Roundtables - Parliamentarians Roundtable (WUF13)

Good afternoon, everyone.
We have a dense agenda, and we need to give a chance for everyone to talk.
First, let me thank the co organizers for this roundtable.
I would like to thank you and Habitat, the IPU, the government of Azerbijan and other partners.
We need to thank the government of Azerbijan for organizing this W 13 along with you and habitat.
Our focus today is how we can turn urban commitment into national actions.
Therefore, we will have five segments in this roundtable.
We will have opening remarks, then we will have a high level panel with the panelists.
Then we will proceed to an open dialogue, some questions, and then the EG will come and say her words and recommendations and closing.
A I would ask every MP to stick to the time given.
I'm so sorry I will have to stop you to give chance for everyone to talk because we need to hear from those who are not panelists as well.
Of course, in the beginning, let me tell you that the World Urban Forum is really a space for stakeholders and parliamentarians are very important stakeholders and we bring together all not only the stakeholders but also the ideas and the innovation and legislation and so on.
We had previously parliamentarian round tables in the previous Wolf and it was a good beginning.
We established stronger engagement between parliamentarians and the global urban agenda.
And it was a very important step that the executive director insisted that parliamentarians be present in each wolf.
Therefore, I think we have this chance today to build on that momentum and in a very meaningful way.
We are here gathering to define the moment for cities and communities around the world, especially regarding housing.
So I will start in this context and then we can talk later.
I would like to introduce our keynote introductory speech.
Miss Rania Hidea miss Rania Hidea is the Regional Director for Estates, but she also gathers a lot of responsibilities in new inhabita.
Thank you for your time to come join us and please, the mic is yours.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, doctor Sahar, and honorable parliamentarians, Excellencies, colleagues, partners and ladies and gentlemen, in general, good afternoon.
It is really my honor and pleasure to join you today on behalf of the Executive Director of UN Habitat, who will be joining us later as doctor Zahad said during the closing segment of this very important roundtable.
She definitely sends her regards and warm greetings and appreciation for your presence and for your engagement.
Allow me first, before I start to thank the co organizers of this roundtable, the interparamentary Union, IPU, the government, of course, of Azerbijan and all partners who have contributed to shaping this dialogue.
I would also like to acknowledge the distinguished moderator and thank doctor Sahar for her moderation, doctor Sahara Aa, and for not only moderation but guiding us all in this dialogue, very important dialogue today.
The theme of this discussion, which is turning urban commitments into national action, the parliamentary path to housing for all speaks directly to the unique and indispensable role of parliamentarians.
Global agendas and international commitments can only become meaningful when they are translated into national priorities through legislation, accountability mechanisms, and local implementation, and this is where your role as parliamentarians matter immensely.
Parliamentarians are not only lawmakers, they are connectors between global ambition and the realities of communities.
You shape policies on land, infrastructure, housing financing, tenure security, urban planning, climate action, and public investment.
You also oversee implementation and ensure that governments remain accountable to the people that you represent.
This meeting takes place within the broader process of the World Urban Forum 13, which has been built through extensive multi stakeholder consultation over the past few months.
Over 2,500 stakeholders have contributed to shaping the discussion taking place this week here in Baku through the different dialogues, sessions, and government led events.
This reflects a growing recognition that the housing crisis cannot be solved in isolation.
It requires coordinated action across all levels of government and across all sectors of society.
Your discussion today are also highly relevant to ongoing global policy processes, including the implementation of the new urban agenda, the review of the sustainable development goal is 11 this year, and the work of the open ended intergovernmental expert group meeting on adequate housing.
The insights and recommendations emerging from this roundtable will help strengthen the parliamentary engagement within these broader global conversations.
At UN Habitat, we're also entering into a new phase through the new strategic plan that takes us 2026-2029.
And the new strategic plan places strong emphasis on partnerships.
For those of you who are familiar with the plan, you will note the strength and the focus that the plan puts on partnerships and on multi level governance and multi stakeholder engagement as a critical means of implementation.
We really see UN Habitat parliamentarians as essential partners in this process.
We especially recognize the important role that parliaments can play in advancing financing solutions for housing.
Adequate housing cannot become a reality without sustained public investment and without enabling policy environments and innovative financing approaches that prioritizes affordability, inclusion, and resilience.
We also recognize the urgency of addressing forced evictions, tenure insecurity, and exclusionary urban development practices that continue to affect vulnerable communities globally.
These issues require strong legal protection, inclusive governance, and political leadership that is grounded in human rights and social justice.
Excellencies, let us use this opportunity to exchange experience and to strengthen our collaboration as we build practical pathways for action.
We hope this discussion will contribute to stronger partnerships between parliaments, but also between local governments and local communities and international institutions in advancing housing for all.
I thank you once again for your commitment and leadership, and I really look forward to the rich discussion ahead to continuing this collaboration beyond the World Urban Forum.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, miss Rania.
This was a good introduction to our work today.
I call now for Monsieur Sebastian Vozzel, head of Secretariat Local I see.
Monsieur Sebastian.
Thank you very much and maybe building on what the regional director of your in habitat has just state and unpacking a bit further the role of parliamentarians in localization, I want to do quickly some framing remarks.
We have talked all throughout the Woof and in other roundtables, including about the systems approach to housing.
Fundamental housing is not only a sector, it really benefit from and influence all the other sectors from mobility to service delivery to economic development, et cetera We talked also a lot about finance for housing in a broader framework of budgets, et cetera and I'll start with the first function of parliament representation.
The more obvious because you represent the voice of the people and localization is about bringing the voice of the people and their priorities and their cultures and their local contexts into the design of the global agendas, including the sustainable development goals and into the World Urban forum today.
So this representation role is fundamental, makes you fundamental players in housing, local housing policies, and in general in local sustainable development.
But beyond this and also as the regional director was saying, your function of lawmaking is fundamental.
When we talked about local localization, we do not see local in isolation.
It's not only cities and regions.
It's a connection between them and the national governments and national policies and the global arena.
This is also where you have a fundamental role in lawmaking, making laws based on local context, based on local aspirations, based on local priorities, and also interfacing between global agendas translated into national laws and into local action and the feedback on these international laws and into a very important interface between these different levels that are fundamental to address the systemic crisis of today, but also to bring sustainable development to the people changing the systems to change their lives.
Finally, not your last, but the third shared functions of parliaments worldwide.
Oversight is fundamental.
First, because you oversee the work of the national governments and they are critical players also in the localization.
Localizing the global agendas, making them a reality for people, citizens, and for the citizens in your cities, in your regions.
This oversight is because you can question the action of the government, you can question its articulation both with global agendas and with local contexts and realities.
Finally, within this oversight role, you also have the oversight of budget, and this is where we look back to finance housing finance, making sure that budget lines and other financing instruments are made available to transform housing policies, to crowd in private sector investment that is also critical for housing, but also to make finance available for sustainable development.
At local level.
And on all these aspects, you in habitat, including through the Local 2030 Coalition, which it co chairs with the regional economic Commissions, in particular, the Economic Commission for Europe on behalf of the others, is really providing tools and scaling up action to make localization work at local level in all your countries with a critical role, as I was saying for parliamentarians.
I will stop here.
Thank you very much and eager to hear from you on your solutions from the different countries you represent.
Thank you very much, Chug Saar Thank you very much, Mr.
Sebastian.
That was very, let's say impressive to talk about this and you're not parliamentarian, I guess.
That's great.
Thank you.
