Global Urban
Observatory
The Global Urban Observatory (GUO)
has been established by UNCHS (Habitat) in response to a decision of the
United Nations Commission on Human Settlements, which called for a mechanism
to monitor global progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda and to monitor
and evaluate global urban conditions and trends.
Its purpose is to address the urgent need to improve the world-wide base of
urban knowledge by helping Governments, local authorities and organizations of
the civil society develop and apply policy-oriented urban indicators,
statistics and other urban information.
The Habitat Agenda provides compelling arguments for improving the basis of
policy-oriented information for sustainable urban development and for
strengthening the capacity of partner groups to use empirical information in
participatory decision-making at all levels.
The GUO focuses on building local capacity to select, collect, manage, and
apply indicators and statistics in policy analysis as fundamental, both to
tracking progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda and to monitoring urban
conditions and trends as input to participatory decision making.
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of the Global Urban
Observatory is to monitor the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and to
expand the global base of knowledge for sustainable urban development.
GOALS
- To help all partners monitor
and evaluate urban conditions and trends as measures of progress in
implementing the Habitat Agenda;
- To help all partners use their
knowledge in participatory decision-making processes at all levels.
What are Local and National
Urban Observatories ?
Local and National Urban
Observatories are governmental agencies, research centres or educational
institutions that are designated as the "workshops" where monitoring
tools are developed and used for policy-making through consultative processes.
A Local Urban Observatory for a city or town is the focal point for urban
policy development and planning where collaboration among policy makers,
technical experts and representatives of partners groups is fostered. Networks
of Local Urban Observatories are facilitated by National Urban Observatories
where necessary. National Urban Observatories co-ordinate capacity building
assistance and compile and analyze urban data for national policy development.
At present, there are 20 national
urban and more than 100 local urban observatories around the world.
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