Urban Governance Atlas

Rosie Witton
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  • June 10, 2025
  • 1 min read
Credit: Denys Nevozhai (Unsplash)

Summary

The Urban Governance Atlas (UGA) is an interactive online database of over 250 good practice policy instruments that support nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration. The first of its kind, the Atlas allows users to explore a diversity of different policy instrument types being applied across the world, including: legislative, regulatory and strategic instruments; economic and fiscal instruments; agreement-based or cooperative instruments; and knowledge, communication and innovation instruments. It allows cross-regional learning and knowledge sharing and is available in English and Spanish.

Host organisations: The UGA was developed as part of the INTERLACE project (International Cooperation to Restore and Connect Urban Environments in Latin America and Europe), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. The platform was coordinated by the Ecologic Institute, with support from the INTERLACE consortium and additional external organisations.

Launch date: 2023

Update status: Ongoing

Funding: The UGA is funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 869324.

Main functions

  • To explore diverse policy instruments that support NbS and urban ecosystem restoration
  • To highlight success factors, governance approaches, and lessons learned
  • To serve as a knowledge-sharing tool among stakeholders
  • Enables users to explore the specific challenges addressed by various types of policy instruments and provides insights into how to build a compelling case for Nature-Based Solutions.

Intended audiences

  • Government administrations
  • Urban planners and decision-makers
  • Civil society (e.g. community experts or neighbourhood representatives NGOs)
  • The scientific community
  • Development cooperation communities
  • Technicians, NBS designers and landscape architects

Why the platform was established

The platform was established to complement the Urban Nature Atlas (UNA) by focusing not on the solutions themselves, but on the governance instruments that enable their success.

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