Withdrawals of fresh water from rivers and lakes have quadrupled in the last 50 years. In 1994, at least 220 million urban dwellers lacked steady access to safe drinking water. Fully 90 percent of sewage in developing countries goes untreated. The report highlights many innovative and effective approaches to environmental management undertaken by cities and communities around the world. It identifies lessons from these initiatives for example, if local and national governments, non-governmental organizations, communities, business, international donors, and other external support agencies share responsibility, they have a better chance of solving urban environmental problems.
Cities can serve as centres of employment, growth and innovation, the report emphasizes.
Improving the urban environment and quality of life requires action on a number of fronts, including alleviating poverty, creating productive employment, improving resource management, increasing women's participation and building capacity for urban governance and management. These actions are often promoted jointly by UNDP, UNEP, the World Bank and other partners within and outside the UN system. Published in seven languages, the report is distributed worldwide. The 1996-97 edition published 10 years after the first of this series of reports contains more than 150 tables, charts, maps, and figures with essential environmental and natural resource data for nearly every country in the world.