Changing weather patterns challenge societies globally and at multiple levels related to amongst others health, the environment, disaster management and mitigation. There is a need for greater flexibility and resilience, which in turn can be enabled through a transition towards increased sustainability in governance and infrastructure. Urban rainwater harvesting (URWH) is a term used in this paper to collect various approaches to the sustainable handling of rainwater in cities, a practice becoming increasingly common in some areas of the world. Global experiences can be useful learning opportunities in the planning, implementation and maintenance of sustainable urban rainwater harvesting in future smart cities. The aim of this thesis was to synthesize the factors of success of previous projects, in order to develop a framework tailored to the evaluation of projects concerned with rainwater harvesting. The review spans over 18 projects of different scale and design. The findings of the study show that successful URWH projects are: (1) found as part of urban renewal schemes; (2) successfully implemented by involved actors with open mindsets and flexible and collaborative working approaches; (3) maintained based on plans determined from the onset of the project, developed together with local actors, in order to involve the community and strengthen social inclusion. The revised evaluative framework, which is proposed as a result of the review, indicates general trends of success among the reviewed cases. To be fully operational, the framework should be further developed with additional URWH projects and revised thereafter.