The rapid flow of new publications assessing progress in implementation of one or more SDGs at different scales has continued since this book went to press in early 2023 and readers are encouraged to explore these. One benchmark report, however, warrants mention here, namely the Synthesis Report by UN-Habitat on SDG 11, Rescuing SDG 11 for a Resilient Planet (UN-Habitat 2023a), published in July 2023 for the HLPF in New York, where SDG 11 was one of those examined, and the SDG Summit in September 2023 to mark the mid-term of the SDGs’ 15-year lifespan. It is, therefore, the successor to the 2018 evaluation (UN-Habitat et al. 2018), which is covered extensively in this book.

The new report draws extensively on data banks of UN-Habitat and the other collaborating UN agencies, as well as published literature, and reaches very similar conclusions to those in this book. As indicated poignantly by the report's title, there is currently little prospect of achieving most targets and indicators of SDG 11 but there is still time and the opportunity to rescue the situation through rapid upscaling of both ambition but – crucially – also financing and action. Interventions need to be bold, integrated and carefully prioritized to achieve maximum impact, and led by urban governments in collaboration with regional and national governments. The recommended transformative priorities are summarized by target and indicator in Chapter 3 of the main report and Table 1 of the Executive Summary (UN-Habitat 2023b: 11–12).