Special Session - Housing at the Centre of Global Coalitions (WUF13)

Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, a very, very warm welcome to all here in Baku.
Welcome to this session on housing at the center of global coalitions.
My name is Anne Marids Borges, and it's an absolute pleasure to be here today to help steer this vital discussion.
As we know, housing has never been about brick and mortar.
Rather, it is the absolute foundation of dignity, economic resilience, and sustainable development.
Today, with just under four years until 2030, we are here because the clock is ticking louder than ever.
And we'll be looking at how global coalitions and international financial institutions can lock on, strengthen cooperation, and place housing at the absolute center of global governance and finance and also to find out how to translate those commitments into concrete, scalable and local action, all this to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs.
So as you can see, we have a fantastic agenda ahead and I just suggest that we drive back straight into our program and to set our framework this afternoon, it is my absolute honor to welcome here His Excellency Jabril Ibrahim Abdulih, ambassador of the Federal Republic of Somalia to Kenya, a big round of applause for His Excellency, welcome.
Go ahead.
Yes, please.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Distinguish Chair, Excellencies, colleagues, partner, and participants.
At the outset, let me express my deep appreciation to the Republic of Azerbaijan for its exceptional hospitality in this great city of Baku.
I'm sure you agree with me.
It's a beautiful place.
It's an honor to also give an opportunity to open this special session on housing at the center of Global Coalition during the 13th session of the World Urban Forum.
Indeed, we gather at the moment when the question of housing has become an insurable from the future of humanity itself and the center of Wolf 13, those of us from Lirubi, ambassadors, and UN habitat, who have been discussing and deliberating this issue for a long time.
Across the continent, cities are expanding faster than system can respond.
Millions of families are searching not only for a roof, but also dignity, security, opportunity and belonging, from informal settlement vulnerable to climate shocks, to communities displaced by conflict and economic hardships, and the global housing challenges has become one of the defining test of our collective leadership and time.
The pressure confronting our cities today, rapid urbanization, displacement, infrastructure deficits, climate vulnerability, and growing inequality do not and do not reorganize borders.
The demand cooperation is practical, inclusive, sustained.
Government cannot succeed without local authority, International institutions cannot succeed without communities.
Of course, a policy cannot succeed without a partnership that breach in finance, innovation, and political commitment.
It needs coalition and united coalition, a united effort.
That's why this session is critical and important today.
From Somali's perspective, international cooperation remains indispensable in strengthening housing system, advancing sustainable urban development.
For countries emerging from fragile Rebuilding institutions, housing carries an even deeper significance.
It contributes to recovery, social mobility, economic inclusion, and peace building.
A well planned settlement that can reduce tension, restore confidence, and reconnect citizens to opportunity.
In many ways, housing has become a visible architecture of hope.
Around the world, we have seen what determined collaboration can achieve in Rwanda and another part of the world, Kenya, as well as Azerbaijan and other cities.
Those experiences remind us that while context is different, the principle remains universal.
Sustainable housing emerges when political will is marked by cooperation, innovation, and shared responsibility.
In this regard, the work of open ended working group on adequate housing for all carries particular importance.
The working group creates platform where diverse experiences need practical action.
That has enabled member states, local authorities, experts, and stakeholders to explore lessons, identify workable approaches, and strengthen implementation of housing commitments under the New Urban Agenda.
One of the greatest strengthen of the working group process has been its inclusiveness.
It recognized the housing challenges are multidimensional.
Affordability cannot be separated from land governance, urban resilience cannot be separated from infrastructure, climate adaptation cannot be separated from financing.
And sustainable development cannot be separated from the people.
Equal importantly, the process has reaffirmed the value of multilateralism at a time when global cooperation is often tested, as we have seen lately.
It has demonstrated the partnership between government, UN agencies, financial institutions, civil societies, local communities can produce more coordinated practical approach to housing policy.
As we continue our discussion here at Wolf 13, we must move beyond viewing housing as a sectoral issues.
Housing must be understood as a strategic investment, stability, prosperity, and human dignity at all.
The future of our cities will not be determined by the infrastructure and beautiful skylines.
It also determined by whether people can live in safely access opportunity and fill in the urban future we are building together.
Finally, given the expert in this room today as well as in throughout W 13, this session particularly will contribute to strengthen our resolve to deepen global coalition, mobilize partnerships, and support countries in building housing systems that are inclusive, resilienient, and sustainable and particularly, we're here to learn from each other.
I thank you.
Thank you so much, Excellency.
We are indeed here to learn from each other.
Thank you so much for emphasizing the power of that shared partnership, that shared responsibility.
Thank you very much, Your excellency.
It is indeed about determined partnership.
Well, let's start here from the heart of this movement, the institutional heart of this movement, and let's welcome now Mr.
Patrick Kasingham, Director of the Regional Programs Division at Human Habitat.
Round of applause, please.
Thank you very much.
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, a very good afternoon to each of you.
It's so nice to see each of you.
I'm actually honored to be here on behalf of our Executive Director, Anna Claudia Rushbk, who, at this very moment, even as we're speaking, is delivering our opening remarks at a special session convened by the government of Azerbijan taking place at this very moment.
But what I want to assure you is this, she's going to be here as soon as she can be and she's going to deliver the closing remarks as well.
It's good to see everyone.
I see some familiar faces.
I'm also seeing a lot of new faces as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying as His Excellency, the ambassador from Somalia just stated, that across every region in the world, housing has moved from being in the margins of policy debate to the center of political, economic, and social concern.
Now, that is both based on the reality of the complexity of housing, the challenges associated with housing, but how the discourse around housing has taken center stage, both politically, socially, and also economically as well.
Think about it.
In many countries, housing affordability is now shaping elections, not just in developing countries, but also in developed and OECD countries as well.
In cities, it is determining whether workers, young people, and vulnerable they're being impacted.
But the reality is when you take issues related to housing, think about informality, inequality, climate vulnerability, and infrastructure gaps, it brings us back, it circles back to this whole concept of housing.
Think about the global economy.
Housing systems are becoming deeply connected to questions of productivity, migration, public finance, and resilience.
Now, what does that really mean? Housing is no longer simply just a vertical or a social sector issue.
It's becoming a strategic systems issue and systems issues require coalition based responses.
Why? Because think about it this way.
No single institution or no single sector can try and solve the complexity of the global housing crisis on its own.
Think about it at different levels.
Can a national government do it without partnership with local governments? Can we do this without the partnership of the private sector? Can we do this without the participation and inclusion of civil society actors, for example? All this to say, ladies and gentlemen, is that the reality that we're confronted with this, any attempt to try and do this on our own would not yield the results that we yearn for.
Because if you think of issues that intersect with housing, climate, for example, not any entity that's exclusively focused on housing can try and do climate related issues on its own.
You need actors in the space of climate to be a critical part of this.
For too long, housing has been treated as an outcome of development.
But can I say this representing human habitat? Increasingly we are beginning to understand, ladies and gentlemen, that housing is actually an enabler for development, just not an outcome or an output of development.
Again, just to underscore my earlier point, it influences whether climate responses succeed, whether urban economies remain competitive, whether demographic transitions can be managed and whether the social cohesion still holds.
This is why housing must absolutely sit at the center of global coalitions.
It's not secondary or an afterthought.
It's not beside climate discussions, it's a critical part of climate discussions.
It's just not after infrastructure planning, it's a critical part of the planning.
It's not just a secondary economic policy, it's a critical part of it as well.
At the center, ladies and gentlemen, because the decisions we make on housing shape and use, transport systems, energy demand, emissions, et cetera, it is important to see housing at the center and not on the margins.
Excellence, we are also seeing an important shift internationally as well.
Housing is becoming a renewed area of multilateral cooperation.
At this World Urban Forum, we are seeing governments exchange lessons on affordability, informality, homelessness, housing finance, accessibility, reconstruction, and resilient urban development.
We also see housing increasingly reflected in nationally determined contributions and climate plans.
