Cite as: Mtapuri, O., & Myeni, S. L. (2020). Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda: A South African Experience. In Sithembiso Lindelihle Myeni and Andrew Emmanuel Okem (Eds), The Political Economy of Government subsidized Housing in South Africa. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-36491-2 1 Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda A South African experience Oliver Mtapuri and Sithembiso Lindelihle Myeni Introduction Urbanisation has been widely researched and written about with some associat- ing it with industrialisation and socio-economic growth. Others regard it as the root cause of most of the challenges (including those considered to be wicked such as poverty and hunger) that haunt the world today. Urbanisation has also captured the interest of many stakeholders from various sectors such as govern- ments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), donors, local governments, academic/research institutions and independent researchers. Many policy docu- ments have been tabled at local, national, regional and international levels as parties seek to better understand this phenomenon. It is not surprising that the call for sustainable development , which has links to urbanisation, has been dom- inating international conferences from various disciplinary angles. This chapter specifically focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda. It looks at how the two are interlinked and the challenges and opportunities that urbanisation presents in pursuit of realising sustainable urban development. The New Urban Agenda and SDGs The New Urban Agenda is an action-orientated plan that comprises a set of global principles , policies and standards necessary for the world to realise sustainable urban development. It is an agreement reached at the Habitat III conference of October 2016 , in Quito, Ecuador. The agreement seeks to expand on a vision and commitments by national governments around sus- tainable urban housing and sustainable urban development (Habitat for Humanity , 2017). It prescribes a set of guidelines that are deemed important in transforming the ways in which cities are constructed, managed, operated and inhabited. The plan is meant to guide efforts, by a wide range of actors, such as national governments , city administrators, regional leaders, inter- national development agencies, the private /business sector and civil society, to enhance urbanisation and make it a more positive phenomenon for the next 20 years (Charles , 2016).