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In Brief
Effective advocacy, monitoring, and partnerships are vital for achieving sustainable urbanization and reducing urban poverty, which are key aims of national development policies and strategies.

Improved monitoring of urban conditions complements efforts that bring sustainable urbanization to the attention of national policy and legislative debate processes. Involving strategic partners boosts these efforts.

Strategy
UN-HABITAT raises awareness of sustainable urbanization issues among governments, local authorities, and other Habitat Agenda Partners through major global mechanisms such as the World Urban Forum, the World Urban Campaign, World Habitat Day, the Global Urban Economic Dialogue series, and the Dubai International Award for Best Practices.

The agency engages in evidence-based global monitoring of urbanization conditions and trends, disseminating the results globally through the Global Report on Human Settlements, the State of the World's Cities Report, and other major publications. UN-HABITAT collaborates with public sector, civil society, professional, and private sector partners to promote sustainable urbanization principles and practices.

Actions
UN-HABITAT is supporting regional, national, and local authorities, as well as partners, to achieve sustainable urbanization through evidence-based research and knowledge.

In order to achieve sustainable urbanization, UN-HABITAT undertakes advocacy and monitoring work in all dimensions of sustainable urban development, focusing on internationally agreed goals. Habitat Agenda partners actively participate in making and implementing urban policy locally and globally. In addition, UN-HABITAT promotes innovation to help achieve sustainable urbanization and encourages policy reforms at the institutional level. Programmes encourage the urban poor, including slum dwellers, to get directly involved in decision making and implementation as the most effective way to address their needs.

Our Approach
Advocacy: The main objective is to raise awareness about global human settlement conditions and trends. The preparation of UN-HABITAT's flagship reports, the Global Report on Human Settlements and the State of the World's Cities Report, enable UN-HABITAT to organize a range of activities to advance global dialogue on human settlement issues. These include events such as the World Urban Forum and World Habitat Day.

Monitoring: Through assessment and analysis, urban issues and trends are monitored in order to produce evidence-based knowledge – the fundamental element of effective advocacy. The UrbanInfo Database System, Geographical Information Systems, the Urban Indicator Programme, and Urban Observatory tools are used for effective monitoring, from the local level to the global level.

Partnerships: UN-HABITAT supports the partnership model in four key areas: youth, civil society, the private sector, and parliamentarians. Partnerships spur institutional innovation and provide better responses to urban challenges by seeking external expertise and resources. The main types of partnerships are i) advocacy partnerships, ii) partnerships that help to develop norms, standards, and tools, and iii) partnerships to share and coordinate resources and expertise.

Expected Accomplishments
The expected accomplishments of Focus Area 1 are as follows:
1. Improved awareness of sustainable urbanization issues at the national and global levels
2. Habitat Agenda partners actively participate in the formulation of sustainable urbanization policy
3. Monitoring of sustainable urbanization conditions and trends improved

Getting It Done
Focus Area 1 is cross-cutting. Each contributing division, branch, section, or unit is clear on their roles and responsibilities through the intra-agency agreement of cooperation. The monitoring and analysis of urbanization trends and of the impact of urban policies place particular emphasis on age- and gender-disaggregated data. The monitoring, advocacy, and partnership framework is harmonized with UN-HABITAT's Strategic Framework and Work Programme.

Working Together
The goals of Focus Area 1 cannot be achieved without engaging a whole range of partner groups at all levels (global, international, regional, national, and local). They include civil society, research institutions, the private sector, parliamentarians, women, and youth. The partners are selected strategically in order to maximize the impact.