NGO Major Group Assesses SDG11 Progress

Under the UN’s 2030 Agenda, states have committed themselves to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” The special review of measures taken toward that Goal 11 at this year’s High-level Political Forum (HLPF) has opened a channel for Major Groups and Other Stakeholders (MGOS) to evaluate progress and impediments to its achievement. The paragraphs below excerpt the Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) Major Group’s positioning on SDG11 implementation, which addresses the HLPF at UN Headquarters, in New York, 7–16 July 2026.

What progress has been made?

Progress on SDG 11 remains uneven. Housing affordability has reached crisis levels, with some 3 billion people unable to afford adequate housing and 1.12 billion living in substandard informal settlements. Urban climate risks are also intensifying, while the share of green space in cities fell from 19.5% in 1990 to 13.9% in 2020. More displacements loom on the climate-change horizon, while the universal legal safeguards for ‘lawful’ displacement remain unheeded.

At the same time, some progress has been made toward more inclusive urban governance. There is growing attention to localization, public space, and participatory planning, even if implementation is lagging. Supporting UN agencies have promoted more substantive stakeholder engagement in urban development, although those same agencies lack the policy-relevant mechanisms the General Assembly has mandated. Achieving Target 11.7’s universal access to safe, inclusive, and green public spaces also requires humane management of animals sharing those spaces — domestic dogs and cats as well as wildlife. Non-lethal human-wildlife coexistence is increasingly recognised as part of what makes cities safe, inclusive, and liveable. The Positive Cities initiative, launched at the 2024 World Urban Forum, showcases city-government partnerships in Bangkok, Cape Town, and Ilfov County, while the IUCN’s human-wildlife conflict guidelines provide a clearer framework for coexistence-focused action. Progress is real, but fragmented and far from the scale required.

How should governments implement this SDG and related targets?

States should also adhere to the more specific New Urban Agenda commitments aligned with SDG 11, including support for social production of habitat and the social and environmental functions of land. These commitments remain absent from Agenda 2030 development policy, implementation, and VNR reporting, while ICESCR states parties are obliged to present data on forced evictions and their impacts every five years. Agenda 2030’s non-alignment with these norms needs correction.

Governments should implement SDG 11 through integrated urban policy encompassing affordable housing, safe transport, accessible and green public spaces, resilient local infrastructure, digital livelihoods, and inclusive governance. SDG 11.7 cannot be achieved without humane management of animals in public space and practical measures to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Cities should assign clear institutional responsibility, dedicated budget lines, and measurable targets for domestic animal population management, including sterilisation, vaccination, responsible ownership, waste management, and accessible veterinary services.

Where relevant, working animals fill a vital gap in urban infrastructure; unmanaged, however, their presence raises the risk of traffic accidents.

Urban policies should account for the roles working animals play in transport, water, and waste management, and ensure safety for both the animals and their drivers. For wildlife, governments should apply the IUCN SSC Guidelines on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence, which emphasise prevention, context-specific design, local participation, and coexistence over reactive lethal control. Implementation should follow the New Urban Agenda’s call for safe, inclusive, accessible, green public spaces and stronger local planning capacity.

What structural obstacles hinder the implementation of this SDG (at local, national, regional, and/or global levels)?

States must ensure the promised alignment of the 2030 Agenda with human rights obligations and address the data gap; expertise, data, and assets across the UN system. remain scattered.

Forced eviction — a principal barrier to sustainable development and poverty eradication — remains absent from the Agenda, as certain states opposed its inclusion as an SDG commitment despite advice from UN Human Rights Procedures and civil society. This continuing practice, and states’ failure to prevent and remedy it, constitutes a breach of 2030 Agenda principles, voluntary commitments, and binding obligations.

Since 2016, the growing military practice of ‘domicide’ has further exposed the gap between A/RES/70/1, para. 35 commitments and any operable SDG target or indicator, including under SDG 11.

The barriers are structural and overlapping. Cities face severe housing, infrastructure, and climate-finance pressures, while civil society participation in urban planning remains weak: only 19% of cities across 50 countries show strong civil society engagement. Climate adaptation finance falls far short of what cities need. On animal-related issues, many municipalities still lack a lead authority, budget line, veterinary capacity, reliable data, or long-term plan. In that vacuum, governments may default to reactive measures such as street culling or mass sheltering, despite WHO guidance that culling free-roaming dogs is ineffective for rabies control. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (General Comment 26) has also recognised that exposing children to such culling constitutes a form of violence harmful to their mental health. SDG 11 implementation is further hindered when urban safety, biodiversity, health, and animal management are treated as separate silos rather than parts of a single local governance challenge.