Now we will start our high level panel and I hope that each of the panelists focus more on your experience, especially showing how your parliament can lead this problem of housing issues because in each country we have these issues at different scales, of course, but the most important thing is we want to talk more about either our experience and how it can be replicated maybe or can be heard by other countries.
As a parliamentarian, of course, and all the way forward, what we should do, what we should implement, what action should be there.
Let's focus on what really we can do or what we should do, or what we have done that was very successful and deserves to be disseminated here among us to learn from each other.
I will start with our host from Azrabijan, Honorable Parvana Valieva.
I hope the names will be pronounced yet.
And I hope you can talk to us about the role of parliamentary networks regarding the international cooperation and how you implement the housing and sustainable urban development and what is your commitment beyond W.
13.
Thank you.
The floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Distinguished parliamentarians, honorable colleagues, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it's my great honor and privilege to warmly welcome you here in Bacha Azerbaijan and I express my sincere appreciation to UN Habitat, IPU, and all partners who continue to champion the role of parliaments within a global urban agenda.
Parliaments play a crucial role in translating global commitments, such as the New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal 11 into national legislation, budgets, and accountability mechanisms.
We are uniquely positioned to ensure that housing is treated not merely as infrastructure, but as a fundamental human right, essential to social stability, public health and economic resilience.
At the core of this vision is a simple principle.
The city of the future will not be defined by its height, wealth, or technology, but by its humanity truly successful city is one where every person regardless of age, ability, sensory condition, or social background can fully participate in urban life with safety, with dignity, and with independence.
This requires immediate inclusivity, accessibility, and climate resilience into urban legislation and governance.
There is a well known proverb.
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Today, this wisdom must guide the way we design, legislate, and govern our cities.
People must simply live in cities, they must help shape them.
Are we truly designing cities with people or merely for people? This is why participatory budgeting and parliamentary hearings in decision making matter so much.
As climate change accelerates, urban resilience is no longer optional.
When Cop 29 was hosted in Baku, it reinforced the urgency of translating climate commitments into concrete urban action.
We are reminded once again that vulnerable populations are always the first to suffer and the hardest to hit.
Every zoning law, every housing code, and budget decision shapes who belongs in the city and who is left behind.
Today, we will make very important decisions at this venue on housing on sustainable urban development to shape the lives of millions of generations to come.
But we must be honest.
Global declarations alone do not change daily life.
Laws do, budgets do, political courage does.
Parliaments are the bridge between global commitments and local realities.
Azerbijan views cities as drivers of resilience, innovation, and inclusive growth.
After decades of destruction and herbicide committed in the formerly occupied territories, namely in Kaba and Eastern Zang regions, Azerbajan has launched one of the world's largest reconstruction efforts, building entire cities, villages, roads, schools, hospitals, and cultural sites in parallel to demining efforts with strong focus on sustainability and modern infrastructure.
Finally, I would propose strengthening parliamentary cooperation through joint research on legislation to generate evidence based data to recommend in policy change in parliamentary debates, and we use it in our advocacy and sustainability in urban planning.
Parliaments are uniquely positioned to understand how laws function in practice through direct engagement with constituency.
Let us continue to this parliamentary dialogue together with UN habitat and our global partners, not only at this forum, but beyond.
Together, we can ensure having more human centered, future oriented urban legislation and governance.
I thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Let me first welcome the Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbijan.
Welcome and thank you for joining us.
It's very important that governments and parliamentarians meet.
So we welcome you and we thank you for your presence with us here today.
Okay.
Now we will go to another panelists.
So let's hear from the European Parliament, Mr.
Marcos.
Yes.
Maybe you can tell us what political and institutional barriers hinder the implementation of housing reform and how can parliamentarians build the consensus to overcome that? We'd love to hear from you.
Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon to everyone.
Today, we all know that housing has become one of the defining political, social, and territorial challenges of our time across Europe and even globally, rising housing costs, speculative pressures, territorial inequalities, and climate vulnerability are putting increasingly pressure on our societies.
This is why parliaments have a crucial responsibility because housing is not only a market issue or declaration, as it has been mentioned, it is a matter of social cohesion, territorial justice, and democratic stability.
And from the perspective of the European Parliament, One important step has been to bring housing back onto the European political agenda.
For many years, housing was treated as mainly as national or member states or regional or local issue with limited European coordination.
But the scale of the crisis that we are facing now has made clear that housing affordability now affects economic competitiveness, social inclusion, territorial cohesion, also the green transition and citizens trust in our European Union institutions.
This is why recent developments at European level are important.
For example, the appointment of the first European commissioner with responsibility of housing ever.
The European Affordable Housing Plan is the first time in the European Union and the growing recognition that cohesion policy must play a stronger role in addressing the housing crisis.
We adopted a midterm review of the cohesion policy, allowing investment in public houses coming from ERDF that before it was impossible.
In the European Parliament, we also are working on to strengthen support for affordable, sustainable and community led housing models on different models.
I have mentioned that we incorporated in September for first time ever the affordable housing as a concept ready to be financed by ERDF, not only social housing, Um, now we are also defending a broader idea.
We are fighting for the new budget for 2028, 2034, and we are defending that housing policy cannot be separated or split from territorial planning, from mobility, from public services, from energy efficiency and climate resilience.
We are very often talking about climate resiliency or energy efficiency, but we have to link it to the housing crisis.
This is one of the main barriers that we face today, the fragmentation in our political budget.
Too often housing policy is disconnected from land use planning, transport system, and at the same time, many local authorities are facing the financial lack.
We need to address money and we need to address solution, and this is why we are advocating for stronger multilevel governance and stronger financing from the European Parliament in the next MF.
This is going to be our work and we will go on that during the following two or three years negotiating the following MF.
Thank you very much.
Thank you and thank you for keeping the time.
Actually, it's a I just want to get back to Honor Parana she was talking actually about the parliamentarian cooperation normally between countries and here also you mentioned how Europe and European parliaments are getting together to whatever set the affordability committees to set this linkage between territorial planning and housing.
I think we're all having the same language, but the most important thing is how to proceed and to make this really feasible.
From here, I go to doctor Atta from Saudi Arabia So maybe you can talk to us about how the parliament can strengthen the oversight and accountability mechanisms regarding the housing policies, budget, et cetera.
So please the floor is yours and you have 3 minutes.
Thank you.
Norman I would like to talk about how we can develop the sustainable urbanism.
When we are going to talk about the new agenda and our SDGs, we need to understand that changing this into results, national results depends exactly on our ability in creating the right legislation that can be implemented on the ground.
At the beginning, we need to define and understand these policies among the parliamentarians.
You need to understand the international goals and SGDs to work on actually implementing it.
And I do understand the importance of this round table.
And we thank you for including us in this dialogue.
We can increase the participation of the parliamentarians and finding the goals about finding housing, we need to create the national goals to create the right framework.
The integration here needs to talk about legislations first in our country.
Our legislative work role needs to translate what we have inspired into something that can be implemented on the ground with guaranteeing communicating the right way.
We need to talk about housing as a main pillar for society.
We need to promote the ability of housing, and also the international arena now finds a lot of problems, finding the ability of housing and being able to meet its financial burden and also the change in the climate.
We need to give priority to deal with these problems in our policies and also making sure that we take into consideration the climate change.
As parliamentarians, we need to deal with the changes in the climate to make sure that the housing can stand the changes in and the climate and also decreasing our CO two emissions.
Within this, we are working with our commission in giving the real importance of housing and to be able to find our right policies.
We need to understand, we need to work on increasing the ownership.
We have 66% of ownership of a houses in the country.
We are working on increasing it into 70%, which is the goal for 2030 as per our vision for 2030.
