A serious new UN report says such efforts are greater than remoted successes. With the best instruments, it argues, easing the worldwide housing disaster – affecting billions – could also be inside attain.
Launched by UN-Habitat and launched on Tuesday on the thirteenth World City Discussion board (WUF13), in Baku, Azerbaijan, the report additionally factors to a broader position for the UN system in serving to international locations transfer past short-term fixes in the direction of long-term housing options rooted in human rights, local weather resilience and neighborhood participation.
Held each two years, the discussion board brings collectively policymakers, practitioners and neighborhood leaders, providing an area to attach native expertise with international decision-making – from slum upgrading and reasonably priced housing finance to local weather adaptation and post-conflict reconstruction.
The World Cities Report 2026: The International Housing Disaster – Pathways to Motion paints a stark image.
As much as 3.4 billion individuals worldwide lack entry to satisfactory housing, whereas greater than 1.1 billion dwell in casual settlements and slums. But throughout its 300-plus pages, the report emphasises not solely the dimensions of the problem but additionally examples of what works.
UN as coordinator, advocate and accomplice
UN-Habitat says the position of the United Nations will not be merely to sound the alarm, however to assist governments, cities and communities construct sensible options.
The report describes housing as central to sustainable growth and requires larger political precedence by means of the New City Agenda, an action-oriented framework adopted in 2016 that units international requirements for city planning and helps advance the city dimensions of the Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs).
Housing ought to be seen as greater than a market commodity, says UN-Habitat Govt Director Anacláudia Rossbach, “Satisfactory housing represents probably the most highly effective entry factors for accelerating sustainable and inclusive growth.”
The UN’s position consists of:
- serving to governments develop housing insurance policies,
- selling housing as a human proper,
- coordinating worldwide cooperation,
- supporting climate-resilient city planning,
- backing community-led upgrading initiatives.
Relatively than top-down options, the report emphasizes partnership with native communities, illustrating the method by means of case research from totally different areas.
Within the ‘Inexperienced Room’ at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, fashions of inexperienced cities and different local weather solutions-based reveals are on show.
Thailand: community-driven upgrading
One of many flagship examples is Thailand’s Baan Mankong programme, broadly seen as a mannequin for participatory housing growth. As a substitute of relocating residents from casual settlements, it gives infrastructure funding and helps collective land agreements, permitting communities to enhance housing in place.
UN-Habitat presents this as proof that casual settlements shouldn’t routinely be considered as failures of city growth. On the identical time, the report notes challenges: reliance on neighborhood financial savings teams can result in uneven progress, with poorer communities struggling to fulfill necessities.
Jordan: inclusive city areas
In Amman, interventions have included the rehabilitation of a big open house close to the Al-Hussein refugee camp right into a climate-resilient, age-responsive park.
Such initiatives intention to ease tensions between displaced individuals and host communities whereas bettering dwelling circumstances for all, with consideration to the wants of girls and women. The report urges cities to deal with displaced populations not as momentary outsiders, however as city residents entitled to companies, jobs and secure housing.
It additionally situates the instance inside a broader international context: by the tip of 2024, greater than 123 million individuals had been forcibly displaced by battle, violence and persecution, alongside thousands and thousands uprooted by disasters. On this context, the UN sees its position as bridging the hole between humanitarian response and long-term city growth.
Public inexperienced house has a optimistic impact on biodiversity, local weather, wellness and air high quality.
Brazil: upgrading as an alternative of eviction
Brazil’s favela programmes illustrate a shift away from eviction and slum clearance, insurance policies the report says typically deepened poverty and social exclusion.
As a substitute, UN-Habitat promotes “in situ upgrading” – bettering roads, sanitation, drainage and housing circumstances with out displacing residents. The method permits options to be tailor-made to every space, from housing enhancements in São Paulo to drainage initiatives in Recife and the development of a cable automobile in Rio de Janeiro’s Complexo do Alemão.
Local weather-resilient housing
The report locations housing on the centre of the local weather disaster. Buildings account for round 37 per cent of world greenhouse fuel emissions, whereas climate-related hazards may destroy 167 million properties by 2040. In 2023 alone, pure disasters brought on $280 billion in financial losses, most of them uninsured.
UN-Habitat argues that climate-resilient housing should change into a world precedence. Examples highlighted within the report embody community-led upgrading initiatives in Cambodia and modern governance initiatives within the Philippines, the place residents collectively plan and construct their properties.
In Tanzania, speedy electrification has greater than doubled entry – from 15 per cent in 2020 to 40 per cent in 2022 – offering a substitute for polluting fuels akin to charcoal and opening the way in which for cleaner practices like eCooking. To assist the transition, the nationwide electrical energy supplier has launched financing schemes for home equipment, whereas mission companions have developed recipe guides tailor-made to electrical cooking.
The report additionally warns that local weather adaptation should not come on the expense of low-income communities by means of compelled relocation or “inexperienced gentrification.”
Maquanying city village in China.
Housing as a human proper
The UN frames housing not solely as an financial concern, however as a matter of human rights. The report calls on governments to strengthen protections in opposition to compelled evictions, acknowledge numerous types of land tenure and contain communities extra intently in decision-making.
Even in developed international locations, segregation stays entrenched. In Europe, many first- and second-generation immigrants stay concentrated in low-income neighbourhoods, whereas in the USA housing segregation elevated in most cities between 1990 and 2014, a divide laid naked once more in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report argues that housing coverage should transfer past slender fashions of homeownership to incorporate rental housing, cooperatives and community-led approaches. For UN-Habitat, there isn’t a single international resolution; progress is determined by cooperation between governments, worldwide organizations and residents themselves.
As Govt Director Anacláudia Rossbach writes within the foreword, “the actions we take now will decide whether or not housing turns into a basis for stability and progress, or a supply of acute vulnerability.”
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