Further challenges include: siloed government agencies; policy discontinuity across administrations; insufficient local capacity and resources for growing urban populations; and inadequate partnership with residents throughout planning, implementation, and monitoring.

What role can civil society play in achieving this SDG?

Civil society is essential to localising SDG 11. Specialised NGOs monitor human rights obligations in development implementation, amplify local priorities, provide technical expertise, and build trust between residents and authorities. In many cities they fill practical gaps by collecting disaggregated local data that governments lack. UN-Habitat, United Cities and Local Authorities, and other actors stress that stronger engagement with local and regional governments, better urban data systems, and participatory planning are all necessary for SDG 11 delivery. Civil society organisations are close to the ground: they can help cities move from reactive responses to preventive, evidence-informed, human rights-based governance. Efforts to quantify the development impacts of housing and land rights violations — including forced eviction — have shown how practices justified as ‘development’ can make realising the 2030 Agenda more elusive.

How does this SDG support or connect with other goals in the 2030 Agenda? With specific targets of other international frameworks?

SDG 11 connects directly with SDG 3, SDG 5, SDG 10, SDG 13, SDG 15, and SDG 17. It supports SDG 3 through safer streets, reduced bite incidents and rabies prevention, and healthier urban environments. SDG 5 and SDG 10 are implicated because safety, accessibility, and participation in public space are especially critical for women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, and marginalised communities, although few states have reported responsibly under indicator 5.a or 1.4.2. SDG 13 connects through climate-resilient urban planning and green and open spaces; SDG 15 through biodiversity-inclusive urbanisation. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aligns with SDG 12 on green and blue space infrastructure and biodiversity-inclusive planning, while specific Habitat Agenda and New Urban Agenda commitments align with SDG 11. The SDG framework as a whole requires better alignment with relevant international norms developed since 2015. Fostering human-wildlife coexistence is also directly relevant to SDGs 14 and 15.

Are there emerging issues related to this SDG that should be noted?

Several emerging issues deserve attention. Climate risk is rapidly reshaping SDG 11 implementation: by 2040, over 2 billion urban residents could face additional warming of at least 0.5°C, while 1 billion people already live in areas prone to severe riverine flooding, half of them in cities. Working animals will play a growing role in resilience, evacuation, and infrastructure rebuilding after such events. Political pressure may still push cities toward rapid-clearance responses to free-roaming animals, especially where veterinary capacity is weak; this must be resisted in favour of evidence-based approaches.

In Pakistan`s largest city, Karachi, the population of over 24 million produces 12,000 tons of solid waste daily. Currently, only 40% of this waste is removed by local authorities, leaving the huge task of removing the rest to the people – and their donkeys. Brooke Pakistan has worked with donkey owners, animal health providers, and municipal authorities to better understand working animals’ role in waste management and improve their health and welfare — resulting in less polluted streets and waterways, cleaner air, and better outcomes for both residents and animals.

More than 1,700 cities and communities in 57 countries, serving over 370 million people, have developed plans under the WHO Age-friendly Cities & Communities framework, which spans eight interconnected domains: transport, housing, social participation, respect and inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication, community support and health services, and outdoor spaces. Meeting the needs and contributions of ageing urban populations is essential as longevity increases worldwide.

Positive Cities is a network convened by ICAM to support humane, evidence-based dog and cat population management as part of safer, more inclusive urban governance. Launched at the 2024 World Urban Forum, it demonstrates how city authorities and civil society can collaborate on public health, animal welfare, community engagement, and public space. Its beacon cities are Bangkok, Cape Town, and Ilfov County. In Bangkok, working with the Soi Dog Foundation on vaccination and sterilisation, over 600,000 dogs have been sterilised since 2016 and the stray population has been cut by more than half. In Cape Town, city-funded sterilisation and vaccination are explicitly linked to public health objectives. The Wolf Fencing Team Belgium offers a complementary wildlife example: volunteer-based support for wolf-proof fencing has reduced attacks and improved coexistence with returning wildlife. Together, these cases demonstrate that humane prevention, community partnership, and local governance can deliver safer, more resilient communities for both people and animals.

Download the entire NGOMG Position Paper

See also “MGOS Publish Constituency Position Papers ahead of HLPF 2026” on HLRN News