The Supervision Commission's role here is to follow up with the governmental entities on how they are implementing their report, with the collaboration with them with other entities, especially our fund for housing development.
And we are following up with them to make sure that they are meeting their goal and to take the rights, the sustainable decisions to increase their capabilities to be able to implement what is necessary.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for this intervention because you have actually mentioned very important keywords.
You've mentioned the global ambitions, for example, your aspirations, and this is very important.
We are all having the global ambitions and aspirations, and we're talking about the climate changes which is very important to take into consideration in the housing issue.
And something that you have mentioned which was really important to the Supervision Commission.
This is very important.
We are also as parliamentarians, we are working legislation, but we need to supervise as well and follow up with how it is implemented on the ground.
We hope that we have a copy of your speech.
Thank you very much.
Invention, if you can provide us with your speech at the end so we can put it in the records, exactly.
Now we move we stay in Asia a little bit and we go to Turkey.
Honorable Adel, he is an MP and chair of the Committee of Public Works in Turkey, the floor is yours.
Can you do your intervention and you have 3 minutes.
Thank you.
San Esteemed Chairperson, dear parliamentaries, and esteemed representatives of UN Habitat.
Thank you so much for uniting us together in this session of UN Habitat.
I would like to thank the host country, our friends and brother nation Azerbijan, dear friends.
We will not be talking only about the housing problem.
We'll be talking about the disaster reliability, climate resilience, economic suitability, and the future of the cities.
And housing is not merely our walls and a roof.
Housing is security, family life, health, access to education, proximity to employment, neighborhood culture, and the ability to feel a sense of belonging to the city one lives in.
The need for housing is directly linked to development, financing, land management, infrastructure, disaster risk, climate change, local governments capacity, and human rights.
As Turkey, we are approach, we have been approaching the housing issue for many years through the lens of the welfare states, planned urbanization, disaster, resilient construction, and a people centered development perspective.
For us, housing production is not merely about building structures, it is about creating safe homes, building neighborhoods, revitalizing the cities, and providing our citizens with peaceful and resilient living spaces.
Through the housing we have provided to our people via the mass collective houses of Turkey abbreviated as Turkey, our citizens have gained access to modern living spaces complete with places of worship, parks, walking paths, and social amenities.
This experience has shown us that social housing policy when properly designed is a powerful tool for developments that directly impacts the lives of millions of people.
I'd like to share with you some of the key lessons that can be drawn from Turkey's experience.
Firstly, housing must be viewed as a constitutional and public responsibility.
The Constitutional Republic of Turkey stipulates that the states take measures that meet housing needs within a planning framework that takes into account the characteristics of cities and environmental conditions and support collective housing initiatives.
Secondly, this mass collective housing institution of Turkey has established a strong has a centralized implementation capacity for social housing production in Turkey.
This model, which provides social housing for low and middle income groups alongside survi units and infrastructure, is a structure capable of providing a rapid and effective response to a large scale housing needs.
This approach demonstrates that housing policy is at the same time a policy of social institute.
Fourthly, Turkey's experience shows that housing areas planned in conjunction with schools, mos schools, healthcare facilities, parks, food plans, transportation links, commercial units, and public spaces produce neighborhoods that are truly vibrant communities and fifthly, affordable financing models must be developed.
The genuine realization of the right to housing is only possible through models suited to the citizens ability to pay for them.
And sixthly, disaster resilience and safe construction must be made an integral part of housing policy.
Turkey has undergone a massive reconstruction process, particularly following the earthquakes of February six, 2023.
In this major disaster, we lost over 53,000 lives immediately following the earthquake within 15 days.
11 of our provinces have been restored the feet.
In the earthquake zone, construction has been completed on a total of 455,357 independent units comprising many residential properties and many commercial provinces.
Thank you so much.
I would like to emphasize this fact.
To hear everyone.
Thank you, Honorable Adel.
I think talking about financing is very important and you mentioned that and about the social housing program.
Actually, even in Egypt, we have a lot of work that was done by the committee of housing.
I will not talk about it because I don't want to take the time of other speakers, but I'll be happy to chat with you anytime during today or tomorrow about how parliamentarians, we act towards the housing issue, but also the government did a great effort and tomorrow there are sessions about financing.
If you are interested, you can attend that and hear about how the government of Egypt really financing is financing and subsidizing social housing with very successful financing models.
Okay.
Now we move to another continent and we have Honorable Miriam Saldana from Mexico, member of parliament, please the floor is yours and you have 3 minutes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon.
I'd like to start by showing you a 1 minute video about the reality of two rivers that were piped underground in Mexico City last century and how we must restore them.
From the universe, the essence of water h2o here in our ravins the Besa River Tacoba tires that should be light, but pollution turns them contaminated prey, duck, water, a broken cycle.
We could be in front of the main artery of the capital's first storm drainage.
This implies separating drainage of the river.
The water from the waste feed in the city could be feeding the Great Lake of Texacoco, which saw how great it was in the old city.
We recover our connection to water, Save Pie River, the Piedad River.
Let me tell you that maybe you can think of the music.
Few people know that one of the world's largest cities was built on a lake.
The Aztecs founded Tochitan on an island in the middle of Lake Tesco, a marvel of engineering surrounded by water.
Today, Mexico City sits on the same lake bed, but the water is almost entirely gone.
Over the course of the last century, city planners made a faithful decision to pipe all 72 rivers that once flowed through the Valley of Mexico, connecting them to a deep drainage system that evacquates water out of the city entirely, channeling it northeast through the state of Hidalgo.
At the same time, it seemed like progress, flood control, urbanization, modernization.
80 years later, nowadays, we are living with the consequences.
The city is sinking.
Without water saturating the ancient lake bed soils, the ground is drying out and compressing unevenly, a phenomenon known as differential subsidence.
Some neighborhoods have dropped several meters.
Buildings tilt, streets crack, infrastructure buckles, and paradoxically, a city built on water is now running out of it.
Millions of residents face water scarcity and the poorest communities are hit hardest.
Entire neighborhoods where clean drinking water need never reaches the top.
The strategy that was meant to save the city is now threatening it.
But there is another layer to this crisis, one that is visible if you dare to look into the riverbeds that remain.
Decades of neglect and illegal dumping have turned these channels into open sewers and garbage deposits.
Informal settlements along the river banks discharge untreated wastewater directly into the waterways.
Trash accumulates in lawyers.
We know I'm sorry, but I wanted to show you the reality of our rivers inside Mexico City.
This is how they are.
Thank you.
Actually, we can see that by ourselves, I hope in two years when the next WUF is in Mexico.
That would be interesting.
But just not cutting you off, what was the role of the parliament regard this? Did you take specific steps regarding this issue as parliamentarians, not as a government or as a country or so on.
Do you have this? Yes.
You would like to answer that? Yes.
Yes.
What I'm proposing is to have this law for the rights of nature because we don't have this law, and I think UN can en ha that countries as Mexico that are not respecting their river banks have these rights for the nature.
Also, we have to punish this kind of conduct.
This passes to Congress.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Now we are moving to another second part of today's round table and it's an open dialogue.
We have some questions and we have already some parliamentarians who registered to answer specific questions.
I hope that I hope I don't have to stop you, please, only 2 minutes I think in all your parliaments, at least in our parliament in Egypt, we have only 2 minutes to talk and we have to stick to the point and let's say, but sometimes head of committees, they have more, they have 4 minutes, but we are used to.
I hope that you will stick to the time.
Of course, you have the housing issues in each country.
The first question is related to the current housing issues and reforms that are debated in your national parliament.
