Urban Profiling in Humanitarian and Development Contexts: A Guide for Turkish Municipalities Impacted by Migration and the Syrian Refugee Crisis (English)

As forced internal and international displacement to urban areas becomes increasingly protracted, integrated urban development strategies should address the needs of both host communities and the displaced, to overcome both chronic and acute vulnerabilities. Managing urban displacement needs to be part of sustainable urban growth management, to mitigate stress on public services and housing, and avoiding further growth of informal settlements. Adequate housing and urban development responses can support to effectively integrate. displaced communities into urban environments through tailored, area- based, integrated humanitarian and development actions, coordinated by local government.

To achieve the above, UN-Habitat strongly recommends evidence-based and inclusive decision-making processes. As there is often insufficient evidence and data, especially at local level, the collection of data, including spatial data, needs to be the basis for any urban planning process.

This report thus gives an overview of UN-Habitat’s methodology for city and neighbourhood profiling, which can support Turkish municipalities in their efforts to implement inclusive and sustainable urbanization. This methodology has been applied in different local contexts, in both crisis and development contexts. Its participatory approach includes and builds upon the knowledge of local stakeholders, and includes contributions from UN-Habitat’s teams in Lebanon, Iraq and Somalia as well as different substantive teams and leads to agreed recommendations for interventions that benefit both host and migrant communities.