Informal settlements are critical sites for advancing climate adaptation, mitigation, spatial justice, sustainable livelihoods, and resilience. Informed by engagements with key human settlements stakeholders between 2025 and 2026, this policy brief summarises an urban reform agenda focused on climate resilience, livelihoods, governance, and investment in informal settlement upgrading. It outlines priority reforms in governance, funding, and implementation, and sets out specific actions and institutional commitments required from - and committed to by - key national government stakeholders, namely the Department of Human Settlements, National Treasury, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), and Operation Vulindlela.