World Habitat Day provides an excellent opportunity to highlight key human settlements issues. We would like to thank all our partners who in the past years have organized awareness raising activities on the day.  In 2005, a record 110 events were organized around the world to commemorate World Habitat Day.  The wide media coverage and visibility from these events has done a great deal to increase awareness of shelter and urban issues. 

This year, we want to build on the success of previous years and call again on our partners in central government, local government, civil society and the private sector to take part in organizing activities to raise awareness and stimulate debate on the important theme of Cities, magnets of hope.  As usual, we shall report on all the activities organized around the world on this website, which receives millions of visitors per annum, and in the World Habitat Day report that we send out to some 20,000 partners around the world.

Guidelines

As a guide, here are some of the activities that you can help organize:

1. Use mass media, particularly newspapers, radio and television, to draw attention to World Habitat Day celebrations. If possible, issue press releases, display posters, organize press conferences, and broadcast video and audio spots.
2. Draw attention to the problems and issues on the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the targets on slums and access to water and sanitation through press articles, radio and television documentaries and panel programmes with policy makers, government officials, academics, journalists, other professionals, and community representatives. Public information campaigns, and use of popular theatre can also help to create awareness of the problems and issues.
3. Use the Day to publicise, reward and demonstrate tangible improvements in the lives of slum dwellers and the level of access to water and sanitation facilities.
4. Organize competitions to find solutions to human settlements and urban problems such as essay and painting competitions to create awareness and enhance learning in institutions of learning and to seek solutions.
5. Organise fund raising, recreational or entertainment activities like football matches, concerts, etc., and use the proceeds to upgrade and extend services for the poor communities.
6. Work with postal authorities to issue special stamps to mark the Day and raise global awareness.
7. Educational authorities could, in collaboration with appropriate ministries, introduce Millennium Development Goals into school curricula.

Support from UN-HABITAT

To support city and country-level activities, UN-HABITAT is developing information and promotional materials on the theme and will provide an information kit including a poster, and a short video on the theme for use by any partner that wishes to plan an event to commemorate World Habitat Day. Information kits will be mailed to partners including Embassies and High Commissions, Inter-governmental Organizations, United Nations Information Centre offices, UNDP country offices and other UN agencies.

Let us know about your event

Please let us know if you wish to organize a local awareness-raising event by sending an Email to whd@unhabitat.org. We would greatly appreciate it, if you could include in your Email, as many details as possible about your planned event. Also, when World Habitat Day is over, please send us a report on your event, with details of media coverage and photographs if possible, and we will post these on the World Habitat Day page of our website and in the report that is distributed to all our partners so that all our partners and the public. Thank you for your continued support.