General Assembly Resolution 34/114 mandated UN-HABITAT to prepare periodically the Global Report on Human Settlements as a vehicle for monitoring and reporting on human settlements conditions and trends. So far, six issues of the Global Report have been published. The seventh issue of the Global Report on Human Settlements will be devoted to ‘Revisiting Urban Planning’. The report will be published in October 2009. It will review urban planning practices and approaches, with a view to identifying the constraints and conflict points therein, as well as to identify innovative, flexible and dynamic approaches that are more responsive to the rapid pace of urbanization and its accompanying challenges.

New approaches to planning can only be meaningful, and have a greater chance of succeeding if they are in consonance with the prevailing socioeconomic and cultural milieu, are participatory and inclusive, as well as linked to contextual political processes. The objective of the 2009 Global Report is to improve knowledge, among Governments and Habitat Agenda Partners, on global conditions and trends with respect to urban planning. This regional study is one of eight regional studies that will serve as inputs into the various chapters of the 2009 GRHS.