World Habitat Day 2026 - "Adequate Housing for All" (Muscat, Oman) (Afternoon Session)
Conferences
Date: 5 October 2026
Language: English
Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/zh/asset/k1n/k1ncqarxvr?lang=en
Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations.

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Moderator [1:51]:

Dear guests, we are about to start the next segment. If you can please take your seats. If you can please take your seats, dear guests. We are about to begin. If you can please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. One last time, if you can please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. If you can please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I hope you had time to enjoy the displays around the Expo and are now ready for the next segment on the UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Awards. Earlier today, we had the honor of presenting the 2026 UN-Habitat Scroll of Honor Awards, together with Ms. Anna Claudia Rosbach, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat, His Excellency Kalfan bin Saeed Mubarak Al Shuwaileh, the Minister of Housing and Urban Planning of the Sultanate of Oman, and our guest of honor, His Excellency Sheikh Abad Al-Malek Al-Khalili, Chairman of the State Council of the Sultanate of Oman. We have celebrated the achievements of our honorees today and now we would like to hear from them directly about their achievements. I should apologize firstly on behalf of our recipient, Ms. Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Pakistan. She's had to leave a bit earlier due to a flight arrangement. So once again, her apologies, she's had to leave a bit earlier for some earlier flight. In which case, I would like to call upon the next recipient, Mr. Thu Aung, representing Housing Now from Bago, Myanmar, to come up on stage and give us a few words.


Myanmar · Architect [4:53]:

Assalamu alaikum, everyone. I'm Thu Aung from Myanmar. I'm an architect, and I mainly work in bamboo architecture. And I would like, on behalf of Housing Now, I would like to sincerely thank UNHabitat and Myanmar for this recognition, and the government of Oman and the city of Muscat for welcoming us here today. This recognition is not only for Housing Now, but also for the community we work with, the construction workers, the local carpenters we work with. In Myanmar, housing is often built under very difficult conditions. Communities affected by conflict, displacement, disaster, has very limited access to materials, resources, finance. So for us, the question has always been very practical. How can we make safe and adequate housing? possible using the resources, skills, and material that exist locally? Bamboo has become an important answer for that question. But for us, the solution is not just bamboo. It is the combination of local material, local knowledge, computational architecture, structural engineering, and community participation. This is why Housing Now does not believe one standardized housing solution can solve every situation. Housing Now believe different situation needs different answers. Receiving this UN Habitat Scroll of Honour encourage us to keep learning from the community we work with. to keep testing and improving our ideas, and to keep looking for different housing solutions for different realities on the ground. Thank you again for this recognition.


Moderator [7:20]:

Thank you, Mr. Ong. May I now call upon Mr. Abdelmalek Ghannem of Bizerte, Tunisia, to come forward, please, for a few words.


Tunisia · Award recipient [7:37]:

Salaam alaikum. Ladies and gentlemen, honorable guests, I come from Tunisia to share with you our experience more than 15 years to make the unuseful things useful things. All people on the world know how to use the useful things. But the unuseful things, this is the problem. For me, I'm focusing more than 15 years ago on unuseful soil. The unuseful soil, we don't touch the agricultural soil. No, the unuseful soil, the dust of the quarries. marble quarries, gravel quarries, mines. We extract sometimes mineral, we extract many things. So there is a huge quantity of soil, and useful soil. We bring this soil, we treat it, and we make with intelligent blocks. As a Lego, our blocks don't need cement. in the world, 19% cementless, it's like Lego. So we go on the site, we use the local soil with local labor, with small training, they will solve their problem by their own self. The community, two person, can't build a home, but 10 person can build 10 homes. So they will help each other to do this small game. This small game, it will give us a small home, a green home. There is no chemicals there, there is no cement. It's speedy and tested as an earthquake resistant. up to seven and University of South Africa. So we have a wall faster, very, very, very good to see and ship with local materials, earthquake resistant and carbon footprint near to zero. So what we what we have as dream, our dream is to go more and more close to young people in rural community to teach them, to share with them our experience to solve their problems, to create jobs locally by their own self. They can solve problem and they can have a small house, medium house, schools, hospital, even luxury houses. Believe me, we construct with this technique, with this 440 square meters house without clean. No clean and no air condition needed because there is auto ventilation. The concept is how to retain the rain water how to use solar panel, how to ventilate the house from inside so the house is well and well ventilated. There is no need to do clean. And the wall is with high density and high energy. So there is no insulation, but there is a very good thermal comfort inside. Something other that I can add is the air, the inside air quality in the house. You respire good. There is no chemical. There is no paint. So if we go to the rural company, to a rural area, to poor people, we teach them, we encourage them to solve problems. That will be one of my best dream in my life is to go with the young people and to create jobs in local community. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Thank you for United Nations Habitat to be recognized for the honor, this award. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Moderator [12:33]:

Mr. Kanem. Dear guests, our next recipient, as mentioned earlier, could not attend in person today. That is Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. However, he has sent us a video message.


United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · Mayor of London [12:48]:

I'm deeply honoured to accept the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour, and I'm especially proud to receive it for something that's always been deeply personal to me. The right to a safe, secure and affordable home. I grew up in public housing in South London after my parents moved to this city from Pakistan in search of a better life. We didn't have much money, but that home gave my family something invaluable: the opportunity to put down roots, save for the future, and ensure my siblings and I had the best possible start in life. But today, too many Londoners and people around the world aren't afforded that same chance. And that's why, as mayor, I've done everything in my power to deliver more affordable housing. Over the last decade, we've built more public housing than at any time since the 1970s, and completed more new homes in London than at any time since the 1930s. We've also pushed for higher building safety standards, strengthened rights for renters, and expanded support for those sleeping rough. And We've put sustainability at the heart of London's growth, building greener, more energy efficient homes and better connected neighborhoods designed to support our ambition of becoming a net zero city. There's still much more to do, and that's why the work of UN Habitat and gatherings like this today are so important. By learning from one another and sharing what works, we can build cities that are more affordable, more sustainable and more resilient. So I accept this award not only with enormous pride in what we've achieved, but with renewed determination for the work still ahead to build a London that is fairer, greener and more prosperous, and a city in a world where everyone has a safe and secure place to call home. Thank you so much.


Moderator [14:55]:

Mayor Sadiq Khan. Dear guests, finally, I would like to acknowledge our fifth recipient, Mr. Tiago Baumann Gubert, representing Aldeia do Espirito Turca Arajovi of Manica, Brazil. As mentioned earlier, he had some travel complications. He can't be with us today, but he will be here tomorrow. We look forward to hearing his words then. Dear guests, with that, we now transition to the next segment of our day today, the ministerial segment of the global observance of World Habitat Day 2026. We are honored to have with us today an exceptional group of ministers and senior government representatives from across the region and beyond. And we now have the chance to hear directly from them on their national perspectives, priorities, and commitments towards adequate housing for all. May I please invite the following guests. His Excellency Kalfan bin Saeed bin Mubarak Al Shuali, the Minister of Housing and Urban Planning for Oman, please come on stage. Next up, Her Excellency Randa El Menchawi, Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities in Egypt. Next we have His Excellency Issam Jumaa Al-Tamuni, Minister of Housing and Construction for Libya. His Excellency Bilal Yasin, Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering from Punjab, Pakistan. I believe he may have left early with the delegation given their travel complications. He may not be here, but No? Okay. We'll go to the next guest. Mr. Hasan Suber, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change from Turkey. Next up, we have Mr. Rashid Al-Enesi, Acting General Manager of the Public Authority for Housing and Welfare of Kuwait. Next, we have Mr. Fahud Mohammed Al-Kayyarin, Assistant Under-Secretary for Social Development Affairs from the Ministry of Social Development and Family of Qatar. Next, we have Mr. Yousif Abdullah Al Ali, the Under-Secretary from United Arab Emirates. And we now have Ms. Anna Claudia Rosbach, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat. and please forgive the omission the minister from Bahrain miss Amna come on down I will now invite each of our guests to deliver a three-minute statement first up His Excellency Kalfan al Shuwaile Audio please for the microphones. Audio for the microphones on stage, please. Again, audio for the microphones on stage, please, colleagues.


Oman · Minister of Housing and Urban Planning [19:06]:

Okay. I think now we can, okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Salaam alaikum. And I would like to again welcome all of our guests coming from all over the world. We are very happy, pleased, and honored to have you here in Oman. And I would like to thank UN-Habitat and the wider team also from Oman and other delegation for the superb opening ceremony for this event. We were very happy to have you all here today. And I wish you, inshallah, you have a good time while you are here in Muscat. Of course, housing, and as a minister of housing in Oman, is a very important aspect for any country. And I would like to give you a little bit about the housing condition in Oman. Alhamdulillah, we are very blessed with the fact that almost 90% of our Omani population, Omani families own their own homes. We feel there is still more to do, you know, to improve this number. There are various policies and programs that the government has conducted over this development period. While you are here today in this exhibition center, I encourage you also to visit the pavilion of the ministry to understand also the new housing programs. To my right, majority of the developers and we have seen a few of them during our tour, are actually delivering on a public-private partnership, are delivering a big program called Suroor, which aims to deliver for various locations in Oman. I think total now more than 36 projects all over, affordable housing program. Not only housing, but we have seen as well that this is actually communities. So availability of schools, public amenities, suitable infrastructure. And we have also in this program ensured that the location and accessibility, which were also part of the definition of affordable housing, was met in the selection of this. I encourage all other colleagues from various governments to maximize on the potential of the local private sector, local companies, SMEs in their own countries, because to be honest, that's very sustainable. The government in this aspect provides support in terms of land and infrastructure, and also in regulating the program and ensuring that the houses that are eventually given to the citizens are actually affordable and subsidized heavily. It's a very significant success in our journey. And I hope, inshallah, we can also learn from the others how do they pursue the affordable housing in their own countries. Thank you very much.


Moderator [22:23]:

Our next speaker is His Excellency Saeed Mohammed Mahmoud Haid. Once again, audio for the microphones on stage, please.


United Arab Emirates · Under-Secretary [22:40]:

Yes, thank you, Mr. Komoto.

Bismillah, Rahman, Rahim, Assalamu alaikum, Ashraf, Alim, As-Salamu alaikum, Assalamu alaikum, Assalamu alaikum, Assalaamu alaikum, Assalaamu alaikum, Assalaamu.

Shi'ite, and to the host party and good organization of this event.

And from here.

So, in the morning, I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to talk to.

The.

And our nations and peoples to further prosper and thrive. Peace be upon you all.


Moderator [24:44]:

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Her Excellency Amna Al Rumaithi.


Bahrain · Minister [24:59]:

بن سعيد الشعيري وزير الاسكان والتخطيط العمراني سلطنه عمان اصحاب المعالي والسعاده السلام عليكم ورحمه الله وبركاته بدايه اود ان اتقدم بخالص الشكر والتقدير الى سلطنه عمان الشقيقه والى معالي الدكتور المهندس خلفان بن سعيد الشعيلي وزير الاسكان والتخطيط العمراني على حسن الاستضافه والتنظيم واتاحه هذه الفرصه لتبادل الرؤى والتجارب حول احد اهم الموضوعات المرتبطه بحياه and stability, and providing housing for everyone. The concept of suitable housing today goes beyond the traditional concept of housing, so that it includes building a comprehensive housing system that takes into account the needs of families, and provides a variety of options that are suitable for their abilities and aspirations, and puts quality of life, sustainability, and efficiency in the design of housing policies. We are in the Kingdom of Bahrain, where the social housing sector the. Alhamdulillah, Mamlakat Al Bahrain is adding more to the diversity, as well as adding to the real estate market with more residential units through the development of private land. Of course, these partnerships are expanding with landowners, real estate owners and developers, and it stimulates the development of private land to create residential projects that meet the needs of citizens and increase the real estate supply, and support the diversity of the available housing options. إلى هذين المسارين، إحنا كمملكة البحرين مستمرين في استكمال إنشاء وبناء المدن الإسكانية وفق طبعا مسار التمليك التقليدي في كل من مدينة سلمان ومدينة خليفة ومدينة ستر الإسكانية ومدينة الحد الإسكانية وضاحية الرملي، وأكيد هذه كل المدن جرى تخطيطها وفق أحدث المعايير والتصاميم، البناء لتوفير طبعا جودة حياة للقاطنين وكذلك الزوار، وطبعا كل هذه المسارات تتكامل And. طبعا الاسبوع الماضي كنت عده في مملكه البحرين نحن استضفنا فعاليات الاسبوع الاسكاني الخليجي الرابع واكيد تشرفنا بحضور جميع الوزراء والوزارات المعنيه بالاسكان الى مملكه البحرين بالاضافه الى النسخه الثانيه من مؤتمر ومعرض الابتكار في قطاع السكن الاجتماعي وطبعا هناك نخبه من كبار المسؤولين والمتخصصين في القطاعين الحكومي والخاص شاركونا واكدت جميع المخرجات هذا المؤتمر على اهميه تطوير الدور الحكومي في توفير الخدمه التكامل ما بين التخطيط الاسكاني مع البنية التحتية والنقل والخدمات والمرافق والانتقال من المشاريع المنفردة الى مجتمعات متكاملة وجاهزة للمستقبل. اه اكيد طبعا الرؤية للسكن ملاءم للجميع. تقوم على منظومة تجمع ما بين تمكين المواطن من اختيار الحل السكني المناسب. بالاضافة الى زيادة المعروض. بالاضافة الى تعزيز الشراكة مع القطاع الخاص والاستفادة من الابتكار والتقنيات الحديثة والبيانات في استشراف الطلب المستقبل وصولا الى مجتمعات سكنيه متكامله ومستدامه يكون الانسان وجوده حياته هي من صميم هذا التخطيط اكيد اجدد شكري وتقديري لسلطنه عمان الشقيقه على حسن الاستضافه وكرم الضيافه وحفاوه الاستقبال الصراحه متمنيه لهذا المؤتمر كل النجاح والتوفيق وان يسهم كل المداولات والمخرجات في تعزيز تبادل الخبرات ودعم الجهود لتطوير حلول اسكانيه.

To develop more affordable housing.


Moderator [32:45]:

Our next speaker, His Excellency Issam Juma Al Tamuni.


Libya · Minister of Housing and Construction [32:57]:

Bismillah, and peace and blessings be upon the Prophet of Islam. Most gracious and most merciful. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And the second, the Muslim, is a mere, but he was, and the one who has a basic human rights. And the one that is a stage of reconstruction and stability, we fully understand that the housing challenge intersects with the challenges of urban and وتآكل النسيج العمراني، واتساع السكن العشوائي، واحتياجات النازحين، وشبابنا المقبل على الحياة. اسمحوا لي أن أشارككم تجربتنا باختصار. أولا، على مستوى التجارب العملية، أطلقت حكومة الوحدة الوطنية الاستراتيجية الوطنية للإسكان ألفين وخمسة وعشرين ألفين وثلاثين. التي تهدف إلى معالجة الفجوة الإسكانية المقدرة عبر حزمة متكاملة تشمل تطوير السجل العقاري الرقمي، وضبط التخطيط العمراني، وإطلاق مشروعات الإسكان الاجتماعي الميسر في طرابلس وبنغازي وسبها، وتحديد كودات البناء لضمان السلامة والاستدامة وكفاءة الطاقة. ثانيا، على مستوى الحلول، We are adopting an approach based on partnership between the public and private sectors, and encouraging the use of local, sustainable, and appropriate building materials, and rehabilitating the damaged cities according to the principle of building better, while integrating the most vulnerable groups, such as women, youth, and low-income families. and families. And from this platform, I would like to announce three future commitments for the state of Libya. One, the commitment to provide 150,000 housing units according to the initiative of the Prime Minister of the National Unity, which is appropriate and affordable, the cost over the next five years, according to the standards of sustainability and resilience. Two, the commitment بإطلاق المدينة الذكية والمستدامة كأداة للتخطيط عبر إنشاء مرصد وطني حضري لبيان الإسكان والأرض. ثلاثة الالتزام بتعزيز التعاون العربي والدولي وتبادل الخبرات، ونحن منفتحون على نقل التجربة العمانية الرائدة في التخطيط العمراني. Libya, because achieving housing for all is an investment in peace and development, and an integral part of the Sustainable Development Goals and the new urban agenda. Thank you, and we ask God to bless us all in building resilient, safe and sustainable cities. Peace be upon you.


Moderator [36:46]:

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Mr. Hassan Souber.


Türkiye · Deputy Minister [36:54]:

Sen sayın bakanlar sayın icra direktörü değerli katılımcılar sizleri Türkiye Cumhuriyeti çevre şehircilik ve iklim değişikliği Bakanlığı adına saygıyla selamlıyorum Bakanımız COP 31 Başkanı Sayın Murat Kurum'un selamlarını iletiyorum. Sıcak ev sahipliği için Umman Sultanlığı'na, Konut ve Şehir Planlama Bakanlığı'na, bizleri Dünya Habitat Günü'nde bir araya getirdiği için UN-HABITAT'a teşekkür ediyorum. Yeterli konut Yalnızca konut inşa etmekten ibaret değildir bir konutun içinde yaşamanın ihtiyaçlarını da karşılayabilir olmalıdır bir evin yazın serin kışın sıcak tutulmasının maliyeti bir aile karşılanıyorsa bu konut ideal bir konut This is why energy efficiency in buildings is a very important housing policy for us in Turkey. We have been implementing the energy identity system in Turkey since 2010. We have also implemented the general energy stock of buildings. This document is for the building permit for new buildings. mevcut binalarda ise alım satın ve kiralama işlemlerinde aranmaktadır Böylece her aile yeni konaklayacağı konutun enerji performansını görebilmektedir yeni binalara yönelik enerji verimliliği ile ilgili nitelikleri sıkılaştırdı calculations according to climate data, and we have determined the appropriate insulation standards for each climate region. In the last two years, the average energy consumption of a new building has been reduced by 30%. We have not given up on this approach even in the most challenging conditions. February 2023 earthquakes, we completed 455,000 homes and workplaces in 11 provinces within three years. We built quickly, but we did not pay for the quality. Energy verimli olarak tasarlandı ve yaklaşık 0 enerjili bina ölçütlerini gözeterek inşa edildi. Yeşil binaları ve yeşil yerleşmeleri belgelendiren Ulusal Yeşil Sertifika sistemimiz YES TR'yi de hayata geçirdik. 2027 yılı itibariyle, belirli özellikteki binalar için yaşam döngüsü analizi yapılmasını zorunlu hale getiriyoruz. Belirli büyüklükteki binalarda yağmur suyu ve gri su kullanımını da zorunlu hale getirdik. COP31 Başkanlığı olarak, Hazırlık aşamasındaki binalarda verimlilik ve elektrifikasyon için Antalya Mutabakatı kapsamında 2025 yılı baz alınarak 2035 yılına kadar binalarda enerji yoğunluğunun en az %25 azaltılmasına yönelik küresel bir hedef önerdik. We have proposed to reduce the energy intensity of the building. Oman Sultanate, I congratulate you on the Habitat Day Urban Gardening event. On 2 July 2026, two of our ministries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the topics of housing and urban planning. The MoU will carry the best practice of energy efficiency in buildings and good practices in urban planning. It will also carry the best practice of energy efficiency in buildings and good practices in urban Yes, there are other countries that are seeking to share our knowledge and experience. We have completed the infrastructure work. The delegation is here this week to continue this work. We are ready to share our experiences and learn from your experiences. The world is our home. November, Antalya, COP 31, and we are looking forward to it. Thank you.


Moderator [42:25]:

Our next speaker, Mr. Rashid Al-Enazi.

My colleagues, audio for the microphone, please.


Kuwait · Acting General Manager [43:10]:

And. And. So the aim of this is to exchange experiences and benefit from the experiences of new companies that give us new ideas in real estate development. Currently, in Kuwait, we are planning to develop three cities with 170,000 residential units. And we have been executing in the past, one town, the largest town in Kuwait, which is Muttala, 28,288 units. And we are providing the general buildings that serve the residents of the city, because the important thing is what comes after the housing, not the housing, the services available in the housing city. And we are providing these services from buildings, from schools, from mosques, from So, thank you. Thank you once again for coming to this event. It was a great pleasure to be here.

I've been introduced to many real estate developers, so I'd like to thank you again.


Moderator [45:20]:

Our next speaker, Mr. Fahad Mohammed Al Khairun. Once again, colleagues, some tech support for the audio.


Qatar · Assistant Under-Secretary for Social Development Affairs [45:31]:

Yes. Thank the government of the United Arab Emirates for the organizing.

It was.

A good opportunity for sharing experiences and this is one of the biggest real estate exhibitions taking place at.

This region. جودة الحياة، وركيزة أساسية من ركائز المجتمع، ومن هذا المنطلق، أولت دولة قطر إسكان المواطنين اهتماما مستمرا من خلال منظومة تشريعية وخدمات إسكانية تهدف إلى تمكين المواطن المستحق من الحصول على السكن المناسب، وننطلق.

من هذه التجربة إلى مبدأ واضح، وهو أن الإنسان والأسرة.

In. من شانها ان تغير حياه المواطن وفي هذا الاطار تعمل وزاره التنميه الاجتماعيه والاسره على تطوير منظومه اسكانيه للمواطنين من خلال تعزيز ووضوح معايير الاستحقاق وتبسيط رحله المواطن ونشكر دوله او سلطنه عمان الشقيقه والقائمين على هذه المناسبه ونتطلع الى مواصله تبادل التجارب والخبرات.

With the government to help ensure that all the families have a decent housing.


Moderator [47:37]:

Thank you. And our last speaker, Ms. Anna Claudia Rosberg. Sorry, I think we've skipped the Minister of Egypt as well, so my apologies. Over to you, Minister of Egypt.


Egypt · Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities [47:51]:

Thank you for skipping me.

Wakile the Amin Al-Amin. الوزير دكتور خلفان الشعيلي وزير الاسكان والتخطيط العمراني بسلطنه عمان اصحاب المعالي الوزراء والمسؤولون الكرام السيدات والساده الحضور يشرفني ان اكون اليوم هنا في سلطنه عمان الشقيقه هذا البلد الذي استطاع ان يجمع بين اصاله المجان وخصوصيه الهويه وطموح المستقبل واود في البدايه ان اتقدم بخالص الشكر الذي ياتي هذا العام تحت شعار السكن الملائم للجميع هذا الشعار ليس مجرد عنوان انما هو التزام ومسؤوليه ورساله انسانيه لان السكن ليس جدار او سقف فقط بل هو الامان والاستقرار نحو حياه افضل عندما نقول سكن ملائم للجميع فاننا لا نتحدث فقط عن توفير وحده سكنيه لكل اسره انما بان نؤمن بان السكن الملائم لا يقتصر فقط على توفير الوحدات السكنيه وانما ننظر اليه بانها منظومه متكامله تبدا من توفير مجتمعات امنه ومترابطه ومستدامه تتيح للمواطنين ان تعيش بكرامه وتحصل على الخدمات الاساسيه والبنيه التحتيه وتستفيد من فرص التنميه خلال السنوات الماضيه يحقق ادارة متكاملة للاراضي. من ابرز الجهود التي قامت بها مصر نحو تعزيز التنمية المستدامة. التوسع في مساحة المعمورة. اذ وصلت النسبة الى اربعتاشر في المية. بدلا من سبعة في المية عام الفين واربعتاشر. العمل على تطوير المدن القائمة. انشاء مجتمعات عمرانية جديدة. متصلة. يصل عدد المدن العمرانية الجديدة الى عدد تسعة وثلاثين مدينة جديدة تم انشائها لتستوعب عند اكتمال النمو تلاتين مليون نسمة. الى جانب التنفيذ العديد من مشروعات البنية التحتية والخدمات الاساسية. ليصل العمل على رفع تغطية مياه الشرب الامنة الى تسعة وتسعين في المية بالمقارنة بخمسة وتسعين في المية. عام الفين واربعتاشر الصرف الصحي الى سبعين في المية بمقارنة بخمسين في المية وتعد هام احد الشواذ التي تعكس التزاما جادا نحو تحقيق تنميه عمرانيه وحضاريه على اطار الالتزامات الوطنيه والدوليه ومواجهه التحديات وفي الختام تجدد جمهوريه مصر العربيه مجددا التزامها المضي قدما في تنفيذ الخطه الحضاريه والبناء على ما تحقق من مكتسبات وان توفير المسكن الملائم يعد احد اهم الاولويات الوطنيه بما يحقق العداله الاجتماعيه والازدهار الاقتصادي والاستف كما اتوجه بخالص الشكر والتقدير الى سلطنه عمان قياده وحكومه وشعبا على حفاوه الاستقبال وكرم الضيافه وعلى and I wish you all the best. I wish you all the best.

I wish you all the best.


UN-Habitat · UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director [55:03]:

Thank you. afternoon, His Excellency Minister, my friend, Kalfan, Shlaim, and Yoni. I greet all ministers and authorities here present. Thank you so much for your reflections. It's not every day that we can count with this important set of authorities, high-level authorities, talking about housing. So this is why this specific segment of this day is so important for us. I think we are building a very strong momentum towards housing in the world. Starting with last year in Doha, the sixth Arab Ministerial Forum on Housing and Urban Development concluded with a declaration on strengthening housing policies and data systems. this year earlier in Baku in Azerbaijan uh we had um most of you with us together uh plus 58,000 participants discussing housing uh almost 90 uh uh National authorities um who actually brought this discussion to New York when we revealed the new urban agenda after 10 years when we reviewed stg 11 that talked about housing and by the way showed that we are actually lacking progress we need to advance and to accelerate more um and the stakeholders present at the world urban Forum they endorsed the Baku call to action that actually put housing at the center uh just recently last week uh Minister uh was talking about the GCC gathering where you exchanged experiences, where you came together, we reflect, you reflected, you build critical mass around what are the huge, the big housing issues that you are facing, what are the solutions and the pathways ahead. We are starting urban October, which is very important for you and Habitat, globally, countries in all the countries, stakeholders, national governments, local governments are coming together to discuss what is affecting their cities. This month will culminate in China, in Fuzhou, with the World Cities Day on the 31st of October. And then we head to Turkey for COP31, as it has been said. And for the first time also, cities is part of the action agenda as it was announced by the COP31 president last week in New York. And we are going to have discussions around housing and other thematic areas. And I really hope that we can advance this agenda on the intersection of urban development, cities, and climate change, because they are highly interconnected. And as all of you said, the decisions that we take around housing to influence the future generations, where we build and how we build, the scale that we build. And then finally, I hope to meet you again in Nairobi in November, on the 26th and 27th of November, under the co-chairmanship of Somalia and Azerbaijan. UN Habitat is supporting the third meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on Housing, which is an extremely relevant process, intergovernmental process that we are going through. We hope to have a discussion this year around climate resilient housing, integrated housing policies and land, and a definition of homelessness. We already have partial recommendations on social housing, on housing finance, on land, and on transformation of informal settlements. So this working group will be active until 2029, and hopefully the big outcome will be a strong set of norms, guidance, and recommendations for countries to address the global housing crisis in the platform of practice and experiences that we are building together as we speak. Thank you very much. Shukran.


Moderator [59:40]:

Dear guests, a great big thank you and shukran to all our distinguished speakers for sharing their valuable contributions in today's segment and for bringing their national perspectives to World Habitat Day 2026. A round of applause, please. Now, dear speakers, we have a group photo, of course. So please if you gather together for a photo in the front in the middle here. Thank you, dear guests. We are now moving to our flagship dialogue. That's right, our flagship dialogue, Adequate Housing for All. As mentioned, dear guests, we are now moving to our flagship dialogue, Adequate Housing for All. It is my pleasure to welcome to the stage Rania Khadeja, the UN-Habitat Regional Director, Interim for the Regional Office for Arab States, who will moderate the discussion. Ms. Khadeja, the floor is yours. If I can please call upon our panelists, Miss Elena Diaz Galan, Doctor Asmus Hemarich, Miss Melanie Penjani Chirwa, Engineer Roni Lahood, Doctor Partha Mukhopadhyay, and Miss Wendy Verner. Please come on stage in the meantime. That for you, then.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:05:29]:

Good afternoon. I'll give maybe a few more seconds for people to sit. So we're about to start the session. If you can sit down so that we start the session, please.

Okay.

Okay, we will start. So, good afternoon, excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, friends, and partners. I am delighted to be with you today in this conversation, which comes at a very, very important time Because we're meeting at the time to talk about housing when the scale of the housing challenge is enormous. We heard this morning in the opening session the numbers that were shared. So we have more than 3 billion people lacking access to adequate housing, more than 1 billion living in informal settlements and slums, and more than 300 million experiencing homelessness. So the numbers alone justify the title of the celebration of this World Habitat Day and justifies that we acknowledge housing as a global crisis, not only as a crisis that faces developing or the south. It's a global crisis. It is a global crisis while housing and adequate housing is recognized as a human right. Yet, there is a very large gap between the commitment and this recognition, housing as a human right, and the commitment of governments to respond to demand and the reality on the ground. And when we talk about the housing crisis, we all know that we're not, and as we heard this morning, we're not talking about homes and the number of homes, but we have to. Is aligned as is part and parcel of the discussion and the narrative and the linkages with services, with land use, with affordability, finances and a multiple of other things and elements. And this will be the conversation today. We would like to talk about housing in this particular sense and we would like to unpack some of these challenges and some of the details. So I am very honored to have such an esteemed panelist present. By background, I'm entitled to ask you questions because I will be asking questions that relate to your background. So it makes sense that we know a little bit more about your background. So we and we have Dr. Asmus, we have Miss Melanie, we have Engineer, and we have Dr. and Miss Wendy.

