UN Statistical Commission 2022 – Progress on Implementation of the Global Urban and Rural Definitions/

During the Habitat III conference held in Quito, Ecuador, a global voluntary commitment was established by the European Union, the OECD, World Bank, FAO and UN-Habitat to support efforts towards attainment of a globally applicable and people-based definition of cities, that would support harmonized monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA).  Through this commitment, a series of global consultations were held with UN Member States between 2018 and 2019 with the objective of assessing the feasibility of using the degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) approach as the globally harmonized method for defining urban and rural areas. Following these consultations, Member States, during the 51^st Session of Statistical Commission endorsed DEGURBA as a sound method of classifying cities, urban areas and rural areas for statistical comparison purposes.

The main objective of this side event is to present progress on the implementation of DEGURBA based on both ongoing global engagements and country level activities and experiences. At the end of the side event, partners attending the session will learn more about the process towards endorsement of DEGURBA, how the approach works, ongoing and future planned activities related to the implementation of the approach at the global level, and also get a chance to seek clarifications where applicable.