If I may just double down on this next point, and through the open ended intergovernmental expert working group on adequate housing, member states are advancing the first truly global intergovernmental dialogue dedicated specifically to housing questions.
I think that's such a big piece and an important aspect of where we need to be.
These are important signals, ladies and gentlemen, but they must now converge stronger collective action It is to create alignment around finance and policy, alignment between national ambition and local implementation and alignment between climate investments and housing outcomes.
Excellencies, if the 21st century is increasingly being shaped in cities, then housing will shape the future of cities a reality.
If housing shapes the future of cities, then housing must become central, like I said earlier, to how the international community thinks about sustainable development today.
So today's discussion is therefore not simply about housing policy.
It's important for us to be reminded about this.
It's about how we build stronger coalitions for a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable urban future.
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, can I take this opportunity to thank you and really look forward to engaging in the discussion about to happen.
Thank you very much.
And we thank you, Director.
Thank you very much for framing the path ahead.
A Director just said, indeed, housing can ever be treated as an afterthought anymore.
Well, with that being said, let's proceed to our first panel.
So please put your hands together to welcome our esteemed panelists, starting with Her Excellency, misses Janette Goulding, Senior Assistant Deputy Manager of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities of Canada.
Let's also welcome Mr.
Matthew Baldwin, head of the Housing Task Force and Deputy Director General at the European Commission.
Aide Marchea Masiglia Belo, Vice Minister of Housing of Colombia.
Mr.
Ming Zhang, Global Director for Urban subnational Finance, Tourism and Disaster Management at the World Bank.
Let's also welcome is worship Counselor Sakaria Unona, Mayor of Windc capital of Namibia, and last but certainly not least, Jonathan Rekford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.
Welcome to you all.
It's really lovely to have you here with us.
Before we proceed, ladies and gentlemen, this event is also yours and we really are keen to hear what you have to say.
In a second, a QR code will be on the screen right behind me.
Please have your phones ready because when the time is right, we would ask you to log in IV, which is a system that you and habitat has put together and through this, you'll be able to share your questions, your comments.
Listen very carefully, but also comment very carefully online, and we'll go back to you at the end of our second panel.
Also, another note, one of our panelists here will be speaking in Spanish, so if you are not fluent in Spanish, please have your headsets ready as well.
It's a little heads up.
So let me start with you, Your Excellency.
Given your deep oversight in Canada, how can housing be more systematically integrated into the overall political agendas of the G seven, G 20, G 77, and Bs to achieve the SDGs, especially SDG target 11.1 globally, please? Thank you.
Thank you very much for the question.
Housing is not just a social issue.
It's a fundamental to economic growth, productivity, health, and climate resilience, and it must be treated as a core priority across G seven and G 20 agendas.
G seven and G 20 leaders can elevate housing affordability and homelessness as shared global priorities by reflecting them in leaders declarations and advancing ministerial work to develop common approaches for measuring need and tracking progress on housing adequacy, affordability, and access to basic services.
Establishing housing as a standing item within infrastructure, finance, sustainable development discussions would help drive sustained coordinated action and advancing common indicators and reporting frameworks such as UN habitats efforts to define and measure homelessness would strengthen global accountability.
Canada's experience shows the value and clear definitions, such as core housing need to identify households in unaffordable, overcrowded, or inadequate housing, and better target policy responses aligned with SDG 11.
Canada systems based homelessness.
Approach to homelessness offers a replicable model.
Through reaching home, Canada's main federal homelessness program, we support data driven, community led housing first responses by supporting communities to implement outcomes based approaches and coordinated access to homelessness services.
Reaching home ensures that there are no wrong doors for people seeking help so that they can be connected with appropriate housing solutions.
While the causes of homelessness are varied and complex, at its core is a lack of safe, adequate, and affordable housing.
The solutions are clear.
The use of public land to unlock how affordable housing, blended finance models that provide low cost concessional lending to de risk investments and crowd in private and institutional investment, investing in modern methods of construction to reduce costs, build faster, and support climate goals, just to name a few.
Scaling up collaboration with multilateral organizations, institutional investors, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector will be essential to mobilize the capital needed to deliver housing at space and at scale.
Governments must continue to act as an enabler and a catalyst for innovation and support people centered approaches to creating complete and inclusive communities where people can work, live, and thrive.
The G seven and G 20 forums provide opportunities for countries to come together to discuss lessons learned, to make shared commitments to action, and to hold each other accountable for making meaningful progress.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
So bringing that global political agenda down to structured frameworks is absolutely crucial, like you mentioned.
But let me turn to you now, Matthew Baldwin.
Let's look at the European lens of Canada.
So how can the European Commission help translate growing political recognition of housing within global coalitions into concrete, scalable financing solutions that deliver affordable and climate resilient housing at scale, please? Good afternoon, everyone.
That's a complicated question.
I'll do my best.
Thank you very much for inviting us here.
I'd like to begin by firstly saying following what Janet has said, it's critically important that housing is now arriving finally at the core of the G seven, the G 20, the G 77 agendas.
Why? Because we all know that it is a quintessential cross cutting topic for supporting jobs and growth.
We look at this in Europe through the perspective of competitiveness, short term competitiveness.
In my first week in the job, the Director General of confine industria, the Italian business organization burst through my door and he said, I need you to deliver on housing because we can't recruit and we can't recruit because there's no housing for people.
That's the biggest single priority.
Um, and that is the reality, people are unable to live where the jobs are.
That's the new factor that housing has been troubling the most vulnerable in our communities forever, but now it's biting on our economies and our jobs and growth in a really significant way.
In a longer term perspective, average age of people being able to leave home in the European Union anybody, it's getting north of 30, simply because people can't afford to set up on their own.
So it's driving negative demographic change as well.
So, This is critical and we now need to help bring political recognition of housing as this quintessential topic to the core of our agendas.
It's critical for reasons you know well, let me rattle through some of the reasons.
For affordability and accessibility reasons, sometimes you just can't get access to a house.
Or a home.
It's critical in the context of cities.
We know the problems, at least in Europe are concentrated there and it focuses again on the young people and the most vulnerable in our communities in those cities.
And in a way, it's convenient because if there's one place that is capable of addressing those cities, and I'm looking at Mikaela from Vienna there in a fundamental way in a hands on way, whether it's climate change, whether it's urban mobility problems or it's housing, cities are capable of doing it and we should empower them to do so.
This perfect storm is actually an opportunity, if we turn it around, to bring affordable and quality housing within the range of everybody, particularly let's think about young people, to, as you say, deliver on the resilience side to bring down emissions from our buildings, to start to realize improvements in sustainability or transit, broadening the catchment area through which we look at the prism of affordable housing and relating it to jobs.
But once again, I just want to underline making that housing question central to all of our political agendas.
If there's one thing we can take from the session, I'd stress that.
Sorry, to finally come quickly to your question.
How do we drive this in terms of funding and finance solutions? We have now published in the European Commission the first ever European Affordable Housing Plan in December.
Please take a look if you're interested.
It's our attempt to add European value to the responsibilities of member states and regions, and of course, cities to deliver housing.
And one of the issues which is bedeviling all of us is the supply of finance, hence the need for our Pan European investment platform, a pragmatic toolkit to try to bring innovative solutions to maximize the use of our limited public money to leverage in responsible private capital.
For example, how do we best design revolving funds? How do we best do blending of grants and loans? Um, how do we think about housing bonds, which many of you in cities are addressing those issues? Let's get together, establish the best practices and find ways of advancing on those different things.
This will be particularly crucial as we come to the next EU financial framework, which will operate from 2027, and we very much hope to see the tools again, we've offered in our proposals for that financial framework taken up by the member states, taken up by the Parliament to deliver the maximum possible for housing in that context.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very, very much, Matthew.
This perfect storm is an opportunity to deliver.
Thank you very much for this strong call to action, very visual.
Well, let's pause our panel right here because we are honored with the arrival of the assistant to the President of Azerbijan and head of the Foreign Policy Affairs at the Department of the Presidential Administration, Mr.
