World Habitat Day

The United Nations General Assembly declared (first Monday of October) World Habitat Day by the resolution (A/RES/40/202 A). The Day aims to reflect on the state of our towns and cities, and on the basic right of all to adequate shelter. The Day is also intended to remind the world that we all have the power and the responsibility to shape the future of our cities and towns.


FORUM: World Habitat Day 2020 ": Housing For All — A Better Urban Future.

An estimated 1.8 billion people were already living in slums and informal settlements, inadequate housing or in homelessness in our cities worldwide before the pandemic began. Some 3 billion people lack basic hand-washing facilities. This means millions of people worldwide are more likely to experience poor health due to the absence of basic services and exposure to multiple socio-economic and environmental hazards. Structural inequalities have been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, showing how people from minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants are disproportionally affected by housing precarity, overcrowding and homelessness.


Statement from the UN Secretary-General on World Habitat Day 2020; October 5th.

Each year World Habitat Day focuses attention on the state of the world’s towns and cities. This year’s observance highlights the centrality of housing as a driver for sustainable urban development.

Currently, 1 billion people live in overcrowded settlements with inadequate housing. By 2030, that number will rise to 1.6 billion. Action is needed now to provide low-income families and vulnerable populations with affordable housing with security of tenure and easy access to water, sanitation, transport and other basic services. To meet global demand, more than 96,000 housing units will need to be completed every day – and they must be part of the green transition.

The urgency of improving living conditions has been brought to the fore by COVID-19, which has devastated the lives of millions in cities. Access to clean water and sanitation, along with social distancing, are key responses to the pandemic. Yet in slums it has proved difficult to implement these measures. This means an increased risk of infection, not only within slums, but in whole cities, many of which are largely serviced by low-income informal sector workers living in informal settlements.

On World Habitat Day, in this crucial Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, I call for heightened efforts to promote the partnerships, pro-poor policies, and regulations needed to improve housing in cities. As we strive to overcome the pandemic, address the fragilities and inequalities it has exposed, and combat climate change, now is the time to harness the transformative potential of urbanization for the benefit of people and planet.

António Guterres

SPEECHEES:


Statement by UN-Habitat Executive Director, Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif on World Habitat Day 2020, October 5.

Good evening, good afternoon and good morning to all of you. World Habitat Day 2020 is historic for many reasons. For the first time since 1986, we held the global observance in hybrid fashion. Surabaya is at the centre of a network of knowledge events and reflections across all continents, in 44 countries and 57 cities. For the first time, WHD is truly global in its reach and scope. I would like to thank all the countries, cities and communities who built events around the theme Housing for All: Towards a Better Urban Future. As we are now 10 months into the Decade of Action towards 2030, I hope we have used World Habitat Day to take stock of our efforts to ensure no one and no place is left behind. Many participants today have committed to working in partnership — be it with cities, local governments, the UN, grassroot groups, and the private sector — to accelerate implementation of the New Urban Agenda and achievement of the SDGs and in particular SDG11. Here are some of the commitments made by our partners on World Habitat Day: The Government of France is committed to working with UN-Habitat and to developing innovative solutions for affordable housing. The Government of South Africa is committed to translating the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda into regional strategies, action frameworks, and to foster interactive learning and innovative regional financing for Southern Africa. The Mexican Government is committed to creating by the end of the year an urban excellence and innovation unit to foster innovation to solve the challenges of cities. The city of Subang Jaya has committed to work towards doing its voluntary local review in commemoration of its city status later this month. Mr. Ian Shapiro, Executive Director of Reall, a real estate company, is committed to working with UN-Habitat to work towards delivering housing to the growing populations of Asia and Africa. These are commitments by countries, cities, the private sector and communities. I would like to urge all of us as individuals to make similar commitments and more importantly to ensure that we are able to put them into action. I have asked my team to follow up with all the organisers of Urban October events - now more than 1 thousand of them worldwide to catalogue these commitments and to report in 2021 the actions undertaken by all our partners. Ladies and gentlemen, World Habitat Day is also an opportunity to exchange ideas,share experience and work together to find ways to scale up urban solutions. The housing challenge is never more urgent that this year. 2020, dominated by COVID-19, is all about ensuring everyone has adequate housing to protect our families from the disease. Several key findings have emerged from the Roundtable discussions. This include the following: Accelerating achievement of the SDGs and implementation of the New Urban Agenda requires partnership and coordination at all levels, and the sharing of experiences from the local level. The Urban Agenda Platform is a great opportunity to accelerate actions towards the achievement of the New Urban Agenda and SDG11. As our distinguished guests have rightfully highlighted today, we truly believe that it will be a place to share and learn, an opportunity to engage in dialogue and exchange, and a powerful tool for us all to track, monitor, and evaluate our work. It is our hope that it will be a powerful catalyst to support policy making and evidence-based action, but also to show the benefits of urbanization. Ensuring recovery from COVID-19 requires an inclusive, participatory approach and all of community action. We need to raise awareness of the situation in informal settlements, and equally we need to create incentives for stakeholders including donors and the private sector to finance plans and strategies to transform and improve lives in slums. And for the recovery to be resilient, a people-centered approach that empowers the poor is needed to make sure not only infrastructure but also livelihoods are improved. Ladies and gentlemen, We only have 10 years left to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). World Habitat Day marks the completion of three quarters of the first year of consolidated actions. COVID-19 has certainly made it easier to work together as champions of urban settlements. We must keep our eye fixed on the prize. SDG #11, the urban SDG, is a docking station for all the other SDGs. Housing for All is not just about the built environment but fulfils a need more fundamental - the need to build homes and communities. I hope you see now why we regard housing for all as a human right. For the rest of this month, which we are calling Urban October, I hope you will continue to join webinars and events in your own countries to renew ties and commitments toward a better urban future. Finally, let thank the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the city of Surabaya for hosting the global observance of World Habitat Day. Let me also extend my thanks to honourable ministers, mayors and community leaders who have made the virtual gathering possible. Your contributions are very much appreciated. I now officially close World Habitat Day 2020 and I look forward to seeing all of you again at the end of the month when we celebrate World Cities Day on 31 October 2020 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Thank you

Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, UN-Habitat Executive Director.


EVENTS: UN-Habitat and Indonesia host the first ever virtual World Habitat Day 2020 from Surabaya.

Discover the events organized online from different regions of the world on the occasion of World Habitat Day in 2020!

AWARDS: The Habitat Scroll of Honour award ; The award, a plaque engraved with the name of the winner and their achievement is presented to the winners during the Global Observance of World Habitat Day.


Previous celebrations; World Habitat Day: Past events

World Habitat Day was first celebrated in 1986 with the theme “Shelter is My Right”. Nairobi was the host city for the observance that year. Other previous themes have included: “Shelter for the Homeless” (1987, New York); “Shelter and Urbanization” (1990, London); “Future Cities” (1997, Bonn); “Safer Cities” (1998, Dubai); “Women in Urban Governance” (2000, Jamaica); “Cities without Slums” (2001, Fukuoka), “Water and Sanitation for Cities” (2003, Rio de Janeiro), "Planning our Urban Future" (2009, Washington, D.C.), "Better City, Better Life" (2010, Shanghai, China) and Cities and Climate Change (2011, Aguascalientes, Mexico).

AUDIO PODCASTS

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres Message, on World Habitat Day 2020;

The theme of this year’s World Habitat Day, celebrated annually on the first Monday of October, is Housing for All: A Better Urban Future. This highlights the importance of one of key preventative measures in the fight against COVID-19 – access to adequate housing. An estimated 1.8 billion people live in slums and informal settlements, inadequate housing or in homelessness in our cities worldwide. World Habitat Day was first celebrated in 1986 and during the day events are held all round the world. In 2020 World Habitat Day falls on 5 October and the hybrid Global Observance is coming from Surabaya, Indonesia.

HOUSING FOR ALL - WHD 5 OCT 2020 (UN-Habitat Myanmar)



World Habitat Day 2020 offers an important opportunity to reflect on the effect of the COVID-19 crisis, and also how we can shape the future of human settlements more resilient.

Urban areas accounts for 95 percent of all confirmed cases, and have been at the epicentre of this pandemic. We have seen hospitals overflowing, jobs disappearing, schools closed and movement restricted. But we can, and we will recover, and use our experiences to build back better and greener.