We will start by Equatorial Rina, Honorable Silvanus.
Are you here? Silvans No.
Equatorial Guinea.
Maybe he will come later.
We move to France, Monsieur Leonelks Mercier Madam President.
Thank you very much.
Chair, dear friends, dear colleagues, telling you that the parliament in France works in close cooperation with the government to produce housings and to have as cheap as possible housing for the citizens.
Our objective is to produce 2 million housings by 2030 30, which means 400,000 housings and many social ones.
We have 30 million housings and many social ones.
The demand is huge, 3 million people waiting.
You have to know that we finance social housing based on the long run with deposits that are made by French people, the Livre we have more than 400 billion euros there.
The works we produced in the parliament on two pathways.
We have to master the price of land.
We have various tools.
We want to reach zero artifization net in 2050.
Then we have low carbon and adaptation to climate change buildings in order to integrate global warming.
Several laws have been passed, others are waiting and will be passed in the upcoming months and years.
The French Parliament is deeply mobilized on all these topics, and we try to create affordable and decent housing for all the social groups, many thanks to the Republic of Azerbijan for your invitation.
Thank you.
Bercia.
This was great timing and great messages as well.
Thank you.
I knew that there were a demand for social housing in France, but didn't know that it was huge.
I thought it was less huge than in South countries.
But anyway, the problem is maybe the affordability is one of the main issues now.
Now let's hear Honorable Hussein from Bangladesh.
Are you here? No.
From Ukraine, we have Honorable Olena Suliak, please.
The floor is yours.
2 minutes.
Thank you.
Hello.
Greetings.
Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak, miss Mozar.
Yes, the issue of housing is very actual for Ukraine and the war with Ukraine demolished over 70,000 million square meters, six millions of people are abroad, five millions of people are locally replaced people.
What our parliament has done during the first days of the full range days of the war, we have introduced the general mechanism of compensation and over 900,000 families have managed to get the housing first we, um, raised our funds, which were joined by other funding from abroad.
Unfortunately, this policy was developed according to the old standards, and then we discussed the new rules for the House and politics, and we are creating social living according to the new contemporary standards, and also we are sharing responsibility between different units within our government and also we have different characteristics implemented by the government, and this is safety, and this is limitless and affordability, and this is what we are going to implement in our housing policies.
As of today, we have a very, um, a lot of attention is being attracted to the shelters for Ukraine.
We have underground schools, parks, which are used in as a function of shelter.
And unfortunately, we have this.
We live in this.
This is our history.
And this is what is happening in our community.
And we and this is what our country request us to do.
Many thanks.
Thank you.
We move now Mongolia.
Is there, okay, please.
Hon Gonzok, I hope the name is right.
Yes.
Please go ahead, 2 minutes.
Good evening, honorable parliamentarians and thank you for the holding country for the Azerbijan Baka City mayors.
I'm very glad to be here to hear all this eye opening, ear opening programs.
Can you raise your voice, please? I'm sorry.
Good evening, everyone.
Your question was, is there any discussion ongoing at the parliamentary about housing policy, right? Now in Mongolia, we are proceeding this 150,000 housing program until 2028.
Unfortunately, because of the limited budget, it's not going well, but on the other hand, we have several projects ongoing, such as state owned enterprises, which is constructing social housing and also housing subsidy, which goes to the subsidize the interest of the real estate loan.
Unfortunately, however, all programs are not working well together.
It's going totally separately because of the law and the plannings are different.
You know that all countries have planning, fiscal planning and also area planning, which is urban planning.
These things doesn't fit together.
That's the main problem at the legislation level.
We are working on it to fix it.
Personally, I hold a PhD in urban planning, so I know some solutions, but As I think all of you know that fixing the law and changing the legislation is quite hard and it takes time.
But once it fix it, it also takes the time to proceed the policies.
I will be very happy to work with UN Habitat.
Still you have a local office in there, so looking for possible cooperation.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Now we can hear from the youth.
Miss Rene, are you here from Kenya, Resting the youth? Yeah.
Okay.
Please go ahead.
You have 2 minutes, please.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Distinguished parliamentarians.
Excellencies.
Good afternoon.
My name is Rene Chile, a youth representative from.
Could you please just go a little forward to hear you well? Thank you.
My name is Renee Chile, a youth representative from Jericho, Nairobi, Kenya.
I am honored to speak here today.
I come here not only as a young person, but as a part of a generation already living the reality of the global housing crisis.
For many young people, the dream of living with dignity in our own cities is becoming increasingly distant.
Across Kenya, as is the case in many parts of the world, young people are navigating cities where access to affordable housing remains out of reach.
We are facing rising costs of living, limited access to land, unstable livelihoods, and increasing climate risks.
For many young people, informality is not a choice.
It is the only option available.
But we refuse to be affected.
We are actively shaping solutions.
Young people are already organizing in our communities, creating local solutions, contributing knowledge and data, and advocating for more inclusive and sustainable cities.
Our efforts cannot replace the role of governments and this is why your leadership as parliamentarians is critical.
You have the power to turn commitments like the New Urban Agenda and SDG 11 into real change through laws, budgets, and inclusive policies.
From a youth perspective, I would like to highlight three priorities.
First, secure and affordable housing must be treated as a right for every citizen.
Second, meaningful youth participation must go beyond consultation.
Young people must be included in decision making processes so that policies reflect our realities and aspirations.
Third, link housing with livelihoods.
Housing policies must respond to the realities of informal work, income insecurity, and growing climate vulnerability, particularly in urban informal settlements.
Excellence is at ten years since habitat three, this is a moment to move from commitments to implementation.
We call on you to champion policies that are inclusive, intergenerational, and grounded in the lived realities of your constituencies and we stand ready as young people to partner with you in shaping cities that are just resilient and truly leave no one behind.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I have requests actually from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil to intervene, allow me just to finish the registered speakers, and then I will get back to you and hear from you.
Now we will talk about the global urban commitments and how parliamentarians transformed this or translated these urban commitments into effective and enforceable national housing outcomes.
We will start by Honorable Niger.
Niger is right, correct or Nigar, I don't know.
Papada, please go ahead.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Azerijan.
It's a great honor to be among you today.
Dear colleagues, we are speaking about a very interesting conversation about cities and how we can transform them into more sustainable, let's say, living experience.
I would like to mention that cities have always concentrated human creativity, innovation, trade, and culture.
They are where societies evolve most rapidly and where human potential finds expression.
At the same time, cities are also the source of many of our greatest modern challenges.
Now the question that we all would like to ask is, how do we create urban environment that preserve the advantages of collective living? Common infrastructure, public services, connectivity, and Cultural vibrancy while avoiding overcrowding, pollution, and social fragmentation.
The answer lies in comprehensive transformation, rethinking urban transport systems, improving the efficiency of buildings and utilities, investing in green technologies, and equally importantly, encouraging new patterns of behavior and consumption.
Nowhere do sustainable policies affect daily quality of life more directly than in cities.
It is truly remarkable when we realize that relatively small territories inhabited by tens of millions of people function almost like one living organism and there is a big challenge.
Green technologies and sustainable solutions require significant investments and maintaining affordability while modernizing cities is one of the key challenges facing governments and policymakers around the world.
I'm very pleased that the World Orban Forum is a natural continuation and broader global climate dialogue launched and strengthened at the cop process.
These agendas are deeply interconnected and create a cumulative positive effect.
Having served as the Cop 29 climate high level champion, I deeply value our shared mission of making human habitat cleaner, more sustainable, and more resilient for future generations.