Ik Mat Aliyev, please welcome, sir.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm also extremely thankful to the distinguished panel.
I also express my apologies for being late because there was an other commitments, and also I'm delighted to also welcome to all participants to our Event Vault Urban Forum.
Despite the calamities of the climate change and of the whims of the weather, I'm glad that as a regular format, our event continues at full swing and with the involvement, participation and engagement of our distinguished delegates.
And today's topic is dedicated to one of the important and fundamental issue of the housing and the context of the geopolitics.
I'm extremely glad and privileged to share the experience of Azerbijan in this field.
In the early 90s and Azerbijan faced immediate war and conflict from the neighboring country where Azerbijan's 23rd percent territories have been occupied.
It has caused one of the biggest humanitarian crisis of Europe since the Second World War.
In a short period of time, relatively small country, Azerbijan faced with 1 million refugees and IDPs and all of them have been deprived from the housing and affordable living conditions.
That time, Azerbijan also faced immediate challenges of the economic problems and difficulties that provided huge challenges for the people and the government of Azerbijan that time, we were obliged to provide shelters and tent houses or even tent villages for the refugees without any proper and decent conditions and even train cars have been used for accommodating 1 million more refugees and IDP, therefore, with a housing problem in the context of the geopolitics, in the context of the wars and conflicts is not a topic so alien to Azerbijan specifically in the early 90s.
But the government has done as an ultimate goal to provide a shelter and affordable food accessibility and accessibility to the certain commodities for our refugee and IDP community.
Since then, we also provided certain government privileges for the IDPs in Azerbijan, but the immediate demand from the Azerbijan government was to return back to their homes and within a decent and secure manner.
But considering the conditions that we are facing at that time, Azerbijan government probably it was also one of the very unique case, provided 300,000 houses and apartments for the Azerbijan refugees and IDPs so as to provide them with the proper conditions that they can live in their homes.
Because in every language, I believe that there is a translation of this word, my house, my home is my castle.
Regardless it's a big or small, whatever conditions it could be, but my house is my castle and every person is destined and is entitled to have a house or to have it home and to have a roof under which they can live together with their families.
With such a philosophy, and with such an thinking, we provided such a shelter to our IDP community.
And But again, a fundamental demand of our refugees and IDPs was to return back to their homes.
In the meantime, our challenge of the IDPs and providing them with accommodation is also further hardened and become so much difficult with 300,000 refugees also coming from Republic of Armenia, but they were also ethnic Azerbijanis have been expelled from the territory of Armenia.
But now this issue in the past, we are facing the new realities and new housing challenges experience of Azerbijan.
But since 2024, war and conflict is over, South Caucasus region is not associated any longer with the wars and conflicts.
For us, it's in the past, Azerbaijan fully restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
With the neighboring Armenia, we also initialed peace agreement in Washington summit that took place in the last year and it provides a favorable geopolitical condition for ensuring lasting peace and security in the region of the Caucasus.
But once we liberated the territories, we have seen completely different picture.
It's an unimaginable picture that yesterday my president also mentioned Adam City, for example.
An Arakan city of Azerbijan once accommodating 100,000 civilians is devastated to an extent that it has been considered Hiroshima of the Caucasus.
Hiroshima was destroyed by the nuclear weapons, but Aram City was destroyed as a result of the deliberate actions of taking everything brick by brick.
In a sense, nine cities of Azerbijan have been almost completely destroyed and 300 different settlements and villages.
We are in the process of returning 1 million refugees and IDPs back home.
It's really gigantic mission in front of Azerbijan government and we are just building the area bigger the size of the state of the Lebanon.
From the scratch, even I would call it from the minus five because this area is also contaminated with the land mice.
1.5 million different land mines and New York source also contaminated that areas.
We are also engaged in a massive de mining campaign to ensure safety and security because in a housing concept, security and safety and this in housing concept is crucially important.
But also once libération with territories, we tried to appeal to the international experience and knowledge from where we can take best knowledge and expertise.
Quite frankly, we couldn't have a proper one where we can apply to the models and the realities of Azerbijan.
Certainly, we appreciate with all due respect experience of the United Nations and its institutions in other post conflict situations, but we were not happy with the speed.
Also in the UN operations, mainly funding comes from the donor community and we also know whether there is a fatigue in the donor community.
But in the case of Azerbijan again, it was a task by my president and the leadership of Azerbijan was a time.
We should do it in a very timely manner because Azerbijan IDPs and refugees were waiting for 30 years with the dream of returning back to their homes and these territories have been liberated.
Or within a short period of time, but high quality, dignity, security, but the key parameters of our rebuilding and reconstruction effort.
Therefore, we designed our own model of the post conflict reconstruction and rebuilding.
Again, considering international experience, but in building Azerbijan's own model.
What we understand under such circumstances is the key issue is coordination and coordination within the government institutions.
Because we also looked at an experience of the Balkans in my own experience, I also served at the delegation of Azerbijan to NATO that years when after the Balkan operations when NATO and other European institutions engaged, But in the post conflict reconstruction and rebuilding, we sometimes ended up, I mean the international community of duplicating one another's efforts.
But in the case of Azerbijan it was in one country and one management and administration infrastructure that we can apply.
But within the government, coordination is a key.
Therefore, my president himself was coordinating everything at the strategic level and giving the appropriate instruction to the government institutions.
Again, first, building the infrastructure and providing accessibility to those areas accompanied with the massive de mining campaign, but we tried to ensure.
Nevertheless, we are not immune to the mine incidents, but also happens.
Since 2020, we have a 420 plus different mine incidents in the liberated territories.
But civilians are returning back and one of the first places civilians return back, by the way, they're going to their homes.
They're in search of their homes.
Most of the time people return to the post conflict situation with a dream of finding their homes, but they can't find.
Because the homes have been destroyed.
But unfortunately, the pathways towards their homes have been contaminated with the land mines.
A second place probably they go a little metaphorical calling it, they go to the graveyards, to graveyards of their parents, to their loved ones.
But pathways are also land mine with clearing that areas and providing pathway for the civilians so that they can return back to their homes and building also master plans.
Because modern urbanism and modern culture of the urbanism is changing.
Therefore, we are also adapting with liberated territories to the modern standards of the urbanism, but certainly respecting the environmental conditions because Karabakh and Eastern Zhangz regions have been declared as a green zone by my president.
Understanding and considering that there is a huge potential of the renewables in those areas, whether it's in a hydro, sun, and some other possibilities for the renewable energy.
Currently, Azerbijan has managed again within short period of time to build 300 megawatt potential of the renewable potential in the liberated territories.
Currently, we are building in nine cities from the scratch, 300 different settlements.
Within the recent five years.
Again, understanding and in view of the land mine problem, we have managed to ensure secure dignified return of the 86,000 of Azerbaijanis back to Karabakhan Eastern Dean Ghazar region.
Currently such an amount of the people are working, living, studying in those territories and building their new life.
Again, housing is a right of everybody My house is my castle, understanding this philosophy.
We are building our Kaag Asens region.
Azeraijan again is more than glad to learn from other countries as it was yesterday mentioned by my president and we're also ready to share our experience as well, to share our challenges with international community with such a We also considered that Azerbijan could be one of the appropriate place to host World U one Forum, to learn from the international community and to ensure to share our experiences in a post conflict rehabilitation and post conflict reconstruction.
But unfortunately in some other parts of the world, including in our region, that we see the new wars and conflicts are emerging are happening.
We see in front of the eyes destruction of the cities and human settlements under such conditions, again, Azerbijan is ready to learn and to share its an experience.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Excellency.
I'm going to try something che co.
Thank you very much.
The right place? Yes, please, by all means, thank you so much.
Thank you for making a point for being here with us today and also for your hospitality in this beautiful city of Baku.
We really really appreciate you being with us today.
Let's now resume our panel, but before we do so, I just want to give you a quick reminder to scan the QR code that's right here behind me.
