“To improve the living environment for all on a sustainable basis, by promoting resource development and institutional capacity building for the management and human settlements, and ensure the implementation of the Millennium target on improving the lives of slum dwellers.”

Without strong local institutions and motivated staff, decentralization and human settlements reform will not deliver the desired development outcomes. Yet, many local authorities lack human resources required to meet urgent needs. Training and capacity building is therefore a wise investment into the future sustainability of our cities.

UN-HABITAT’s Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) assists local authorities and civil society organizations to build core skills in competencies in diverse areas including leadership, financial management, local economic development, participatory planning and conflict management. Through cutting edge training tools and methodologies, it assists UN-HABITAT’s partners and clients in developing managerial, technical and policy-making capacity —all within the framework of good local governance and sustainable urban development— to carry out their mandate.

Equipped with such competencies, these partners and clients are better able to provide services to their local communities and at the same time address urban problems, inadequate shelter and poor performance of municipal services.

At the global and regional levels, the Training and Capacity Building Branch complements the work of various UN-HABITAT programmes and its campaigns for secure tenure and good urban governance through methodological support in tool development, training design and delivery. These tools and training services constitute an integral part of many technical cooperation projects executed through UN-HABITAT regional offices. The Branch also promotes partnerships and networking at the global and regional levels, between learning institutions and local governments associations. It organizes regional Training-of-Trainers (ToT) workshops for municipal councils and local development NGOs and CBOs.

At the national level, it assists Member States in developing policies and strategies for building the capacity of local governments through stakeholder consultation processes and strategy workshops that bring together demand and supply side players. The aim is to help prioritize capacity building needs and create cohesion, synergy and coordination in training and capacity building activities.