The role of the parliaments are great.
Throughout legislation and regulation, we help create incentives for responsible urban behavior, supporting businesses that introduce innovation and clean technologies, encouraging recycling and sustainable practices, and creating balanced frameworks where housing and rental prices remain accessible.
Dear colleagues, speaking about the urban development in Azerbijan, it's impossible not to mention our please.
Larger.
Yes, yes, finalizing larger national reconstruction project, the rebuilding of Karabakh and East Sangzur regions.
After nearly three decades of occupation, Azerbijan is doing a really unique project by bringing smart technologies to these areas.
I would like just to thank you all for this conversation and say that we as policymakers need to create an ecosystem for all the stakeholders, including the private sector, to come up with the technologies and the new solutions.
Thank you.
Oh, thank you very much.
You are modernizing cities because Waku is really great city and thank you for your.
Do we have from Ethiopia, doctor Abraham Berta? Are you here? From Ethiopia? It's good.
Do we have from Gabon Gabon, Mr.
Kineci from Tanzania, Jafar, Honorable Jafari from Tanzania.
They must have other meetings maybe and Mr.
Chris Alizara from New Zealand.
Okay, please go ahead.
Excellency distinguished delegates, thank you for this opportunity to speak.
My name is Chris Esara and I speak on behalf of Faith for Cities and the Faith Pavilion here at Wolf 13.
This round table is focused on turning urban commitments into national action through legislation, budgets, oversight, land governance, and basic services.
That is exactly where faith communities can help bridge the gap between policy and practice.
First, I want to thank you and habitat for the progress made since Habitat three in recognizing the role of faith based engagement in advancing the New Urban Agenda.
When people of faith, representing roughly 80% of the world's population were not explicitly named as stakeholders in the New Urban Agenda, that admission opened up an important conversation, one that has since grown into a constructive partnership between faith communities and UN habitat.
In 2017, the first faith based Urban Thinks campus in Singapore produced the Singapore Declaration, which simply states this profound statement.
Inclusion of germane faith based perspectives and working relationships with faith based organizations co committed to the common good are necessary for the success of the New Urban Agenda.
And since then, there have been encouraging progress through continued collaboration between faith faith actors in human habitat, including the faith based Evan thinkers campuses, engagement through the W Eban campaign and now the Faith Pavilion here at Wolf 13.
This week, that generally culminated in the release of the Faith Pavilion call to action on housing, a multi faith statement that affirms, rooted in the conviction that every person possesses sacred and inherent dignity, and deserves access to safe, secure, and affordable housing, this call to action affirms the vital role of faith communities that can play in addressing the global housing crisis through collaboration, stewardship, justice, compassion, and informed action, end of quote.
So I offer two more practical recommendations.
First, establish formal and sustained mechanisms for engaged UN habitat and faith partnerships, while strengthening and institutionalizing existing pathways for collaboration.
For UN Habitat, these include the Faith Pavilion at future World open forums, Faith based Urban Thinks campus, and meaningful participation in UN habitat working groups, networks, and implementation platforms.
Together, these spaces can help translate dialogue into practical action and accelerate delivery of the ban gender.
Second, Seize the upcoming review of the Narban agenda and SDG 11 as an opportunity for high level trust building conversation.
Let this ten year review become a moment for parliamentarians, local governments, human habitat, and interparliamentary union and faith faith actors to come together, identify common ground, align our efforts, and deepen practical cooperation.
As we enter the next decade of implementation and localization, let us strengthened the partnerships needed to turn shared commitments to tangible outcomes for communities around the world.
We are not asking for a parallel agenda.
Finalize to help deliver our common agenda.
And we stand ready to help convene these partnerships and support the shared work of advancing housing, human dignity, and flourishing communities for all.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I also will ask because you gave some recommendation at the end, so it would be nice if you can share with us for the records your intervention.
I don't want to repeat a lot, but you mentioned some words actually that are also there in the world cities report and I urge you all to to check this really great report that was issued yesterday, launched yesterday.
It's done by UN Habitat team and many experts and it's about housing only and I think they discussed everything related to housing, so I would be happy that especially parliamentarians need to see this study and to see what is the role in it.
Thank you.
Now we go to the last speaker in this question, South Africa, Mr.
Czo Cuzuao.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Is it correct? I'm sorry if I pronounced name.
Cuz.
That's fine.
Go ahead.
2 minutes, please.
Thank you very much and Excellency distinguished panelists.
Ladies and gentlemen, my greetings to you from the lovely country of South Africa.
South Africa, we believe that we remain a solid partner in the New Urban Agenda by practically localizing the SDGs.
Section 26 of our constitution states that government has a responsibility to take practical steps to ensure that there's adequate housing.
This is what we've been doing, having built over 5 million houses and ensuring many more housing opportunities.
The responsibility of parliamentarians remains to ensure that we hold the executive accountable and ensure that they are able to hold them accountable in implementing the government program of action that must talk to the constitution in addressing not just the injustices of our past, but the challenges that the country faces now.
And we believe that housing is not a challenge as such, but rather it is an opportunity to create opportunities.
Because by building a house, you're not just creating shelter, but you are bringing people closer, you are giving them dignity.
You are making sure that they are even closer to even work opportunities, educational opportunities, social amenities, et cetera.
Lastly, we want to state that honorable parliamentarians, I think we need to remember why we do what we do.
We do this because we are elected by people who believe that their hopes and aspirations live in our hearts and they live in our daily programs.
That is why they've given us this opportunity and we believe that with the work that we are doing with the UN Habitat, we should indeed be able to create a future that ensures that everyone has adequate housing, looking at over 2 billion people who do not have houses.
But if you just look at a house not just as an opportunity to give people housing, but to bring people together.
I was sitting early here and listening to my colleague from Azerbaijan, she stated something that was very, very wonderful to say, not just a place where you go to sleep, but it's where you sit with your family.
It's where you eat with your family, it's where you play with your family.
That's why we are saying, remember why we do what we are doing.
It's not just building a structure, but it is also to bring the community together, to bring the family together, to bring the nation together.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We move now to another part related to budgeting and related to resources.
We have a critical role as parliamentarians, not only in legislation or even in monitoring, but also to ensure that policies are implemented effectively and that public resources are used in a transparent way and that housing programs reach the communities that are most in need.
We move to a question for If we have from Zambia, Mr.
Czanano please, we need you to answer about how can parliament strengthen oversight and accountability mechanism to ensure that housing policies and budgets deliver tangible improvements for I mean, communities that are most in need and you have 2 minutes.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
My name is Marugch Sagano from the Parliament of Zambia.
Maybe just to start with, Zambia like any other country is faced with the housing problem because of the population growth, the urban migration, and issues to do with climate change.
Then how can parliaments translate global commitments into national outcomes to convert global concepts into legal enforceable domestic progress.
Zambia employs data driven oversight integration directly into national planning.
Key performance indicators alignment.
Global Urban goals are structured fed into the eighth National Development Plan 2022-2026 featuring concrete key performance indicators such as tracking the percentage of population living in informal settlements.
Then there is centralized monitoring, the Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, acts as the primary custodian of data system linking national goals to local constituency actions.
A key operational target is reducing the national housing deficit from 1.5 million in 2021 to 1.3 million in 2026.
Then we also targeted budgeting and resilience.
The 2025 and 2026 budget specifically ring faces funds for social housing.
Well, the national infrastructure policy of 2023 mandates that all new projects be climate resilient with compliancy overseen by the Disaster Management and mitigation Unit.
And finally, the international accountability Now, I like the data driven approach because it has not been mentioned a lot.
