Understanding urbanisation: Monitoring urban dynamics in a fragile and resource-constrained context’

This discussion paper highlights that Afghanistan faces a formidable 'data deficit', especially in terms of urban–disaggregated data. The paper reviews the current status of urban monitoring and provides an overview of the pioneering methodology developed in The State of Afghan Cites Programme 2014/15 to gather more reliable and up–to–date data on urbanisation. Such data is essen al for informed decision–making, particularly when faced with dwindling resources and the continued rapid growth of Afghan cites.