One of the longstanding themes in the post-2015 discussion has been how a new set of goals might address the problems and opportunities of urban areas more satisfactorily than the existing MDGs.

More people in developing countries will be living in urban areas over the next decades, with a wide range of implications for both urban and rural poverty. Yet it is not clear how such a local, context-specific and cross-cutting issue can be integrated usefully into a global set of goals.

After a careful consideration of the existing evidence, the experience with the MDGs, including the ‘slum target’, and existing proposals for a post-MDG framework, this working paper proposes five steps to incorporate an urban dimension into a new development framework.

Paula Lucci