KUALA LUMPUR — After eight years of contentious leadership, UN-Habitat is emerging with renewed energy to deliver projects that help countries leverage their cities to meet national obligations under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change. That strategy is poised to offer more opportunities for development professionals in the coming years now that former Barcelona mayor Joan Clos, whose brash, undiplomatic style did not endear itself to donor countries or his staff, has left.
The recent appointment of a consensus-building former Malaysian mayor, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, is likely to see countries opening their pockets even more for the Nairobi-based agency, sector watchers say.
UN-Habitat, formally the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, may not have the same profile as better-endowed, globally-recognized branches of the U.N. family such as UNICEF or the World Food Programme, but it has new wind in its sails as the agency seeks to capitalize on the recent adoption of the New Urban Agenda, a 20-year roadmap to sustainable urbanization.