With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 global targets, and nearly 234 indicators that will be monitored for the period 2015–2030. The targets are designed to be integrated and indivisible and to balance the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda further seeks to realize the human rights of all, and to achieve gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls.

In July 2018, Goal 11 will be reviewed for the first time as part of the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) –the global platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The body of evidence in this report draws on primary and secondary data analysis (qualitative and quantitative) and triangulation including data available for the 15 SDG 11 indicators that track progress towards the 10 targets under this goal. In addition, the report draws on evidence derived from various other sources including some voluntary national review reports from the countries reporting progress at the 2018 HLPF, reports from NSOs, urban observatories, cities, other UN agencies, NGOs, private sector, academia, local governments, Global Sample of cities database, and geospatial data from selected cities.