Home > Partners > UN-HABITAT

United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT)

The United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT) is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, Habitat Agenda, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millenium, and Resolution 56/206.

The year 2002 was a commemorative one, being the first year in which UN-HABITAT supported governments and partners after its status was elevated from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme." As a result, the agency's responsibilities were further increased during this year, being charged with monitoring the achievement of the Millenium Declaration Goal of "making a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020." Support for the "urbanization agenda" was further enhanced through the "Political Declaration and Implementation Plan" of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, in September 2002, which endorsed the need for adequate shelter, alongside other priorities such as water, energy, food security, and biodiversity. The phrase "sustainable urbanization" was also coined, and it was decided that an increased commitment to addressing the associated management issues is one of the more urgent tasks that the world faces in the 21st century.

Today, half of the world's population lives in urban areas, whilst the other half is increasingly dependent upon what cities have to offer as centers of trade, employment, cultural diversity, and engines of national socio-economic growth. One billion people live in slums with inadequate access to water and proper shelter, the majority living in life-threatening conditions of deprivation and environmental degradation. With this number expected to double by 2025, the global urbanization trend appears to be "urbanization of poverty and deprivation," with growing unemployment, weak urban services delivery, lack of adequate shelter and basic infrastructure combining with increased disparities in benefits, in turn resulting in increased social exclusion, crime and violence. It is evident that an improvement in the living conditions of the urban poor must be of top priority this year, and indeed, this decade and century. UN-HABITAT's contribution will continue through its support in implementing the Habitat Agenda adopted at the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in 1996, endorsed at the May 2001 Special Session of the General Assembly "Istanbul+5," through its two sub-programmes:

• Adequate Sheter for All—the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure creating conditions for improved access to shelter for the world's poor;
• Sustainable Human Settlements Development—the Global Campaign for Food Urban Governance improving the effectiveness of local governance and management, through the introduction and use of efficient and accountable systems.