The design of the Central Park will be an opportunity to showcase the value of enhancing public space provision in new planned cities. At the same time, it will demonstrate the value of public space in the Philippines by showcasing a model of green, inclusive, safe and accessible public space that could be replicated in other cities in the country. This is especially pertinent in the context of the Philippines where public space generally is not adequately provided and protected.

A Sustainability Unit will be established with the objective to contribute to building the capacity within the Authority as a development entity and implementer. The Unit will strengthen the overall strategic planning approach as well as the introduction and establishment of solid frameworks, regulations and guidelines that collectively will promote sustainable urban development. In this sense, the intervention would have a capacity-building component while also informing the development and implementation of the masterplan through recommendations, guidelines, regulations and further developing the KPIs into measurable benchmarks.

The Housing strategy aims to showcase how the existing community in the area can be integrated in the new development. It also aims to integrate diverse beneficiary groups taking into account age, family structures and affordability. The housing strategy for the existing community can be addressed through a participatory process, the gathering of baseline data and information and the development of a resettlement strategy that is fair and adequately compensates for the losses in the community.

Currently, the city of Cebu does not have a strategy that guides housing development to cover the housing demand. This leads to 6% of Cebu's residents living in informal settlements. Urban development in Cebu has been fragmented and inefficient which exacerbates negative externalities of urbanization including traffic congestion and coastal erosion. The Housing Strategy aims to address these issues by providing a comprehensive strategic vision on how the City of Cebu could use different instruments to meet the housing demand and thereby improve the housing conditions of informal settlements. Through a participatory stakeholder engagement and an evidence-based diagnosis and context assessment, a vision for a more connected, mixed use, compact and inclusive urban form will be developed. 
 

There is a lack of data availability in Cebu City that hinders the development of solid and evidence-based strategies and plans. The Global Future Cities Programme aims to support the development of a data centre that enables the use of data across city departments and enhances evidence-based planning in the city as a whole. Based on assessment of existing data gaps and inefficiencies, the intervention aims to provide a strategy to improve current data collection, management, analysis and use. This means an improvement of the existing data inventory, data architecture and governance system, including the establishment of data sharing protocols, quality assessment, custodianship guidelines and city engagement strategy. In addition, capacity building activities will train the relevant teams in the management and use of the data hub.

Rapid urbanization, poverty, inadequate urban housing supply, lack of enforcement of urban development and management regulations by city authorities, and the lack of repairs and housing maintenance are all factors that have created disorganized, overcrowded, dilapidated, and blighted areas, including slums. These urban slums are characterised by uninhabitable living conditions with poor land use planning and inadequate social services that are coupled with high levels of transmissible diseases and increased exposure to outbreaks of natural disasters such as fires and floods. There is a dire need to redevelop these slums and provide structurally sound housing and adequate infrastructure. The delivery of urban renewal programmes and, consequently, reaching the official 5% annual slum reduction quota, appears to be both challenging and limiting due to insufficient funding and inadequate community engagement. Projects are managed on a case-by-case basis, without a designated set of tools and methods. The objective of the project is to provide technical assistance in developing guidelines for urban renewal and slum upgrading projects in Lagos State. The aim of these guidelines is to strengthen the local and state governments as well as the local communities.

As one of the world’s largest megacities, Lagos faces challenges in the fluctuation and movement of people. Traffic congestion impacts the quality of life of many of the city’s residents, and if no measures are taken, traffic will continue to increase over the next few years. Mobility and the mitigation of traffic congestion is a key challenge for the future of Lagos. Substantial infrastructure improvements have been proposed in an effort to reduce traffic congestion and its negative consequences. The Lagos State Government has embarked on an ambitious programme of policy reforms and investments to promote and facilitate the provision of water transport. The aim is to turn water transport into an attractive option within Lagos’ integrated urban transport system. The project will support this ambition by providing technical assistance that can be catalytic in the establishment of the water transport sector in Lagos. 
 

A lack of up-to-date urban planning frameworks has led to uncoordinated development in Abeokuta. The impact of this has demonstrated itself in urban sprawl and an increasing disconnect between land use and realised projects. The preparation and establishment of a new forward looking Master Plan for Abeokuta will allow for the definition of a strategic vision that, in the long term, could guide the city towards more sustainable urban development. The development of the Master Plan aims to contribute to a more cohesive urban fabric with improved connectivity and accessibility across the city. Across Abeokuta, 20 blighted areas have been identified, mainly within the older parts of the city. These areas are often home to traditional communities with ancestral cemeteries, lacking municipal services (such as water, sanitation, refuse collection and disposal, drainage facilities, street lighting, paved footpaths) and public facilities (such as schools and medical clinics). It is thus necessary to develop a set of tools - Guidelines for Urban Renewal - that provide input for the regeneration and improvement of these areas, creating a better living environment while preserving historic and heritage spaces in Abeokuta.

Abeokuta faces a number of challenges within the transport sector, for example, congestion, air pollution, limited choices of alternative transport options, long travel times and so forth. In particular, the public transport sector is underdeveloped, meaning that people are reliant on unregulated public transport options that are operated by private companies. To address this situation, the Ogun State Government has, over time, initiated various interventions in the public transport sector, like High Occupancy Vehicles for Mass Transit. However, most often these schemes have, for various reasons, either not been fully implemented or successful. To strengthen the mobility and public transport system, the proposed project comprises the preparation of a public transport policy for Abeokuta. The policy could eventually be scaled up and adopted for all of Ogun State. The Public Transport Policy will also support the Bureau of Transportation and the state government to make effective and well informed decisions within the mobility and transport sector, including allocation of resources, management capacities and regulatory frameworks.