Urban Recovery Framework - Policy Brief March 2022

The Urban Recovery Framework (URF) approach is developed by a consortium of partners under the leadership of UN-Habitat as an enabling institutional and policy framework to support resilient urban recovery at scale and the renewal of the social contract in urban crisis contexts.

The policy paper gives an introducion to the URF approach, its guiding principles and design. The note is intended to initiate a collaborative process that will lead to the formal adoption of Urban Recovery Frameworks (URFs) to streamline and harmonize the approaches of donors, member states and international organizations.

The note is split in two sections, the first outlining the URF concept, process cycle and guiding principles, while the second part show how the URF can be put into practice through the URF Syria case. Each part highlights some key messages for leveraging the experiences and outputs to date, and possible avenues to further scale up the use and application of the URF. Though the note advocates for the adoption of longer time-horizons for interventions in urban contexts, it also argues that the delivery of aid in a fair, equitable, non-discriminatory, and non-politicized way requires a better understanding of urban contexts and conflict-sensitive approaches. The URF has been piloted in several crisis-affected countries in Arab States and builds on the broader experiences in the design and delivery of area-based approaches. This paper reflects on that learning and outlines key principles and features of the URF, with the objective to further elaborate this into joint policy guidance by the United Nations, World Bank and European Union in 2022.