• New information can reveal new potentials.
  
• Collaboration and networking to gather and analyze information
  and to share understandings are not just technical matters, they
  are means of empowerment and capacity building.
  
• New skills and attitudes are needed to reach new sources of information and understanding. These include skills in identifying stakeholders, understanding the nature of livelihoods, of markets,
  of natural resources, and of different cultures.

1. Philippines
Use of GPS and participatory 3D models to reclaim land on Mindanao This case shows how 21st century technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS) and geographical information systems (GIS) can be used in a participatory manner to improve natural resource planning and resolve conflicts over land. Demonstrates that sophisticated modern information technologies can help planners and other decision makers to better understand the need for a sustainable approach to resource planning.

2. USA
How to make low density suburbia more sustainable, attractive and profitable
Looks at a form of development and land use planning that is widely thought to work against sustainability – low density North American suburban subdivision. The case study shows how a shared understanding of the natural environment – and the property market – can change routines and create more sustainable outcomes.

3. Europe
Spatial planning and territorial cohesion
Looks at the development of cross-border and transnational planning in Europe and the skills being developed in collecting and analyzing information across and between spatial scales.It shows how skills are being developed in the analysis of territorial potentials and in assessment of the territorial impacts of policies in fields such as transport, agriculture and research and development.

4. USA
Measuring the informal economy at the neighbourhood level
Shows how, in the context of the United States the processes of getting and using the information, are bringing communities, the private sector and government into closer contact. This builds the potential for partnerships and for long-term benefits to a greater number of urban dwellers.

5. India
Counting the invisible: The census of pavement dwellers in Mumbai
Shows how deep-rooted barriers can be overcome and information can become a force for progress. By creating and disseminating information on their community, their lives and the problems they face, pavement dwellers managed to change stakes in their favour, impacting on urban policy and perceptions among city officials.

6. UK
Including minority ethnic communities’ views and heritage in the built and natural environment
Shows how ethnic minority groups in a town in the United Kingdom were able to find ways to share and celebrate their different experiences and cultures

• Listen, question, synthesize, summarize and look for solutions.
  
• Such skills are easily taken for granted; they should be learned
  and practiced.

7. South Africa
Debating Integrated Development Plans across a local authority
This case shows skills of developing consensus among local residents through communication, mutual listening and debate. It demonstrates how, despite the post-apartheid social schisms of South African cities, an institutional capacity to collaborate and coordinate priorities for action can be built up.

8. Bangladesh
Negotiating water connection for the urban poor
Illustrates how a successful negotiation process can lead to urban utility reform in favour of the urban poor. It also demonstrates how, with the right balance of diplomacy and political force, it is possible for an NGO or organized community groups to navigate between the red tape and power struggles imposed by government authorities and other stakeholders and progressively gain confidence through the setting of successful precedents.

9. Malawi
Analyzing problems and opportunities to determine a path to better housing for the urban poor
Shows how negotiations verging on mediation through the work of an NGO were able to bridge the gap between the ‘normal’ policies of a local authority and the needs of the urban poor. By negotiating a compromise solution that was then shown to work, new confidences were developed. This then enabled the project to be scaled up and the lessons and benefits spread to other areas of the city.

10. UK
Building inclusion through the Planning Aid programme
This case shows practical initiatives that promote a better inclusion of under-represented groups in the local planning process. Through the organization of educational workshops, community surveys, grassroots initiatives or training of community leaders, it built people’s capacity to get their needs recognized.

11. Russia
Mainstreaming gender into the local policy agenda
Shows how the dissemination of information, including the use of seminars with city officials and other stakeholders can promote the role of women and their concerns in policy and institutions

• Skills are needed to ensure that strategic actions embody insights from communities and stakeholders who are essential to the implementation of those actions.
  
• Horizontal and vertical integration will sustain a vision and make it realistic; lack of support, conflicting priorities and inconsistencies between policies over time and/or space will undermine strategies.
  