I think this is very important and one of the main tools for parliamentarians.
Now we move to let me see, Peru.
Do we have Honorable Ernesto Bustamante? Yes.
Honor.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Ernesto Bustamante.
I'm a parliamentarian in Peru.
Peru is a country of 34 million people.
The largest city is Lima.
Lima today has 12 million people.
Back in 1940, Lima only had 600,000 people.
1940-1980, Lima grew from 600,000 inhabitants to more than 4.5 million.
In the absence of affordable housing supply, migrants from the rural areas resorted to so called invasions, which are organized to collect the occupations of vacant public or private land.
So the state responded with a two phased policy, officially prohibiting invasions while simultaneously institutionalizing them through the Slums law of 1961, effectively accepting informal settlements of the housing solution for the urban poor.
This produced chaotic urban growth in which roads and water infrastructure often arrive decades after residents themselves.
10% of the city of Lima has no access to potable water.
Today.
So, this has continued into the 21st century 2001-2018, Lima generated more new urban land than any other city in Peru.
So seven out of every ten homes in Peru are self built, and this is a problem because Peru is in a seismic area of Earth.
So What are the key identified problems in Lima, Peru.
Migration and lack of estate planning, since the 50s, Lima has grown due to massive migration from rural areas to the city.
Then we have squatting as a method of urbanization.
Unlike other countries where construction comes first, followed by habitation in Lima, the process is reversed.
First land is occupied by squatting and then self construction takes place.
Then we have informality of titling.
Obtaining a property title is a slow, costly, and bureaucratic process.
Land trafficking, but began as a social necessity has become a criminal enterprise sometimes.
Vulnerability and progressive construction, lacking legal title, families cannot access bank loans to build better homes.
Could you finalize, please? Yes, I'm I'm ending in 15 seconds.
The proposed practical solutions are proactive urban planning, subsidized credit, modernization of land administration, incentivizing social renting housing, and comprehensive urban regeneration and public space development.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, honorable.
Thank you very much.
Now we go to China.
Mr.
Chen is here, I believe.
Please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
I'm from Guangzhou.
My name is in amo.
I'm the vice chairman of the Guangzhou Municipalities People's Congress.
We are a city of a long history.
We have more than 24 million people.
Last year, our GDP was 470 billion USD.
Guangzho Municipal People's Congress serve as the local arm of the state legislation of Guangzhou.
Today, I'm pleased to be here and share and exchange ideas with you on the following two aspects.
First, we focus closely on the pain points and the difficulty of urban governance.
We align our actions with thoughts expiration, aspirations of citizens and enact effective and practical laws.
Legislation is not about code rigid terms, rather, it should reflect the city's tolerance and fulfillment of diverse lifestyles.
We continue.
To integrate people's democracy into every lincoln aspect of the legislative progress.
We take cities incentives and high quality development as an urban governments goal.
We listen to the public opinions when determining legislation projects, drafting bills, and deliberating amendments.
This ensures that regulations we formulate are legally binding, well grounded, and genuinely effective.
Secondly, Urban governance involves complex affairs with countless loose ends.
We therefore persist in using precise and powerful oversight to push the government to enhance its urban governance efficiently.
We want to balance the needs of the people and our functions and to play a role as legislator and we use many methods, including rigid oversight to push forward governanceship, to improve our governance efficiency.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Urban governance is new also words that not new to us, I mean, but not mentioned too much today.
I think it's very important, especially to developing countries normally in all I know that China now is booming, thank you very much for your intervention.
Now we go to miss Ngar Ma Modova from Azra region.
Thank you very much.
Madam Speaker, Excellencies, colleagues, dear friends, it's a great pleasure to welcome you to the parliamentary round table.
Today, access to housing is one of the world's most serious challenges and rapid urbanization, climate change, rising living costs, and increasing pressure on infrastructure are creating new responsibilities for governments.
In this process, the role of parliaments and parliamentarians is especially important.
Azerbijan is demonstrating important experience in this field, as my colleague has underlined, reconstruction projects in the territories liberated from occupation, are creating a new model of modern and sustainable urban development.
Smart City and smart village concepts, green energy solutions, and digital management system show how the cities of the future can be built.
At the same time, the development of the middle corridor is creating new urban and economic transformation in the region.
This initiative contributes to urban growth, expands logistics opportunities, and strengthen international cooperation.
I believe that the main mission of parliaments is to create a strong legal foundation for sustainable housing policy, promote inclusive urban development, protect social justice, and support decisions that ensure environmental security.
We should also promote international cooperation in climate resilient social housing parliamentary monitoring mechanisms and inclusive urban policies for youth, women, and vulnerable groups.
We must make decisions that serve not only today's generation, but also future generations and expanding technical cooperation programs between parliaments is also very important because the future of cities is determined not only by infrastructure projects, but also by political will and fair governance.
And if we can provide safe, affordable, and sustainable housing for every person, we will build stronger economies and more stable societies, distinguished participants.
I believe that the dialogue held within Wo 13 will strengthen cooperation between parliaments and contribute to building more sustainable, safe, and inclusive cities.
I thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for taking the time.
Here we come to our last question and then we can open the floor for whoever you want to approach.
But first, this last question is related to the international networks related to parliamentarians.
I think this is a very important thing.
While I was reviewing the question again, I noticed that in the IPU, which is the International Parliamentary Union, There is no housing committee and now we are talking that housing is a very important issue and it is in the central of cities now of planning cities.
Maybe this would be also a recommendation if you agree with me from our round table that the IPU should they have many committees, they have working groups.
It can be a working group.
It should not maybe be a very big committee, it can be just a focus group.
I think this is one thing that we will need to add to our recommendations at the end because parliamentary diplomacy and international network, they can play a really powerful role in accelerating the reform.
I think this is a point that I noticed and we have in the IPU, the Sustainable Development Committee.
But there is no really related to housing.
It's talking about all, of course, there are some groups working on climate change or other topics, but maybe a housing committee now after Woof 13 would be really relevant to that.
We go there what role can a parliamentary play regarding the networks and international cooperation to accelerate the implementation of housing and sustainable urban development commitment beyond Wolf 13.
We can hear first from Mia, Honorable Coffey Agor.
Are you here? No.
Honorable Mohammed Al Bakuri from Morocco.
I know you're here.
Thank you, Madam President.
I'm very happy to be here with you today in this round table allocated to the parliamentarian participation for housing issue.
We in Morocco worked very deeply and we developed from the supporting policy in direct supporting into actually the system of direct support to the families, and we worked from different legislative channels to develop the capabilities of those who wants to buy their own houses.
One of these policies that we worked on is that we've worked in our vision for 2024, 2026.
We have allocated the direct a support to the families and some amendments into the law regarding the housing.
We're working continuously to work on the supervision as well and monitoring to make sure whether they use this in housing, actually, to make sure that they do not own any house before or any public house.
They haven't benefited from public houses before.
So we have specific specialized committees that have discussed the public housing issue deeply and the complications that can come from the implementations of our legislation.
So we are working on these developments at the moment in the committees in Morocco, we work on a very active supervision role.
We supervise our direct support programs.
We have about 1,000 beneficiaries who benefited from this program, and we try to find solutions for the registrations of the houses, and we try to make sure that the programs are successful.
Our public policies in Morocco is strategic.
With that, we are trying to give the right for housing to everyone in an equitable way.
We try to amend the problems and inequalities for the houses.
We try to provide houses for the families in a very equitable way.
We have some recommendations that we can offer to you Please, we just have two recommendations.