Please do so because this session is really yours as well.
We are very keen to hear your comments or maybe your questions for our panelists here.
Do so and we really look forward to see what you have to share with us today.
With that, let's resume and our next segment will be in Spanish, so get your headsets ready because I'm now turning to you, Vice Minister Belo.
Colombia has been advancing integrated housing, land, and territorial development policies.
From your experience, what national reforms, particularly around data systems, planning tools, or institutional coordination, have been most critical to translating global housing commitments into concrete delivery on the ground? Bueno.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I am very grateful for being here today in this panel as a representative of Latin America.
I'm truly honored to be here as a Colombian person.
To answer your question, I would like to talk about a very important thing that happened in our country, which was the sign of the Peace Agreement that we signed in 2006.
And one of the most important things in this peace Agreement was that was the integral a reform to start as a country, to face this challenge of the land was the problem of of the violence that is happening in the country.
We needed a precise information.
We didn't know what we had to do.
There was a very important factor, which was the implementation of the multipurpose cadastro in order to identify the pieces of land to redistribute thanks to a housing program that we have thought.
So the implementation of this multipurpose cadastro had to be implemented, and then we understood how to advance as a country many In the long term throughout the land agency, we have delivered these lands to the farmers that were victims of the conflict.
Most of them, they received these lands back because they were victims of this conflict.
We also have created a program in order to receive our lands back.
There's also another thing that we're managing in this governmental project, which is the urban territorial management, which is something that the president decided to do when he was the mayor of Bogota City.
This was part of our development program because we wanted to tackle this issue.
So this was part of our development program because we had to work on our resilience program, and we also had to tackle the climate change.
A cities and as settlements, we know where do we take the waters, where the water is going, how do we treat our, How do we treat our waters? What we want to do is to have a balance in between the sustainable growth of the city and and at the same time, we want to care about our biodiversity.
What we're trying to do here, we have two very important tools.
The first one, the second one depends on the politics the land policies.
But the climate change, we know that has demonstrated to all of us the importance of the planning of urban planning.
Unfortunately, most of the time, Throughout disasters, we understand how important these measures are.
We are also trying to work together with UN habitat in an observatory In order to create a very special chapter to help the people, as housing policies, we know that the people were always invisible.
Most of the times we forgot about how important the growth of informal sectors were, we always realized that was a problem, but now we know how vulnerable these families are and those that are that are part of this, we need to support them.
The the government needs to support them because we need to we need to work together with the communities.
And in this sense, we are trying to work together with the country and we're trying to work together with the communities and that is managed by the main communities, together with the government.
We hope that the government with the next mandate they will take these topics and to continue in this path.
We hope that UN habitat will be a very important strategic partner to all of us.
Thank you so much, Vice Minister, for sharing some of those powerful tools and also for mentioning how access to land, its redistribution is absolutely key for some of the most vulnerable communities here on the planet.
Thank you very, very much.
Let me now turn to you, Mr.
Shang, because let's bring the global financial architects view.
Which innovative financing approaches best complement coalition based efforts to ensure housing investments are inclusive, climate aligned, and scalable.
I would kindly ask you as well to stick to the 3 minutes period that we all have.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
3 minutes.
First of all, I really want to congratulate UN Habitat for raising housing as a important issue.
It's a really important agenda.
In the World Bank, we have been working on the housing agenda for many, many years with many partners, including Colombia, including Kenya and many other countries.
Now we have a renewed focus on jobs and housing is really important for jobs.
Our study done by Kathy Lynch and others showing about 15% of the global GDP is related to housing, both investment and housing consumption.
That translates into jobs.
But also more than that, where the housing location is have really strong determinant on the access to jobs.
A lot of people cannot access jobs because they cannot afford the housing that's close to the jobs.
It's really important agenda.
From World Bank perspective, we work on housing on three sides.
One is how to increasing the financing because housing needs long term financing.
The second part is how to improve the policies which block the financing and supply of housing.
The third part is how to increase the supply of housing, which include the land issues, infrastructure services, and the developer industry.
That whole value chain housing issue, that's something that we need to work on all these things together.
It's a complicated issue.
Some of the innovative things that you suggested, Recently, we're focusing on really how to use limited multilateral financing to mobilize more private sector financing.
One example is working in Brazil, we are working with Kaiser, the development bank.
Look at how do we use both from the World Bank side and IFC, where we have financing to the government and the private sector financing to mobilize altogether $400 million of our financing mobilized through the government the eco Investment program mobilizing, I think 3 billion additional financing.
That's the kind of thing that we're looking at.
Similarly, we're working in Africa.
We have the Africa Green Resilient inclusive housing derisking facility, where we channel IDA's concessional financing through the Eastern and Southern Africa Trade and Development Bank.
This deploys catalytic de risking products across in the housing value chain.
With $95 million IDA financing, the facility aims to crowd in $440 million in total private capital.
Work public, private leveraging private capital, that's one of the main thing that we're working on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Shang.
Thank you very much for setting that golden standard, I want to call it.
You've mentioned Africa, and I think that's a perfect transition to go to you, your worship.
Let's look at the front lines where the rubber meets the road, I want to say because you are working at that front line in a city where there are many challenges and all these housing commitments, that's where they either make it or break it.
That's a city.
As a mayor working at the front line, where are, according to you, the biggest capacity? What are they or system gaps that cities face in planning, delivering, and monitoring adequate housing, particularly in fast growing urban areas.
I also want to remind you that you have 3 minutes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Amiri for this opportunity.
Excellency that I have said that you can't build the house alone.
It is you need teamwork.
Now, for me as a mayor of City of Windk actually, City of Windok have confronted a rapid urban growth.
We have people that are coming in from rural area for green pasture within the city.
But then in order for us now to arrest the housing, especially the effectiveness of it, we are working at the three pillars, that is now the township establishment so that we can be able to increase servicing.
That one part of it is that we are approaching that so that we can be able to delay the township and establish them until we full actually service it in a back way.
Then number three is actually, we have to do what we normally do is for the community engagement, and co production.
That means that we are also dealing with the communities so that they can be able to do also the planning, that will also then involve NGOs and informal settlement because most of our people, the most populated areas they are living in informal settlements.
So we have then to make sure that they have decent house.
So that's why we have to engage with them so that we can be able not to remove them away they have settled, but then to make sure that we save and make sure that they have a decent housing.
Then the other part is the public rent that release for affordable housing.
On that one, the city provides several municipal rent for low cost housing so that at least those people who cannot be able to afford, they can be able also to afford and have housing at the lower price.
That is now the low cost housing.
That's how we mitigate on that one so that at least they can be able to have a roof on their head.
In terms of the mechanism, we are looking at a few things that we are moving from pilot projects where we have to make sure that the delivery and we are required actually three things for the national government and also global partners they have to involve.
That is also one that have to do with integrated data platforms where we need to share even data systems.
And because that will help also then connect nt records because if you are just giving out n to people to build, but you don't have a record, then you can't be able to have a data in terms of how many residents that we have allocated rent and how many that are still in need of rent.
Then we are also looking at the branded finance and project preparation support whereby we are looking at that the city cannot access capital of scales, but then we are also looking at the Bengapo project so that at least can then at the wrecking and the retain margins that are lower when it comes to bank.
Also, we also need technical assistance to structure township establishment so that most of these housing projects can be able to move forward.
In fact, when we are looking at the brand and finance facilities, it can also reduce investment risk in terms of increment of housing, which means that your inhabitant or the African development bank and guaranteed from national treasuries transfer all have role to play in this initiative.
Then the last one we also have the former partnership models with PROs that have to deal with the national statutory provisions that clearly define the responsibility of the city.
So where we have a national housing ministry and private partners, but have then also to come in so that they can join hands with us in order to make sure that we mitigate the housing.
I think we did.
Thank you for what we have for now.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, your worship.
Thank you.
And he has been driving for affordable accessible housing for several decades now.
