Indicator 11.a.1 Number of countries that have national urban policies or regional development plans that (a) respond to population dynamics; (b) ensure balanced territorial development; and (c) increase local fiscal space

Indicator 11.a.1: Number of countries that have national urban policies or regional development plans that (a) respond to population dynamics; (b) ensure balanced territorial development; and (c) increase local fiscal space

Target 11.a: Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning

UN-Habitat

UNFPA

Definition:

National Urban Policies and regional development plans:

A National Urban Policy (NUP) is defined as a coherent set of decisions or principle of actions 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^[1].

This standard definition is extended and adapted to country contexts and may include, where applicable terms such as National Urban Plan, Framework, or Strategy as long as they are aligned with the above qualifiers.

Similarly, regional development plans follow the same definition, only applied at the subnational level.

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 over time
• Projections are expected changes over time that the NUP needs to ensure that they are well addressed.

Key questions for the assessment:

• To what extent are quality and timely data on urban and rural population composition, trends and projections available for use in the development, implementation and monitoring of NUP or Regional Development Plans (RDPs)?
• To what extent do the strategies/interventions of the NUP and/or RDPs refer to population composition, trends and projections over the timeframe of the plan?

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.

Key questions for the assessment:

• To what extent does the national urban policy consider the need for balanced development of the territory as a whole including the differentiated yet equivalent development of all types of settlements including villages, cities and towns, including urban corridors?
• To what extent are the linkages – social, economic, environmental and spatial – between urban, peri-urban and rural areas consider with the ultimate goal of strengthening the urban-rural continuum?

Increase local fiscal space:

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.

Key questions for the assessment:

• To what extent has the policy made allowance for the provision of local financial resources to provide for the implementation of the policy and for the delivery of essential basic social and economic services
• To what extent has the policy assessed the status of human capacities required to effectively use financial resources for the implementation of the policy and the delivery of essential basic social and economic services?

Developing:

Developing refers to the policy development pathways and processes that consider the feasibility, diagnosis of policy problems and opportunities, the formulation/drafting of the policy until the approval of the policy

Implementing:

Implementation refers to the realization of the policy proposal through legislative or financial action/commitments, including the continued monitoring and evaluation of that policy

Concepts:

Introducing NUP – an appropriate framework to achieve target 11.a and more broadly a recognized tool of implementation and monitoring of global urban agendas – along with regional development plans, and adding three measurable qualifiers as requirements for successful plans and policies, makes indicator 11.a.1 not only a more adequate, measurable and implementable process indicator for target 11.a.1, but also will serve more broadly the progress of SDGs and the new urban agenda.

This revised indicator is indeed suitable for all countries and regions, and lends itself to regional analyses, as well as other forms of aggregation and disaggregation, according to development level, for example. It is also applicable at multiple territorial levels.

Moreover, monitoring this indicator will help more broadly with NUP monitoring and help increase awareness, capacity and knowledge of best practices for sustainable urban policy in the process. Also, due to the multidisciplinary dimension of NUPs and their role in global agendas, the enhanced data collection and analysis capacity that would be permitted by this indicator revision would participate in guiding the necessary steps to create a more enabling urban policy environment to support SDG 11 and urban dimensions of other SDGs. NUP monitoring according to SDGs would for instance serve as a gap analysis to help formulate tailored recommendations and identify best practices.

Number (of countries)

The primary source of data is the official documents of national urban policies and regional development plans, available in or provided by national and regional administrations of the countries. All these will be derived from the national and global state of NUP survey results.

The alignment of the policies and plans with proposed indicators are assessed by independent national level policy evaluators to avoid subjectivity and bias. The field of practice on NUP has developed a database of experts across the regions where evaluators are routinely drawn for undertaking these reviews.

To help with this evaluation according to the three qualifiers, policy evaluators follow an agreed upon analysis framework. Other supporting tools such as expert opinion, baseline data, benchmarking, performance monitoring and reporting, and gap and content analysis could be used.

Global, regional and national level compilations and analyses of NUP have already been undertaken by UN-Habitat and partners, which provide a solid foundation of evidence and expertise for the monitoring of indicator this proposed proxy indicator for 11.a.1.

Government departments’ in charge of urban, rural or territorial affairs fill in the survey. Additional information is gathered from National Statistical Offices and government official websites and UNDESA data are also consulted for population dynamics.

UN-Habitat and UNFPA, along with many other partners such as OECD and Cities Alliance are working together to collect updated information from Member States regarding the three qualifiers in addition to other questions pertinent to National Urban Policies and their implementation process. The survey^[7] results will inform the 2020 Global State of National Urban Policy Report. Many countries have filled in required information based on the specific qualifiers of indicator 11.a.1. which builds upon the 2018 NUP dataset^[8]. The success of the indicator requires more capacity development and routine follow ups with ministries and NSOs at national levels, but sometimes also going beyond the national levels to ensure good understanding of the 3 sub-components.

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

Essentially, countries that already have NUP and regional development plans, the NUPs are examined for their consistency in covering the three above qualifiers. While for countries that do not have NUP or are currently developing NUP, these are noted and documented as steps towards developing a NUP. Such countries are counted with zero scores to ensure a full coverage of status on all countries.

To maintain the 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 in 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 in 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

For example, in Table 1, the evaluator provides a numeric value based on the category that corresponds to the qualifier analyzed, understanding that only one category per qualifier is selected:

Table 1. Evaluators Assessment of one of the qualifiers

To reduce the bias of subjectivity in the overall assessment, independent policy evaluation will be undertaken by several evaluators. Once each qualifier is evaluated by all the evaluators, a final averaged value for the indicator 11.a.1 is calculated. The table 2 below provides a summary of the procedures for the computation of the final values (final averaged value for the indicator 11.a.1).

Table 2: Summary table for the computations of the indicator

Based on the final value of the assessment (X in Table 2 above), countries that fall into categories 2 and 3, which correspond to 1 – 50 percentage points, are not counted as “countries that are developing and implementing a national urban policy or regional development plans”. These countries are encouraged to deploy efforts in order to improve national urban policies or regional development plans.

Countries that fall into categories 4 and 5, which correspond to 51 percentage points or more in the assessment, are considered as “countries that are developing and implementing a national urban policy or regional development plan” that contribute to the achievement of Target 11.a. Countries that are counted as having national urban policies or regional development plans can still make efforts to improve the rating of the 3 qualifiers

2021-12-20

UN-Habitat

UNFPA

This Indicator is related to several Goals and Targets, particularly the following: