UN-Habitat
 
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Housing rights
 
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25.1)
The United Nations Housing Rights Programme (UNHRP) was launched in April 2002, as a joint initiative by UN-HABITAT and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The substantive focus of the programme is grounded in the Habitat Agenda which states that "Within the overall context of an enabling approach, Governments should take appropriate action in order to promote, protect and ensure the full and progressive realization of the right to adequate housing" (paragraph 61). The development objective of the UNHRP is to assist States and other stakeholders with the implementation of their commitments in the Habitat Agenda to ensure the full and progressive realisation of the right to adequate housing as provided for in international instruments (see joint UN-OHCHR and UN-HABITAT Factsheet 21 on the right to adequate housing).
Housing rights NEWS

New UN-HABITAT initiative brings people’s perspective to green urban development
Nairobi - 23/12/2011

In an effort to bring a more inclusive approach to green housing provision UN-Habitat has launched i-HOUSE

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Housing rights NEWS

Praise from world-renowned expert on displacement for recent UN-HABITAT publication on eviction
Nairobi - 25/10/2011

"Losing Your Home" is an important and long overdue book, which I warmly welcome and recommend to the worldwide readership that it addresses and fully deserves. This book offers us a fresh and compelling look at one of the global and still unheralded enough crisis of our times: the increasing eviction and displacement of large numbers of people – no less than tens of millions every year – who are uprooted from their houses mostly without receiving the support they need for rebuilding their lives from society as a whole. Every reader stands to benefit from studying it. Click here to read the entire review from Michael M. Cernea, Brookings Institution NR Senior Fellow, and Research Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University

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LINKS

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing

Advisory Group on Forced Evictions(AGFE)
PUBLICATIONS
View Details Evictions and the rights-based approach to urban development, September 2011
View Details Forced Evictions
View Details Losing your Home
View Details Affordable Land and Housing in Europe and North America
View Details Affordable land and housing in Latin America and the Caribbean
View Details Affordable Land and Housing in Asia
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