Leave no one behind: what is the role of community-led urban development?

By 2050, two-thirds of people worldwide will live in urban areas. Many city dwellers in the global South live in informal settlements, without access to basic services. The global Sustainable Development Goals seek to redress this inequity with an overarching aim to ‘leave no one behind’. This paper examines what organised low-income community networks are already doing to ensure no one is ‘left behind’ in urban development. It presents examples from Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand where community organisations have sought to include all community members – whether disabled, elderly or extremely poor – in upgrading activities, and offers recommendations to scale up action.