Housing has become a “systemic global challenge that shapes inequality, opportunity, resilience, and stability and peace in our cities and societies,” Executive Director of UN-Habitat Anacláudia Rossbach said at the conclusion of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku on Friday.
Affordability pressures, displacement and climate vulnerability are the main reasons for this major world issue, Rossbach explained.
Rossbach said the Forum’s concluding statement, called the Baku Call to Action, emphasised the complexity of finding housing solutions that integrate land, finance, infrastructure and governance to achieve climate-resilient, inclusive cities through urban transformation.
The World Urban Forum in Baku gathered more than 57,000 participants from over 176 countries, with Rossbach hailing the participation by stating that "never before has a forum of this nature brought together such as vast and diverse global audience”.
WUF13 National Coordinator Azerbaijan’s Anar Guliyev said that “the theme of WUF13 placed housing at the centre of the global urban agenda and reaffirmed that access to adequate, affordable, safe and resilient housing remains one of the defining challenges of our time.”