So based on this long term perspective, where do you see current windows of opportunity for strengthening the impact of the global Housing coalition and also promoting new financing pathway? Thank you, Excellency distinguished delegates.
It's an honor to be with all of you today.
I think we're seeing an historic shift right now.
The bad news is that the gap between what it costs to create or improve housing and what families can afford is the widest in modern history.
The opportunity that may come from that is that local, national and global levels now, housing, maybe for the first time that I can remember is at the top of agendas and that creates an opportunity for us for action.
However, with that greater political attention, it's overwhelmingly domestic in nature.
Housing is not yet treated as a priority within international development, and this is a critical gap.
As a global housing organization now marking 50 years and operating in more than 60 countries, we see the consequences of that gap every day.
Last year, we did a detailed review of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Assistance Committee and their creditor reporting system, the database that tracks foreign assistance commitments and transactions.
We found three concerning findings.
First, housing is not yet understood as a catalyst for development impact.
We know it is, but we need to broaden the tent and understanding.
The creditor reporting system still includes slum clearance as an acceptable practice under the definition of low cost housing and outdated and harmful framing that we're working to change, but which will require strong member state support.
Second, less than 1% of official overseas development assistance or ODA is directed towards housing and slum upgrading.
For a sector that underpins poverty reduction, health outcomes, climate adaptation, and economic opportunity, this level of investment is profoundly insufficient.
Third, when we applied a large language model to analyze the entire creditor reporting system database, we found that many housing related investments are not classified as housing at all.
This means that housing is not only underfunded, it is in many ways statistically invisible.
This lack of clarity is precisely why we developed the global housing continuum, a framework designed to provide governments, international financial institutions, housing stakeholders, and development partners with a shared language for understanding and financing housing systems.
The continuum officially launches today at 4:00 in multipurpose room 11, and we'd welcome all of you to join us to learn more.
We must also recognize the significance of the BLM call to action championed by France, Brazil, and Kenya at cop 30 last year.
It represents a critical political opening for housing.
It calls for integrating housing into climate strategies, establishing an alliance of IFIs and MDBs, and importantly, for the first time, acknowledges the need to recognize housing within the ODA.
We hope more governments will engage with this agenda and help translate these commitments into concrete action.
Finally, the open ended intergovernmental working group remains an essential, though underfunded platform for advancing global dialogue on housing.
The recommendations being prepared for the 2029 must include clear frameworks, actionable guidance, and strong member state endorsements.
The OEEWG has the potential to serve as the institutional anchor for sustained progress if it is adequately supported.
In conclusion, our collective task is to ensure that political momentum is matched by development finance, climate finance, and multilateral cooperation.
Moving from commitment to impact will require real investment in new programs, including through foreign assistance, along with sustained implementation resources and time needed to get this right.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Jonathan, for this perspective and we have to leave it here for our fantastic panel.
I'm going to keep you with me on the stage for a little while longer, but I'll ask you to stand up, please for a group picture, please.
I will also ask the panelists for our next panel to please join us on the stage for a remembrance of this moment.
Let's all remember this moment together.
I would also like to call our coordinating focal points, Isabel Omar and An to join us as well on the stage.
While this is all happening, I would like to remind everybody to scan the QR code behind me.
We heard that it was a little bit too small earlier on, so now our tech team have worked wonders and it's a little bit bigger.
It'll be easier for you to scan and also to share any questions that you might have for our panelists here today, any comments as well, and we'll read them.
I'll just give you a few seconds to scan the code and share on our AOV tool.
It's very easy to use, so please do feel free to do so.
Wonderful picture here.
Let's remember this moment, we've had a very, very powerful first half of our program.
I think that we've heard our experts very loud and clear where there is a roof, there is dignity.
In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, do use that AOV tool.
Fantastic.
A big round of applause one more time for His Excellency, Mr.
Ikmat Azev.
Thank you.
And all our panelists as well.
Thank you, Your worship.
With that, let's proceed to our second panel.
Yes, please.
While the room is reshuffling, who has had a chance to log into the AOV tool? Who has had a chance to send their questions or comments? Not yet.
All right.
Let's move to our second panel discussion, which is housing at the core of global coalitions.
I have the pleasure of being here on the stage with Her Excellency misses Janet Goulding, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities of Canada, as well as Mr.
Matthew Baldwin, head of the Housing Task Force and Deputy Director General at the European Commission.
I think they do deserve a round of applause.
What do you think? And also, we are here in the company of misses A Marchesa sorry.
Yes.
This is like a deja vu, isn't it? So we have here on the stage with me, misses Emilia Sz Secretary-General of United Cities and local governments.
That's better, isn't it? Thank you.
Mucho Gusto.
We also have Nicholas Buffy, Director of Marcinational de Professional or something.
Lajana Maandar, Secretary-General and Chair of the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights, welcome.
Enrique Flota, Director of the Police Institute, welcome.
Co Ono, Director of Telecommunications Standardization Bureau, who's here representing the Secretary-General of the International Communication Union and last but certainly not least, Asilan Bosamo representative for European and International Affairs at the Vienna City Council.
I think that now we can give them a big round of applause, please.
Of course, how can we forget misses Roddy Kratza who are here to join us as well.
And let me just give your title here so that I get it right, former governor of the Ionian Islands region.
Thank you very much for being with us as well, misses Kratza.
So let's dive right in.
I would like to start with you, misses Ss, please.
Global coalitions sometimes we know struggle to connect high level political commitments with real action on the ground.
Can you tell us from UCLG's perspective, what makes a housing coalition truly transformative rather than just symbolic and how can local governments ensure these coalitions deliver concrete results for people on the ground, especially in rapidly urbanizing contexts? Well, that's quite a question.
Good afternoon, everybody.
UCLA stands for United Cities and local governments.
That is the World Organization that gathers mayors and governors and their associations.
We actually like symbolism a lot.
Because it is without symbolism, you cannot change things.
You need to change the perspective of things before you can actually change things on the ground.
The reason why some of the critical challenges that we are facing around housing and development are not coming through, are not actually changing significantly is because we are still organizing instruments, methodologies, and governance around values or concepts that are no longer applicable.
Um And so for us, the symbolic type of partnerships that we have had with the many institutions that are here and that were represented in the previous panel are extremely important.
That doesn't mean that we are not very concrete and very ambitious on the type of transformation that we want.
Local and regional governments are all about, and you heard from Win Hook before, we are all about transforming the lives of people, the everyday lives of people through local service provision.
In that sense, we think that coalitions around housing can actually achieve important things provided we have a broader understanding of housing.
I think that in the 20 years that I have been coming to places like this to discuss housing, we have had a very big evolution of what we understand as the critical issues around housing.
I really like what I have been hearing this morning.
But in order to change what we understand around housing, and just to be clear, those of you that haven't been around as long as I am, we didn't use to talk about jobs.
When we talked about housing.
We didn't used to we did talk about dignity, but we didn't talk about jobs.
We didn't talk about neighborhoods so much.
We didn't talk about right to the city.
We had to bring it in later, right? So in order to make that spirit and that change of narrative feasible and impacting everyday life, we need a transformation of um, of finance and we need together to push for a transformation of finance.
We also need to understand that housing is intrinsically linked with other service provision that we have in cities.
It is linked with education, it is linked with health.
It is linked with local economic and social development for sure.
And what we think the partnerships that we have developed in the past have made this issue very concrete is that we have been pushing for housing not to only be on the agenda as an infrastructure issue, but as a developmental issue that is now at the heart of the changing demographics of our time.
That is also key to address some of those challenges.
Symbolism, we need to put funding where we want things to change.
But above all, we need to understand housing from a different perspective.
Care at the heart of a of housing policies will be critical.
Gender equality will be critical to transform the way that we live and the international financial architecture will also need to change because there is no way that we can change the type of investment if we don't transform that.
But from cities alliance to our alliance with Islam dweller, international, with institutes like P, we feel that what we are working on is beyond symbolism, but symbolism we need as well.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, misses Says.