Put strategies and financial strategies and policies that allow the people to pay for their houses and make them affordable.
Secondly, ensuring the receiving of the vulnerable groups, firstly to these kind of support.
Thank you.
Okay.
Now I'll shift to English again.
Sorry.
Do we have Mr.
Prashanta from India? Are you here? Please.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you.
First of all, I'm not a parliamentarian, but I am a sector expert.
Thanks for inviting me to speak over here.
I would like to ask the parliamentarians, honorable members who are present here, what we have done in India.
Co you just raise your mic a little bit.
Thank you.
Is it clear? Okay.
What we have done in my country and in my state, Odisa is that there are two issues, in fact, one is the slum proofing.
In our urban areas around 25% of people live in slums, internal settlements, and also there are economical weaker sections, providing affordable housing has been the key, we have enacted laws and also housing policies.
I affordable housing policy, government is providing subsidy and also land tenure subtifuates.
In informal settlements, one of the landmark decision or the enactment of one act that has been done in my state is that all the slum dwellers residing in the slums, they are given land rights for the first time because unless you have the land tenure, Then you cannot assess market, you cannot assess loans from the bank, that has been a fundamental shift and slum proofing has been done to make the slum livable habitats.
So the infrastructure for the slum is coming from the municipal budget.
And about 25% of the municipal budget is earmarked for slum development.
So the infra for the slum, for example, water and sanitation, they are the key.
It is not only the houses that is important, but providing road, street lights, water and sanitation.
It has been the key.
So those infrastructure is coming from the municipal budgets.
So these are the lessons for making the city slum free.
The challenges remain in affordable housing.
Despite we provide a lot of finances and subsidies, still because of the, you know, economic conditions of the people still advancing, you know, affordable housing has still remained a challenge, and state intervention will be key in that respect.
So these are the best practices of our government.
Of course, we have taken off smart city, green mobility, and, you know, energy efficiency system, green energy.
So we have been advancing in these areas, but providing affordable housing for all the citizens, you know, weaker section is still a challenge and hopefully we'll be advancing that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Now we go to Brazil.
From So Pao, we have to speak in Spanish.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to talk.
I am a counselor in the city of Sao Paolo.
12 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Sao Paolo and huge progress has been made in the past 25 years.
There was the city statute approved, allowing the municipalities to fight speculation, allow access to land for low income population.
But this policy is implemented through master plans in the municipalities.
In a country with more than 5,000 municipalities, this is difficult.
Me, as a councilor of Sao Paolo, I was responsible for the passing of this master plan in Sao Paulo and housing has become an urban issue.
And as such, we are fighting real estate speculation, and we are trying with this plan to optimize housing, access to low income population in 2009, 2010, Lula's government has passed a national plan for housing 8 million dwellings were built in the whole country, but Still, a good part of these dwellings were built through federal government subsidies and the municipalities have allowed these subsidies to be used in the better placed land.
But there are some hurdles.
First of all, the location of this housing.
We have fought for the houses to be placed in the downtown and not in the suburban area.
That was important, particularly for the city of Sao Paolo.
Also, our biggest challenge is climate change.
We have extreme climate situation.
Having an impact on informal settlement in our population, and this has given rise to many, many issues.
The challenges are to make compatible climate change and housing in our country.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
We have also a representative or an MP from Congo, DRC.
I believe someone is here from Congo.
Yeah.
Thanks for the floor.
Many thanks for the floor.
I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in this meeting.
I would like to talk here as a national representative of my country.
I'm a member of the Parliament and Chair of Land Planning Infrastructure, New Technologies and Communication Technologies Commission.
Which means also urban planning and land use.
My country, the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, is urbanizing on a fast pace.
Now the planification tools and the regulation tools are not going with the same pace, which creates a chaotic urban sprawl a huge pressure on the basic infrastructures and housing scarcity and precarity.
In Kinshasa and other big cities, the city is being built more through informal settlements than thanks to public policies.
The housing sector is a rather, We need 3 million units.
There are lots of self built settlements and informal settlements, poor access to affordable housings, lots of speculation on the market, and no efficient financing mechanisms for middle and low revenue households.
Indeed, The situation leads to an urban governance.
We react more than we are proactive.
We are often late compared to the dynamics, both in terms of demography and economy.
The consequences are multidimensional.
We have growing inequalities, social inequalities, geographical inequalities, exposure to floods and other natural disasters, issues with sorry, but I will have to ask you to, yes, the challenge is huge, but our country is getting better and better organized.
The Parliament has now passed a law concerning land use, special planning, land tenure.
We are going forward, Congo is engaged into a pathway of reforms and modernizing.
We are aiming at modernizing our urban development.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Excuse me.
Ver and we have to finish before the ED comes to join us.
We will hear from Ukraine, from Mr.
Molodmir.
Yeah.
Then from Saudi Arabia and I hope we finished before, so please stick to 2 minutes to be able to welcome the Executive Director.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, dear moderator, dear colleagues.
I got a mail that I should have a speech on Ukrainian language.
That's why I started my speech on Ukrainian.
Shannon Nikole, Dear colleagues, today's question of, um, residential question is very crucial for all of us.
It's millions of Ukrainians lost their houses or were forced to move from their houses and areas to another one due to the war.
It was not declarational.
This process had real changes and especially it was, um, very difficult for young people, for elder generations.
Why this is important for parliament? We have to reform our urban planning and get international support for after war renewal of Ukraine.
Our international partners must see how we use funds and which projects are implemented.
From another side, we have to strengthen the tools for control.
We have to monitor all the process.
Everything should be transparent.
We have to implement independent audit and provide reports for the society.
But all this is not possible to do without our communities and local support.
Very important to hear the voice of those people who suffered from the war and Urban crisis.
We have to remember that Urban policy is not about the square meters, it's about inclusivity and quality of living.
For Ukraine, it's very important that after war recovery would be conducted, build back better.
I'm finishing.
Dear colleagues, effective Urban policy should start from the responsibility of the government in front of the people and strong parliament control.
Thank you so much for your attention.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Our last speaker is doctor Air from Saudi Arabia.
It's going ahead.
Sun.
Thank you very much.
In my intervention, I will be speaking about the kingdom experience from the experience of the tenant and the lender.
During the last ten years, we saw a surge in real estate prices which was difficult to give the Saudi citizens real estate and so the lease was also increasing in every unit and the prices were increasing.
So this is why Prime Price Mohammed Salman, who issued several decisions to create balance in the real estate market including, for example, several studies, including the studying the regulation of the relationship between landlords and tenants in September 2025.
Legal provisions regulating this relationship were issued, including the following.
First, the suspension of annual increases in the total rent value for existing or new residential and commercial real estate contracts within the urban battery of area for a period of five years effective from the date of the decision, second, as of the date of the decision, the total rent value for vacant residential and commercial real estate contracts, Within Ria's urban boundary which were previously leased is fixed based on the total value of the last HR contract third.
In the event the tenant wishes to renew the contract for properties within Ria's urban boundary, the landlord may not refuse to renew and the tenant is only compared to vacate the property in limited cases.
Documentation also of rental contracts on the HR network, landlords must submit a request to register rental contracts Not already recorded on the electronic ASR survey network, and the tenants also had the right to request such registration and these measures have contributes to strengthening legal frameworks for security of tenure residential stability and cost affordability by transitioning the rental market from an unregulated environment under total land control to a structure system under the rule of law and the preservation of rights by utilizing technology and applications, these rules have been embedded into the digital governance structure.
And so this creates a security, which is also parliamentary and legislative lesson to have the political boldness so that we can recalibrate and protect citizens from exploitation.
