Global Observance of World Habitat Day 2026
The world is facing a global housing crisis. More than 3 billion people lack access to adequate housing today. Furthermore, more than 1.1 billion people, continue to live in an informal settlement, and hundreds of millions are experiencing homelessness. This crisis is exacerbated by conflicts, disasters, and climate change, with individuals living in informal settlements facing the harshest impacts and having the least ability to recover. Housing is acknowledged as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Other than it being well established as a right that the world is yet to deliver, people facing the challenge of inadequate housing are also deprived of dignity, safety, stability and opportunity.
The Global Observance of World Habitat Day 2026 builds on a renewed wave of political commitment to Adequate Housing. At the second session of the UN-Habitat Assembly, 2023 Member States adopted resolution 2/7, which focuses on ensuring adequate housing for all, and resolution 2/2, which aims to transform informal settlements and slums. In these resolutions, Member States have urged UN-Habitat to strengthen its efforts in these important areas and UN Habitat launched the Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group on Adequate Housing for All, as an intergovernmental process to help contribute to solving for this challenge. Further through the Pact for the Future, Member States have also committed to ensuring that everyone has access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing.
This year also marks the first Urban October under UN-Habitat’s new Strategic Plan 2026–2029, which places housing, land and basic services at the centre of the organization’s mandate. The Baku Call to Action from the thirteenth World Urban Forum held in May 2026, emphasises the importance of a human rights approach to housing and encourages a shift from diagnosis to action. Housing is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Making progress on both the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda is closely tied to our ability to provide adequate housing for everyone.
World Habitat Day will highlight the importance of adequate housing for thriving communities and the actions needed to make it a reality. This requires targeted efforts for lower-income groups, people experiencing disasters, crisis and homelessness, and those most at risk of displacement. Success depends on how we plan and manage our cities, recognising the social, economic and ecological functions of land, promoting secure land tenure, preventing urban sprawl, and ensuring housing is located within well-serviced, liveable neighbourhoods.
Achieving adequate housing also requires diversifying how housing is produced and delivered, through social, public, rental, cooperative and community-led models alongside market-based solutions. Housing must be environmentally sustainable, climate resilient and culturally appropriate, while prioritising the upgrading and transformation of informal settlements to improve conditions for those most in need. Above all, these efforts rely on effective multilevel governance, supported by enabling policies and legislation, robust data, and adequate financing.
The Global Observance, hosted by the Sultanate of Oman in Muscat, will kick off the Home & Building Expo and Urban October. It will provide a global platform for exchanging experiences, showcasing innovative approaches, and strengthening partnerships that advance the right to adequate housing in practice.
Objectives
In line with UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029 and resolution 2/7 on adequate housing for all, World Habitat Day 2026 will:
| Themes |
| • Communication and dissemination • Housing rights • International • Norms and standards • Public policies • UN system |
