There is a severe lack of capacities across several Commonwealth countries, particularly those in the global South, to deal with rapid urbanization, climate change and informality. The Commonwealth’s recent initiatives to quantify this lack of capacity illustrates the critical gap in the availability of trained professionals such as architects, planners, engineers and surveyors that these geographies face. Especially in the public sector, there is the need to foster change in thinking and operating, in order to better design, develop and manage cities and human settlements. These cities need to be more inclusive and sustainable and need to develop the local capacity to respond to challenges – in a scalable and replicable manner.