The Urban Development Beyond Growth is a thinking piece combined with insights from the implementation of urban transformation portfolios under the Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG) project funded by the European Union (EU) and coordinated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The M4EG has been implementing a Portfolio Journey with 10 local authorities in the Eastern Partnership countries, which is applying a portfolio approach and supporting UNDP’s attempt to move from projects into portfolios. This shift has been tested with key local partners over the 3 years with an innovative framing, which looks into the urban challenges as complex, systemic, and connected and provides each municipality an opportunity to tackle their problems with a more comprehensive and adaptive approach.

The publication connects the discussion around the systemic/mission-based approaches and beyond/post/de-growth development, which is extremely relevant and timely currently. This product will provide insights into the new way of portfolio design and management and will inform the next phase of the M4EG initiative and the work of the Innovation team (and beyond) on the portfolio approach. It summarizes the experiences, insights, effects, and learnings from the Portfolio Journey but also connects it to the wider discourse on systemic/mission-based approaches and discussion on beyond/post/de-growth development, which can inform how UNDP can shape its strategic innovation work, as well as develop the urban governance approaches.