And so This was also strengthened by inspection initiatives and we also created the Asia that does not technically allow the entry of a contract with a price increase that violates the freeze decision and automatically activates the renewal features.
So instead of issuing a broad comprehensive law that might harm investment in other regions, the kingdom presented a model of targeted legislation that decision exclusively targeted reo within its urban boundary for a fixed duration of five years.
So the goal of this five year period is not to impose permanent control, but to Your Highness, can you please wrap up? So By developing tens of thousands of residential units, and to mature and enter the market.
The kingdom can present protections for the citizens and residents via strict government interventions and integrated urban policies.
Thank you very much Executive Director.
Before she makes her entry, I would like to thank you all the interventions, all the contributors, and I would like to thank you very much.
I think here she is, our great executive director who actually made this happen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I thank you again for all your contributions and we just finished on time.
You see, we went very well.
I'm sorry for cutting off some of you, but I think it was very important that we hear and we listen from Her Excellcy Executive Director of UN Habitat.
So please, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Professor Sahara, all panelists here, all present.
I'm really happy that this is happening because I put a lot of energy on that and I kept finding you all over the world and some of you had already been engaged with you and habitat.
But this is a very important segment you all know.
I don't have to explain to you why you are important.
Um, especially in a moment where the solution, not solution, but I mean, the response for the global housing crisis, needs to be systemic, and I think for me, this is a key message of this forum.
We can do projects, which is fine and projects will have beneficiaries.
Okay.
But we have to do much better than that.
We need to have the proper, urban policies connected and speaking to housing policies.
These needs to land on the ground in cities, proper master plans, urban plans that are agreed, endorsed by the society.
We need to have the financial regulations line up with the social needs, with the ecological needs.
Right now, we have financial flows that are landing in cities in ways that is not benefiting all the citizens and sometimes even generating segregation.
On the other hand, we have subsidies available that sometimes are not matching the plans locally.
You have urban plans, master plans that don't think about the housing needs in the future and how they will be allocated on the ground in the territory, but you have the subsidies available, so they end up in the peripheric areas of the city, they end up generating urban spraw and actually, ending up in urbanization processes that are not sustainable from the social perspective because poor people living far away from central areas, they cannot afford, they lose time in traveling and they cannot afford the costs of the traveling, they lose opportunities.
Uh, kids lose opportunities.
It's also more expensive for cities to sustain all this infrastructure and has a cost for the nature and for the environment.
So we have to look at all of that and this requires regulations, legislation at the national level, at the state, regional level, at the local level that really orients this urban growth and orients the housing production in a way that we can have a balanced result that needs addressed.
We are now reviewing the new Urban agenda at its midterm, as you all know, in New York on the 16th and 17th.
It will be very, very important to have your perspective in this review process because the New Urban Agenda talks about legal frameworks.
The New Urban Agenda talks about regulations.
So it will be very important to look at those and see, you know, what is the message, what is the perspective that we need for the next ten years.
We all know that as much as political willingness might, you know, be in place by the executive, if you the parliamentarians are not there or the other way around.
We need this convergence between the parliaments, the Congress, and the executive, and of course, the whole of the society.
We hope that this is not the last one.
I really would like to ask you to keep it growing, make sure that we find also peers that can be with us in two years in Mexico when we go for Wolf 14 and eventually we can use this space to review also the advances.
The Baku culture action that is a result of this forum has been so far, receiving and owned by the stakeholders.
I think they have been updating online and so on.
We started prepared before.
One of the ideas that has been discussed is that this is a continuous process so that we don't have to agree on a call to action every time because, yeah, we don't want to shopping list.
But hopefully we can use the Baku culture action.
We can also use the summary of the chair.
That is coming out of the ministerial meeting hosted by our hosts chaired by our hosts, Azerbaijan.
At the end of the forum on Friday, we'll have the two documents available and the Word Cities report should look at it.
You can use the mic and promote I promoted.
I told them that Word Cities report is a great document, remarkable document, very timely, and I think each parliamentarian should look at it.
Really? Yeah, I endorse what said.
I think it was a very interesting co creation process around the W cities report.
It's the first stock taking on housing globally after so many years.
I think it gives many important political directions.
The nice thing about the W cities report is that it sees housing in a systemic way.
Not isolated.
It's not a matter of building houses, not a matter of leveraging the private sector or the communities or only the local governments and national governments.
No, it's a systemic way.
Everybody has a role and we need all the forces in place.
We need the community, the social movements forces, we need the market forces because the needs are just gigantic.
Yeah, I want to ask you to endorse another thing that we suggested today is that in the International Parliamentary Union in the IPU, there is no housing committee.
There are committees and there is no housing committee.
Maybe after Wolf and regarding that now housing is in the central of dignity and human rights, we have a committee of Human Rights.
Maybe a committee, we have a committee of sustainable development actually, it can be derived from a working group within the sustainable committee.
I think this is one of the recommendations that we can come up today with.
That would be great for us.
I don't know what role I can play myself.
I can of course, meet with my peers and share, which I did actually already in New York.
But perhaps we can also use the events in New York to bring also the IPU for the review of the new urban agenda.
I will do what I can to do that, but I think it's up to you because you participate on that.
You.
Thank you very much for your participation.
First of all, I have also one suggestion about non aligned movement because when we chaired non aligned movement as Azerbaijan, we created parliamentary network of this and its executive directory will be located in Baku in Azerbaijan.
We will chair this network.
It would be good also to have housing also urban development committee within non aligned movement as well because non align movement is the second big international organization after UN Well, thank you very much.
No, I think that's my message basically.
We have a great opportunity ahead of us with this review, strong political will that I've been observing in my missions.
When I travel, we had the Great African Urban Forum, we had also urban forum in the Pacific, we're going to have in the Caribbean, we have the meetings of ministers.
There is now, I think, growing political will and recognition.
Europe has for the first time dedicated commissioner working on housing, a housing plan.
It's a great opportunity to leverage the agenda.
We have the documents, the recommendations of the open ended, and that's important.
The recommendations from the open ended working group on housing.
Perhaps this could be another entry point for engagement from you, parliamentarians.
This is a member led engagement.
You have to role is to facilitate the first year, this working group was chaired by Kenya and France.
Now it's being shared by Azerbaijan and Somalia and it has two main outputs.
One is to generate a platform of practices, which we started here.
This We forum is the practice hub at the expo and also the awards that we launched.
The second one is a set of policy recommendations.
The working group will be working until 2029.
2029.
We already have policy recommendations I recommend you also to look at policy recommendations for social housing, policy recommendations for transformation of informal settlements, on finance and access to land.
This year, the working group is working on climate resilient cities, There are sessions here in Azerbaijan.
Don't ask me the date, and also land and integrated housing policies.
There will be an in person meeting in Nairobi in November, back to back to our executive board meeting.
This could be also another entry point for some of you to participate and contribute to this policy recommendations.
But we already have some policy recommendations that can be translated into laws and regulations in your respective geographies.
So yeah, thank you so much.
Conclude.
Can we conclude? You can conclude.
I can conclude conclude.
Yeah, I think, your outcomes we aligned together, having the IPU align, having the Baku go to action operating and using this intergovernmental process of the new urban agenda of the open ended working group, also the climate space at the upcoming cops to keep moving into transforming these discussions into action and you as enabler in your different spaces through the frameworks you are working with.
I think that's it and I hope that we keep the track until the next move.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for your attendance and interventions.
And please remember we have a responsibility, so let's keep on it and work hard for resolving all housing issues in our countries.
Thank you.