18 May 2016 - UN-Habitat in collaboration with Kenya's Ministry of Land, Housing & Urban Development held STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITION FOR KENYA’S TOWNS to seek creative planning and design ideas for sustainable urban development in Kenya. The competition was open to undergraduate and postgraduate students from around the world. Through this design competition, UN-Habitat and the Ministry's Urban Development Department seek to create a momentum for greater urban design application by demonstrating the value of urban design in implementing newly drafted city/town plans in Kenya.

It targets the following nine cities/towns in Kenya: Mombasa, Malindi, Kitui, Machakos, Kiambu, Nyeri, Embu, Nakuru and Naivasha. The design competition was also intended to promote further international inter-university collaboration as a platform for knowledge exchange and co-production of approaches to livable urban spaces in diverse contexts. Thus, participating teams in the competition were formed by linking students from universities in Kenya with students from external universities (outside Kenya).

By February, UN-Habitat had received over 700 entries from all over the world forming over 160 teams for final submission. On 20th April, UN-Habitat has closed the competition receiving over 140 submissions from all over the world. By the end of May, the jurors will select the nine best proposals – one per town/site – based on a set evaluation criteria; from these, the best overall proposal will be selected, and the rest will be declared as the runners-up. The winners will be unveiled at a special ceremony to be held at the UN headquarters in Gigiri in June.