Thank you very much.
I saw so many nods when you mentioned care because this is why we're here today to care for the people and give dignity.
Thank you very much.
Let me now turn to you.
Mr.
Buffy, let's pivot to the international real estate and market perspective.
NPM is the largest exchange forum for the global real estate community.
How would you describe the role the community would play in the global coalition to address the housing crisis? I have another question.
Let's try to squeeze all your answers because the global housing crisis can only be countered if public and private institutions work hand in hand.
Which innovative solutions and promising opportunities can you see for the private and public collaboration can you see emerging and how can this work? Thank you.
Thank you.
First, thanks to Anna Claude sb and the whole UN Habitat team for the invitation.
I think we had a fantastic debate two months ago in Cant at MIPIim for housing matters and I think that urban forum now is a great continuation of all those reflections.
MPM is the largest trade show for real estate investment, bringing together policymakers, developers, architects, investors from all around the world, 20,000 delegates, 90 countries represented for a whole week in the city of Cannes.
Um, and for 35 years, this trade show was mainly focused on investment in office, logistics, data centers, hospitality, all kinds of asset classes, but residential was not really at the heart of the interest of investors, and COVID happened.
And it really changed a lot of the perspectives of investors and suddenly, some of the asset class dropped in interests and some others became much more interesting for them.
For instance, what we call the living sector, which is, uh, a broad sector, including residential, but also purpose built student accommodation, BTR and so on, is now the number one asset class for investors in the world.
Just for 2025 in the EEA region, there was 60 billion euros of investment in that sector.
At the same time, the production of housing fell by 5%.
So it means that there is a deterioration of the interests of investors in the living sector and how we target all those investments toward affordable housing.
There is a strong decoriation first.
Secondly, private sector is increasingly understanding that housing is not just another asset class, it's the infrastructure of cities.
If we cannot house the people, the cities will collapse everything, all the economical dynamic and cycle will not follow and there's a strategic critical risk associated to not housing people.
This is why at MiPIM since 2023, we have started a new session called Housing Matters, where we try to bring together just like we're doing now, policymakers, public sector, and the private sector to understand how we can solve that housing problem globally.
This is a real rise of conss from the private sector that's not just another asset class, not just another investment stream and so on.
To now answer your second question, people are increasingly understanding they need to work hand in hand public and private sector.
I'm giving you some examples.
First, a lot of the speculation lies in the land.
So it is now clear that's one of the outcomes of housing matters is when the public sector control the land, It usually leads to much more reasonable prices and outcome.
If you try to subsidize downstream the production of housing, you're usually subsidizing the private sector.
If you can control the land upstream, by land value capture, by preempting passionately over the years, exactly like the Vienna City is doing or the Sangare is doing.
If you can also reform the zoning and centralize the decision, this is also helping in controlling the land.
That's one example.
A second reason to work hand in hand between public and private sector is de risking the investment because most of the investors, they can accept having less return on investment, not seven or 8%, but they would accept three to 4% with affordable housing if there is less risk in investment.
This is where all the guarantees found are entering the game.
For instance, there's the creation this year ad MPM of the UK National Housing Bank.
Bringing the fundamental guarantee to de risk the investment.
And there is also maybe the way public authorities can also give guarantee to the rents.
For instance, to allow, um, built to affordable bid to rent.
There are many ways public and private sectors can work together.
As a conclusion because I think it was maybe a bit longer than expectancy, I had two questions.
In the conclusion, it's not a capital crisis.
The capital is here, it's not directed towards affordable housing.
It's much more of a governance and reform crisis.
Our feeling at MIPIM is that the public sector should be allowing more capital from the private sector to flow onto the affordable housing sector rather than trying to subsidize directly that sector.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Buffy.
Thank you for telling us more about that private public equilibrium.
That's absolutely key.
Let me now ask you, Mr.
Frotta civil society often plays a critical role in ensuring housing policies reach the most vulnerable.
From your work in Brazil, how can participatory approaches and community generated data improve housing policy design, accountability, and delivery? Thanks for the question.
Hi everybody.
Good afternoon.
Thanks for having me.
Policy Institute is a resiliency that has been working for almost four decades promoting and defending the right to the City.
We are part of global coalitions as the Habitat International Coalition or the global platform for the right to the City among others.
So the issue of global coalitions really matters for us.
And also, it's important to address that the previous years, Brazil has been in the center of international forum like the G 20 summit or the CP 30 last year in Brazil.
So, Not only global coalitions, but for me, it's truly important to address the multi stakeholder engagement.
Having said that, I would say that social participation for us in urban policies, especially is one of the pillars of the right to the city because we really believe that communities and social movements are knowledge holders whose experience must shape the solutions.
I'll give you a couple of examples to make more concrete what I'm saying.
During the COVID 19 pandemic, for example, in Brazil, The evictions campaign, a broad coalition in Brazil monitored, recorded the displacements across the country.
We are talking about thousands of displacements during this period.
The Brazilian state and local governments simply refused to monitor the evictions, civil society decided to do that.
By doing that, we not only produced the reports, but we reached the Brazilian Supreme Court and we really achieved a national decision on the Supreme Court that imposed a moratorium of the evictions during the pandemic.
This is a very concrete example about despite the government lack of hearing of the civil society, civil society engagement and participation can really change the game.
A second very concrete example is about how vulnerable communities here right now in Brazil are generating their own solar energy right now.
So they are articulating adequate housing with energy transition in many experiences, and together with the Urban social movements in Brazil Policy Institute has applied this experience in low income housing complexes.
And because we are part of the National Council of Cities, our space of social participation, we have been able to engage with policymakers and showing them that this initiative is scalable.
So we are trying to convince the Brazilian government that this can became a public policy around the country.
So for us, it's clear that when putting housing at the center, we can address most of our current challenges as humanities, forced evictions, climate change, care, gender equality, et cetera.
So I could give many other examples, but I would also use my last minute to say that we had also experienced in Brazil in the previous years a setback of this participatory process and system in Brazil 2016-2022 in the previous government.
What shows the fragility of these achievements.
We are rebuilding the whole participatory system in Brazil right now.
By that, what does that mean for the global coalitions? I would mention three important things.
The first one is that participatory approaches are not a procedural add on.
They are the core mechanisms for more effective housing policies and urban planning.
Governments that keep them but the wrong houses in the wrong places for the wrong people.
Second, community generated data must be recognized as official data.
We need frameworks that require states to integrate this data into diagnostics, budgets, and accountability systems.
Finally, civil society needs sustainable and independent finance, not project by project survival.
We need structural support that allows us to hold governments accountable across political cycles.
So if you want to put housing at the center, we need to put people at the center.
Housing for the most vulnerable people will only reach those people if they have the real power in designing, monitoring, and demanding it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Rota.
Thank you.
Let's put the human at the center of what we're talking about.
Let's keep that in our minds and in our hearts.
We are in Brazil at the moment, but let's go to Asia to talk to you, misses Maandar.
So turning to the dynamics of your region, how have alternative urban development models improved housing outcomes in Asian cities and how has the Asian coalition been vital to these processes? Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone.
We talked about the policy and we come to the forums like this and we have been coming to the forum like this for so many years for so many forums and it's already 13.
But then besides, there are also many other key policy forums that we become a part of it and the key decisions on housing the port has been taken.
But then how do we translate the policy decision into action.
The civil society and the community organizations have a key role in translating the actions in translating the policies into action.
That's where the civil society organizations and the network like As policy for housing rights in the context of Asia, we are playing a key role.
How we are doing it, the how we have been able to shift the approaches to make the process a bottom up to bring the community voices up as our previous speaker has actually spoken from the fragile experience.
Similarly, it's the kind of activities that we have been doing in Asia and some of the key approaches that we have adopted and also proved to be very successful is the concept on capital shift.
Yeah, focusing and focusing and empowering the communities to work on the community finance mechanism, to community finance systems that allows the communities to save, to generate resource, and use that resource to leverage the resource from the private sector and from the governments to invest in the housing.
