World Habitat Day - Housing & Land Rights Day

From the civil society perspective, organisers are working in their communications to emphasise the "right to the city" as the collective application of human rights, and to secure access benefits and services in the cities in spite of what they define as the negative impacts of privatisation of housing and utilities. The MDGs are also a key source of motivation for this initiative, which draws on global partnership. UN-HABITAT is working with a number of international and civil society organisations, cities, and governments to mobilise individuals and groups to help realise Target 11 of MDG #7 - improving the living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020 - and Target 10 - reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

A recent catastrophic event serves as a way to bring people together through this initiative; in an effort to remind the world that many homes were destroyed in the December 2004 tsunami, the event is being spearheaded from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. UN-HABITAT's Executive Director will be traveling to that area to communicate "the urgent need to join hands in tacking the slow-motion tsunami of growing urban poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She will also award the Habitat Scroll of Honour for outstanding achievements in shelter provision and sustainable urban development."

Calls to action - communicated through the internet and other channels - are key to stimulate various activities throughout October 2005. Local, national, and regional organisations; social movements; non-governmental organisations (NGOs); and academic institutions are called to organise public actions and events to denounce destructive impacts of neo-liberal development policies and economic globalisation (e.g., budget cuts, forced evictions, land speculation, and privatisation of social housing and utilities) on people's housing and land rights, worldwide. The call is meant to be inviting and open; each organisation is asked to define the issues, demands, and slogans for its particular country or city, perhaps emphasising cutting-edge local housing rights struggles which their organisation is fighting for, and which will help advance their own issues locally. Local groups are encouraged to organise events that are feasible in the context of their resources and organisational culture, "but with a press angle and preferably mass action or participation. Examples could include: a march or rally, an action to highlight vacant buildings or land, a press conference, release of a report on housing conditions/demands or a cultural activity."

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a tool for sharing information about this event and facilitating activism around it. The UN-HABITAT website and HIC website list the specific actions and events being undertaken by each participating organisation, with links to the Home Page of each group (where feasible) for more information. As October approaches, participating groups will be able to print out a summary of actions planned across the globe for use with local media.

Environment, Rights.

Organisers cite the following statistics:

• 1.2 billion people have inadequate housing, and more than 100 million are homeless.
• Since the Millennium Declaration, the global slum population has risen by more than 75 million. By the middle of this century, two-thirds of the global population will be living in towns and cities.
• Nearly 32% of the world's urban population - roughly 1 billion people - lives in slums, mostly in or on the edges of cities across the developing world. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion of its urban population resident in slums - nearly 72% in 2001.
• In absolute numbers of slum dwellers, Asia as a whole has by far the largest number - 554 million, or 60% of the world's total slum population - followed by Africa with 187 million (20% of the global figure), and Latin America and the Caribbean with 128 million (14% of the global figure). The slum population in developed countries is 54 million ( 6% of the global slum population).

"HIC is an independent, international, non-profit movement of some 400 organizations and individuals working in the area of human settlements. Members include NGOs, CBOs, academic and research institutions, civil society organizations and like-minded individuals from 80 countries in both North and South." Coinciding with the UN's World Habitat Day in October 2004, the HIC campaign mobilised 90 local actions in 31 countries on 6 continents to create a coordinated housing rights protest.