International treaties, conventions, etc.

• Sustainable Development Goal 11
  The UN SDG 11 sets out to ensure access to adequate, safe and affordable housing, transportation, and open spaces for all, increase urban resilience to disasters, reduce the adverse environmental impacts of cities, and strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. This goal will be achieved by strengthening national and regional development planning and providing financial and technical assistance for creating sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials.
   
• The New Urban Agenda
  The New Urban Agenda is the outcome document agreed upon at the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) conference in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016. It serves to guide the efforts around urbanization of a wide range of actors — nation states, city and regional leaders, international development funders, United Nations programs and civil society.

Agency Policy

• Sustainable Service Delivery in an Increasingly Urbanized World Policy
  USAID’s Sustainable Urban Services Policy provides guidelines to help countries and communities improve the delivery of essential services in urban areas and to strengthen the linkages and interconnections between urban and rural areas.

Implementation Guidelines, Tools, and Other Resources

• Green Infrastructure Resource Guide (USAID, 2017)
  Green infrastructure can play a critical role in sustaining ecosystem services such as water resource conservation, flood and storm water management, groundwater recharge, water supply, and disaster resilience.  The guide is designed to help USAID practitioners find the resources they need to plan, design, contract, implement, monitor and evaluate effective green infrastructure projects that support the agency's development objectives.

Number of USAID Missions implementing

• 11 under Making Cities Work IDIQ; others have Urban-based programming across multiple sectors (WASH, GCC, Health, etc.).

Agency Initiatives

• Urban Resilience
• Municipal Waste Recycling Program

Related Issue Areas

• Agriculture (Food Security)
• Climate Change
• Democracy and Governance
• Economic Growth
• Forestry and Biodiversity
• Health
• Sustainability
• Water (especially WASH)

Related studies and analyses

• Geospatial analytics?

Agency POC

• LU Office Director: Heath Cosgrove
• USAID Page