That is very, very important, not only for the housing, but also to improve the livelihoods, the health education of children, not only like personal houses, but improving the living conditions, improving the scenario of the whole community.
It's a community late for community.
It's not only a personal stop, but then how do we make the whole community more secure, more livable, eco friendly, climate resistance to climate, to make all these happen like shifting the kind of capital idea, bringing that to the community, community, revolving fund, community led development fund.
That is very important and that's what we have been promoting, supporting the communities to have their own financing mechanism.
And also shifting scale shift.
That's what we would like to call upon.
It's not only one project at one time in one place, but then how do we make it a citywide how do we make it a citywide approach? How do we make the things happen in the whole city, not one project, we shouldn't stop doing one project that's a successful and that's all and that's finished, it's not but then the process has to be kept going on in the city.
It's a citywide scaling up, scale shift to think bigger, think higher, expand and grow and that's also the kind of approach we have been taking in Asia, in many countries, uh, the civil society organizations, the SCHR network members are practicing and then we are going for city wide approach.
I think one example from Thailand Ban Mang Kong project, I think it's a very great example if many people are also aware about it.
It's not only in Thailand, but also now in Indonesia, also in Bangladesh, they are moving from one city to another city as well also in Nepal, so Also trying to do the things at scale and really reaching out the poor and vulnerable communities and supporting them, working with them to have access to secure new and better housing facilities.
This also all happened in collaboration with the local governments and the national governments as well.
The other point I would like to focus on is shifting the knowledge as well, how do we make it the community focused knowledge? How can communities participate in generating knowledge? It's not like top top down approach telling the communities, you do that, you do this, and this is what is good for you.
This is how it works.
But then creating a platform creating the opportunity, creating the space for working with the community, so co producing knowledge.
The communities also have a stake on what is being produced as a knowledge.
It's not only the top down, but the bottom up working together, co producing knowledge.
That means creating space for the people to work together, to have a say in the planning process, to have a say in the decision making, and that is for them.
That is for them.
We are we just telling the people, this is what we have to do it.
But then we need to talk to the people, we need to have a good dialogue.
We need to understand their perspective because it's their house.
They have to live there in the communities and how they want to improve it, how they want to make it better, what policies is going to work, what design is going to work, how they want to live it.
That's all we need to work them and we need to co produce knowledge.
We have to shift this approach as well.
Also, we are also professional shift, how do we mobilize the professional to support the community's people's housing process? There are the professional, they are architects, they are engineer, but then the way they have been taught in the universities, the duties that they have required, maybe there's a lack of how they support the community processes, how they help the community in designing the house, in designing the whole community, in designing the infrastructure.
We have allowed the professionals to work jointly, to work together with the community to produce to co produce the knowledge and help the communities to see through the lens from the professional technical lens as well.
The communities also understand why that is important and the professionals also understand why it is actually important to focus on the people's aspirations.
Thank you.
And also, two more points.
There are also promoting, we are also thinking it's a collective land tuner collective housing process, community process that is also very important rather than only having the individual kind of ownership, for sustaining the process, for sustaining the growth, for sustaining the development, collective processes, collective land tuner is very important.
Thank you.
Also, we also try our best to raise funds for the communities, for the organizations to come up with some demonstration projects so that can be a lessons learned for everyone.
And also expand our own program.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Just before we proceed, I just want to mention that some of you have already shared some comments on our AOV tool, but I would like the QR code to be shown one more time because we would love to hear from more of you if possible.
There you are.
A few of you have already shared, but please do so.
We have our experts here.
We are also awaiting the arrival of the Executive Director of UN Habitat and Claudia Rosbck will be with us very shortly.
But in the meantime, talking about technology, I think this is my perfect transition to you, Mr.
Honoy.
Because we would like to ask you from the perspective of a UN organization and the networks ITU is leading, including United for smart sustainable cities, what is your perspective on accelerating housing through global coalitions? Thank you for the question.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Questions about the perspective of the accelerating housing from the International Organization F P.
In order to accelerating housing, I believe that there is several key elements.
Standards, technology, and international cooperation, those elements.
Through our initiative on sustainable smart cities evolve SAC, we are working with more than 170 states and local governments.
So we found that housing is closely related to connected to the data and digital infrastructure.
So in fact, accurate population data and geospatial information are very important for effective housing planning.
And also the digital twins are powerful tool for the climate resilience housing design, allowing policymakers to test before implementation and anticipate challenges before they arise.
So and also AI and satellite imaginary are already being used widely.
In the previous sessions in the morning, I watched many examples for that area.
So last week, we organized the UN Bucher Word and discussed the application of AI and special intelligence to cities.
International cooperation connect UN agencies, national governments and private sectors across borders and putting together technology experts, data owners and domain specialists from around the world, so we can scale solutions.
And make technology and standards truly meaningful, effective for cities everywhere.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Onoy.
I would like to now welcome our Executive Director, Anna Claudia Rosbck, Executive Director of UN Habitat.
Please, if you would join us.
A big round of applause, please.
Thank you very much, Moderator, good afternoon to all of you.
I really appreciate the panelists that I see here and your efforts for coming from your diverse geographies, some of you from very far away.
So it's really a word of appreciation.
As I was sitting, um, and when we planned the session, I was watching to all of you.
I said, this is actually the spirit of your jobs, your missions in your different organizations is actually the spirit of this session because you all are engaged in coalitions of some sort, coalitions of cities, coalitions of communities, coalitions of the private sector, coalitions of cities with specific teams working on technologies.
So the idea of having this session here at the Word Forum was to reflect a How is it that we can bring all these coalitions together and really make sure that we have a unified force to face the challenges of the global housing crisis? The numbers are huge.
I will not repeat again.
We just launched the World Cities report that focuses on housing and I'm glad it brings housing in a systemic way, how housing needs to be integrated systems in the cities, integrated in the natural and environmental systems as well, and in the social arrangements in the communities, and how it needs to work for the economy.
We need these different angles to be together in designing master plans in cities, in designing housing policies, in designing, financial reviewing financial systems.
There's no way to achieve the challenge if we don't do that.
I believe the Waban forum itself is a coalition or you come here, you are already part of a big coalition and we need all the forces united, working together.
We made a big effort in this Wdbon forum to make sure that all sectors here well represented, the communities, the local governments in the private sector.
Um, the World Cities report that we just launched and in my conversations here with the forum.
The solutions and coming from your forum because I had the opportunity to attend some of your events and so on, there are so many solutions already out there and so much technology in, in our close reach, know how expertise is there.
It's not the lack of solution, I would say, it's not a lack of innovation, but it's really, how can we put the pieces together and make systems work? The, the old housing systems, urban systems that have not been able to respond to the needs of the people, um, because they are, they're not designed in a co creative, collective manner.
So they attend to certain needs and certain perspectives, but they don't integrate the collective perspective.
Financial systems that don't work towards building cities that are inclusive, that are sustainable on the other way around instead of closing the gap, generating even more um, even more segregation.
But I do believe that we will find a way of redesign, reshaping existing systems that are no longer working and designing new systems, especially in the geographies that are under accelerated urbanization don't count with strong institutional arrangements to deal with urban policies and housing that are able to combine the social needs, the vision of shaping a city um, and also bring the forces that we can have from the communities that are building as we speak.
They have been actually the major producers of housing historically and globally, but counting on a strong push by the private sector because the needs are just massive and the scale is just too big.
So I hope this could be a start of a conversation for upcoming A forums and we work with all of you through different fronts.
But one of the issues that we discussed in preparing the Aon forum is that previously our conversations with stakeholders had been very fragmented.
So one of the ideas was also to bring different stakeholders all together to discuss the major issues that we face.
I hope that the reflections here will illuminate us all as a collective on how to move forward and sustain this strong coalition.
I hope that we'll be able also to collaborate and be present in your spaces because this is what partnership is about two hands and really understanding the different um, the different viewpoints that we have, the different concerns.