• Leadership matters and leadership skills are important in developing and sharing a vision.

12. Sri Lanka
Post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation in Galle
This case shows how integrated and strategic action in a UN-Habitat project in Sri Lanka was able to maximize the underlying benefits of rehabilitation and reconstruction after the 2004 tsunami. Strategic planning is often associated with top-down planning, the case presented here shows that being strategic can also work bottom-up.

13. The Netherlands
A strategic response to social exclusion and neighbourhood decline
Illustrates the need for integrated action and community involvement in the regeneration of a run-down township, showing that is not easy to get the various sectoral experts to understand each other’s position and expectations when generic skills are lacking.

14. Kenya
Participation for neighbourhood plans in Kitale
Shows the importance of diagnostic tools in addressing deficiencies in order to express a public vision for a place. Lessons can be learned from situations where the need for strategic action is recognized.

15. Bulgaria
Leadership and vision for the scaling-up of Romani school desegregation
Shows the importance, for strategic purposes, of strengthening alliances between leaders and combining their capacity to understand, analyze and mobilize particularly in the face of long-established prejudices.

• Management skills matter. Planning needs to be efficient and effective.
  
• Management is not just a top-down process that is only the responsibility of senior officials or administrators.
  
• Management skills drive a sustainable and pro-poor planning agenda.
  
• Management skills are essential for successful implementation of plans and policies.

16. India
Bridging the finance gap at the local level for effective community-led solutions in urban development
This case study illustrates how financial management and budgeting skills are part of the capacity needed to develop creative and sustainable solutions in urban development. Such schemes enable the poor to address their needs and strengthen their position in relation to the other actors involved in urban development.

17. Bolivia
Partnering for more efficient and affordable water supply
Shows how the importance of stakeholders' willingness and commitment to work together towards shared objectives is crucial in a partnership and that communication and transparency between the partners promote the sustainability of a partnership.

18. Brazil
Initiating inclusive processes at city scale
Highlights the importance of continuous cooperation and inclusion throughout the implementation process, directly involving communities and their organizations in the management of the initiatives that affect them, thereby benefiting from their skills and resources in an effective way.

19. Nigeria
Dynamic Planning for an integrated development strategy in the Niger Delta
Argues that integrated planning as 'management of change' requires several anticipatory or 'scenario constructing' skills and techniques, key among them being the ability to see the environment as a multi-dimensional set of interactions.

20. Mozambique
Improving municipal governance in Dondo
Shows that for decentralization to succeed there is often a need for new institutional structures at the community level to promote dialogue between government and civil society.

21. Thailand
Mainstreaming community-led processes for housing and urban poverty alleviation: The development of CODI and the Baan Mankong programme
An example of how different actors, communities, NGOs, local and national government authorities from different sectors have learnt new skills and worked out new processes on how to work together for city-wide development and urban poverty reduction.

• Innovation is essential if planning practices are to make an impact for more sustainable forms of urban development.
  
• Learning is essential for innovation.
  
• Planning and innovation are not linear processes; they depend on contact with multiple sources of information and ideas, both inside and outside the organizations.
  
• Critical reflection on practice is fundamental to achieving improvements and developing new skills.

22. Peru
The Cities for Life Forum and mainstreaming monitoring and evaluation
This case shows the tendency for participatory projects to grow without much thought being given to formal evaluation and systems to deliver structured learning and that good monitoring needs to make monitoring and evaluation a shared and open process.

23. Europe
The Innovation Circle
Shows how skills can be developed through international, inter-organizational and inter-professional learning and applied in partnership.

24. Shack Dwellers International
Learning through community exchange
Describes an international exchange methodology to strengthen the capacity of local grassroots organizations to devise new development alternatives, be recognized by municipalities for their work, and scale-up community innovations from project to city and from practice to policy.

25. Ghana
Learning from rapid urban growth and reflection in Kumasi
Illustrates the potential gains of recognizing and addressing faults in plans for intervention at an early stage.