the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals to Human Rights – Brochure

This toolkit outlines the key themes of the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals with regards to UN-Habitat’s mandate to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development lays out 17 targets along with 169 corresponding targets that are all grounded on human rights principles and call for an end to poverty, inequalities and discrimination with the commitment to ensure that everyone is benefiting from urbanization including people who are usually marginalized in the process. Subsequently, the New Urban Agenda was launched. It is an action-oriented document that sets the global standards of achievement in sustainable urban development firmly grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that focuses on the realization of human rights, including the right to adequate housing. It sets the framework for sustainable urban development globally for the coming twenty years. While it is evident that both these revolutionary agendas are firmly committed to ensuring human rights, it is our aim with this toolkit to make that connection even more apparent in our normative and operational work. Hence, it is our vision that this toolkit will be used in the planning and design, implementation, and the monitoring and evaluation phases of all interventions within the context of urban development. We envisage that all working in this field whether through devising policies or procedures, planning and developing projects and programmes or delivering services will benefit from this toolkit. After reading this, we hope that you will feel confident in mainstreaming human rights in your day-to-day work, whether you deal directly with policy interventions, project management and development, or planning.