But also in doing that, we are also able to identify more opportunities because we combine, we combine diversity of thinking and we have access to more experiences and to more solutions.
Um, of course, informality is in front of us, 1 billion people living informal settlements.
I recall every time I can the urgency of addressing it as a coalition.
Of course, affordability has been a major gap globally throughout north and south, west and east.
How can we build the business models that work? Of course, climate is here.
So, The strategic plan of UN Habitat highlights the importance of, of investing in governance, the importance of local action, and I think in moving forward with coalition, we have to make sure that it sustains the pillars of, let's say, a global governance of the new urban agenda.
Thank you very much.
Let's thank again our Executive Director, Executive Director of UN Habitat.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
And we would like to thank you for your leadership.
It was such an honor to be joined by the executive director and to hear her unwavering commitment to giving dignity, safety, and hope that truly only a roof above our heads can provide.
With that, let's just resume our panel and we would like to hear from Vienna now.
Let me turn to you, Counselor, because Vienna is often held for its social housing model.
What lessons can you share on the Vienna housing model with cities in the European or international context? Also, where can cities start, I want to say, cities that want to increase access to adequate housing, but we don't really benefit from the historical advantage that Vienna has.
Thank you very much.
I'm very delighted to have the opportunity to represent Austria, especially City of Vienna on behalf of our governor and Mayor, doctor Michael Ludwig, he sent you his warm regards and his best wishes for this outstanding organization.
Thank you very much.
We are very honored of receiving the UN Habitat Scroll of Honor 2010 and it was our achievements in the fields of urban renovation.
In additional, Vienna was also awarded the UNESCO Smart City Award.
2020 and we're very proud of it and we can say that in the last years, Vienna has even more become a role model for many cities and regions concerning the methods of maintaining a resilient system of affordable housing under very difficult conditions.
That's why we host far more than 100 delegations every year.
Um, and we do not only present the Viennase housing model, we also exchange ideas and experiences with other cities.
And that brings me to your questions.
First of all, I want to make clear that talking about housing is Um, first of all, talking about politics.
Do we have the wish and much more important, the political wish and the strong will to integrate housing systematically into the overall agendas of the most important global corporations and looking at worldwide housing crisis, I would say no and not really, and that's where we have to start with.
And as long as housing is seen as a commodity, as a trading goods on the stock market or not as a human rights, we will just only scratch the surface and maybe add another declaration at the UN.
And I know that in the welcoming environment of United Nations.
I know I'm speaking among open doors and we might easily agree and support each other, but with all respect, this is still a somewhat protected environment and what we truly need to do is to go beyond this space.
We need to actively defend the human rights to housing and this also means addressing financial markets that have increasingly focused on housing since the 2008 crisis.
And I You know, too often, housing is being developed for investment purposes.
Unfortunately, it's not being developed primarily to meet the needs of people and Vienna is trying to do its best in order to fulfill this task, but it's very difficult.
When I use the term fight against the financial markets, that does not necessarily mean to look out for trouble, it means setting a clear legislative boundaries for the market.
But without regulation, the market will never be able to meet expectations for affordable housing.
In Vienna and in Austrian General, we created a system of private public partnership between housing developers and the public city and federal state, of course, as well.
In order to do that, we need a a package of measures that are working together.
The first one is you need a federal law that regulates the system of limited profit housing associations.
We call them LPHA.
You need companies who have the task to develop affordable housing.
That means that they make profits only a small amount can be distributed to shareholders.
Then second, you need prospective land management.
The city of Vienna established a land fund more over than 40 years ago and its purpose is to purchase land with a very long term perspective.
This land can later be used for affordable housing when it's needed.
Third, you need a funding system of subsidized for building affordable housing as well as for supporting people who are not able to pay for their rent.
This is very, very important and Yeah.
And Vienna is a leading city for this issue.
Then the last one, you need a dens net of supportive institutions that provide information and also supportive action for people who have got into trouble that starts with an institution where one can apply for affordable housing and is then listed in a transparent way so that it's clear how long they will have to wait for their affordable flats.
You also need institutions who help with unlawful contracts in the private market or who can help with various special things.
I don't want to make it longer, but all these measures, all these instruments together create now the Vienase housing politics.
If there are questions afterwards, we always can make bilateral.
Fantastic talks.
Thank you so much, Counselor.
Thank you.
Last but certainly not least, let me turn to you, misses Kratza.
Europe has long influenced global urban and housing policies through its institutions, financing mechanisms, and regulatory standards.
In your view, what should European leadership look like today in building more coordinated and action oriented global housing coalitions.
Hello.
Is it? Working.
First of all, allow me please to express my great pleasure to be part of this forum of the World Urban Forum in Baku and have the privilege to share ideas and commitments with the engaged representatives of the global community and I Produce dreams and commitments for the future.
Lady, respecting the diversity of the humanity and the work of the translators, I will continue in French.
Ladies and gentlemen, the topic that we're talking about today is at the heart of the SDG number 11.
That means cities make sustainable cities Secure cities, resilient cities, and cities that are capable of producing.
The first remark that we have today is that we have a major challenge.
And this challenge is affecting all cities, small and big cities.
I have the experience of a touristic region.
I was the governor of these alien islands.
So I have also the experience of regions that have housing crisis due to tourism.
Because of new platforms such as airbnb, booking.com, et cetera So the housing topic is at the heart of the challenge underlined by SDG number 11 because housing is essential for the daily life of people, for their health, their security, their transport, their job, their leisure.
But it's also important in order to give a role to cities, their role as innovators, as producers, as developers.
The civilization has been produced by cities.
That's why cities and their inhabitants and their potential inhabitants, because all cities wish to attract people wish to attract talent, investors, they want to attract students and their big universities.
So cities shouldn't be deprived from this role because of the housing crisis.
At the European Union, we talked about an international coalition.
So housing units shouldn't be separating from the social issue.
It has to be mainstreamed into the whole development policy.
We've talked about the Asian Bank, about the Bs Bank, all these big financial organization should integrate housing into their policies.
They should negotiate with governments and also talk with investors because as it has been said, private market isn't lacking.
Private firms need ways to invest and we need to channel the funding into housing.
This should be done at all levels at national levels and at the international level.
Regarding the European Union, the EU is the biggest the biggest aid donor in the world.
European Union.
Funds 300 million euros until the end of the Agenda 2030.
I have been an MEP for 15 years.
I've been vice president of the European Parliament.
I know that the EU is committed especially on housing, but the EU is participating to the 2030 goals.
So the European institutions, the commission, the Parliament should address this aid towards housing, towards sustainable initiatives under the organization of international institutions.
So we Europeans, we need to demand that the European Union should integrate, should focus its international aid into housing.
The European Union also has trade, development agreements with different regions, and in those agreements, the EU should focus on the housing aid.
We need also to act on the national level and the Association of cities should play a role in doing this because in some countries, cities suffer the housing crisis, but they don't have the legal competence.
They can't legally play a role.
That's why we need to insist we shouldn't only talk about the collision between national and local.
The national institutions should allow cities to play their role with investment, with financial aid.
I think that our forum will launch a strong appeal for that.
I want to conclude I would like to say that housing is much more than having an affordable house.
The idea of housing the local communities, those communities should be integrated into the urban planning because housing has a value for people If housing allows them to be actors of their life, this is a very important concept of habitat three, which is the right to life.
We need to associate housing and the right to life so that people can be happy and so that cities remain focused of development.
I think the right to life is the best way to conclude our segment here.
Everybody.
I would like to thank you all very, very much for being here with us today.
This was a very, very powerful segment.
Thank you to you all as well in the room, but also our global audience online who have actually been quite active and shared quite a few interesting comments.
There were questions actually for our panelists that will share on our IOV tool.
What I would say is that you could grab some of our experts when you see them around and just ask them directly.
Once again, thank you very much for your attention and enjoy the rest of the forum.