The question may be asked, “why should we be concerned about sustainable urban development and the indicators to guide it?” On first impulse, it is easy to respond by saying that more than half of the world population is urban and the remaining proportion is increasingly dependent upon cities for a wide variety of needs including economic, social, political and recreational needs. In short, planning for urban development is tantamount to planning for overall economic development because urbanization is good for economic development.
The second point that needs to be made is that the esablishment of the National Urban Observatory will be in fulfillment of the UN-Habitat recommendation especially the Habitat 21 injunctions that member nations embark on the use of indicators and best practices as instruments for planning and monitoring developments in the urban sector. Nigeria, particularly has not done very well in the areas of management of her cities. It is hoped that the availability of these indicators for planning and monitoring of development in the urban sector will make a real difference.
Thirdly, this project adds value to the global urban indicator programme by addressing gender issues. It provides a tool for monitoring and reviewing the conditions of cities and the housing sector through a gender perspective, providing benchmarks for the development of urban and shelter conditions and policy, taking gender into account. Indicators are quantitative tools for planning and monitoring the urban and shelter sectors. The indicators permit a comprehensive picture of the urban and shelter sectors in cities. As a major concern of the Habitat II conference, gender is addressed in this project through gender-sensitive indicators, i.e. gender-specific and gender-disaggregated indicators, in order to measure gender roles and relations in the urban and shelter sectors.
