Strengthening the Spatial Planning Legal and Institutional Frameworks in the Sultanate of Oman

This evaluation report presents the outcomes of a planning law project implemented jointly by UN-Habitat and the Sultanate of Oman’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (MoHUP) from February 2022 to December 2023. The project aimed to modernize Oman’s legal framework to support the objectives of Oman Vision 2040 for resilient and sustainable cities.

What was achieved?

The project delivered several strategic outputs to help MoHUP build sustainable cities:

  • A "Green Paper" Roadmap: This document provided the official instructions and policy ideas needed to draft Oman’s new spatial planning law.
  • Extensive Legal Review: UN-Habitat reviewed roughly 500 urban laws and policies to identify legislative and institutional bottlenecks and suggest legal reform recommendations.
  • Global Inspiring Legislative and Institutional Practices: UN-Habitat provided inspiring planning law and public participation practices from countries such as UK, Chile, South Africa, and South Korea to support Oman’s legal reform agenda.
  • A Guide on Enabling Meaningful Public Participation in Spatial Planning Processes: A new toolkit was created to assist MoHUP (and potentially other Member States) on how to meaningfully engage local communities in spatial planning decisions.

The evaluation concludes that the project’s impact and achievement of its objective to strengthen the urban planning legal and institutional framework in the Sultanate of Oman will hinge on the extent to which the beneficiary government utilizes the knowledge and recommendations provided by the green paper to shape the future spatial planning law and its subsequent implementation.

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  • Date published 13 January 2026
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