Linked to a progressive institutionalization of sustainable urban development (SUD), urban policies have changed in the Arab world and action plans begin to be implemented since the years 90-2000. This new trend can be interpreted in an ambivalent and contradictory way. On the one hand, the dissemination of SUD embedded in innovative activities (renewable energy programs, eco-neighborhoods projects, new laws etc.) serve the preservation of the urban order ruled by authoritarian powers. On the other hand, a real change of urban action is initiated and carried by a variety of actors inside the « system » (state agencies, ministries) or from outside (consulting firms, associations, NGOs), although we emphasize in the paper limits in the current situation: fragmentation of initiatives, rare responses that would reflect an “indigenization” of SUD thus different from the recipes of the global North (use of eco-technologies, eco-neighborhoods etc.), and yet limited impact of the first projects to the extent that very few are yet built in 2012.