CityNet Secretariat and UN-Habitat are set to officially start their three-year project on affordable housing this year focused on capacity building. The project, ‘Localizing SDGs through urban development: learning from affordable housing and informal settlements upgrading experience in Korea,’ will bring and localize Korea’s successful urban housing experience to CityNet members in Nepal, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The project is being generously funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) through the KOICA Joint Fellowship Program (Capacity Development Training Program). CityNet is excited to be executing its first KOICA project together with UN-Habitat.

The project’s objective is to assist the three countries and their cities in achieving their local targets on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, with a focus on safe and affordable housing. Major project activities include intensive workshops, consultation with experts and mentoring sessions, and site visits to Seoul as the final project activity.

CityNet and UN-Habitat hope the project will help increase capacities of cities to manage their housing challenges. By studying successful experiences from Korea and sharing best practices through peer-to-peer learning, cities will be able to improve their urban development strategy on affordable housing and informal settlement upgrading.

In the next few months, CityNet and UN-Habitat will launch a call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for cities interested to embark on and commit to a three-year project journey. Due to COVID-19, training in 2021 will be held online, convening 20 participants from the three target countries. The training will mainly consist of expert-guided modules, building upon best practices on affordable housing from Korea and other Asia-Pacific countries.

Further information on the project will be uploaded on our website, so stay tuned!