I will start.

By posing the question to Elena. And Elena will be talking about some basics here. We'll be talking about the right issue. So the premise is, and we all, when we talk about housing, of course, recognizing it as a human right is different than what's happening on the ground and how governments are able to respond to that commitment. From your perspective, where is the gap widest between the right issue to housing and adequate housing and the reality that people live? And how does that gap deepen poverty and violate people's basic human rights? Ms. Elena Diaz-Galan is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. It's a mandate that she assumed in May 2026. And she's also professor of public international law and international relationships at at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, with extensive academic work on poverty eradication, human rights, sustainable development, and groups in vulnerable situations. So Elena, from your perspective and your background, can you tell us a little bit more about the right and where is the widest gap, and how does this gap deepen further poverty?


UN · UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights [1:11:35]:

Thank you so much, Rania. So,. Good afternoon, everyone. Before anything else, I would like to sincerely thank for the invitation to participate in this interesting and important event to United Nations Habitat and also the beautiful city of Muscat, Oman, Sultanate of Oman, and to congratulate already them for the excellent result of this initiative regarding the World Habitat Day and the necessary theme of discussion right now, such as adequate housing for all. So regarding Vania's question, I can speak for an hour, but I am not going to do it. So only to summarize my main ideas in this topic. As Vania said, it is a key question because it is about human rights effects effectiveness. So most of the international treaties, I will say from a universal and also a regional level, recognize the right of adequate housing, either explicitly or implicitly. Of course, you all know about it, but I would like to remember some of the most important human rights treaty recognizing this right, because We should have in mind, for example, that Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights is recognizing the right to housing in an explicit way. The same terms are used in the Article 38, as you very well know, of the Arab Charter on Human Rights. It says that every person has the right to an adequate standard of living and mentioning explicitly housing. Regarding American and African continent, they also have important human rights instruments, but they don't mention it in an explicit way. They mention through the Article 11, for example, in the case of America, of the additional protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of economic, social and cultural rights, the Protocol of San Salvador is mentioning the right to housing in an implicit way and regarding the African system of human rights a little bit the same. Of course, in this continent, we have to take in account the case law and the jurisprudence because it's very important to improve, I would say, also the effectiveness of the right to housing. But anyways, I would say in many of the human rights instruments at the universal, at the regional level, of course in Europe as well, the reviews, European Social Charter of the Council of Europe, adopted as you very well know in 1996, is especially mention that everyone has the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion, and also that everyone has the right to housing. And something important in this last instrument is that they are focusing, I will say, also from a more practical view, they are mentioning some measure that should be adopted in order to protect this right. Mainly, they mentioned three measures that I would like to share with you, because I think they can help also the protection at the universal level. When they are saying, first of all, it is necessary to promote access to housing of an adequate standard. Secondly, to prevent and reduce homelessness with a view to its gradual elimination. And then, to make the price of housing, we spoke before, Annie and myself, itself accessible to those without adequate resources. So I will say in many of the human rights international treaties, right to adequate housing is recognised. However, not every international instrument has effective guarantee mechanisms to realise the right to adequate housing. And I will say this is the main problem. United Nations Habitat, as we also have heard this morning in the presentation, has pointed out that recent global estimate that up to 3.4 billion people lack access to secure, safe, and adequate housing, including more than 1 billion people living in informal settlements and slums under insecure tenure, overcrowding, exposure to environmental crisis as well and hazard, and limited access to basic service. This reality, pointed out by United Nations Habitat, has also been shown in the last report made by this Special Rapporteur, which is about cities and poverty. It was published in July this year, 2026, and it's going to be presented before the General Assembly this month, in October. And as it has been demonstrated, apart from judicial mechanisms of warranty, collaboration with local and regional government as well as the adoption of public policies are essential for the effective protection of right to adequate housing, also for reducing inequality, social exclusion and poverty. I need to say that right now we are living and it's very sad to recognize it, but this is the real situation we have, we are living a global crisis of housing. In other words, it has been said that we are living an urbanization of poverty. This is mentioned in the main name instrument that we just referred, international instrument, such as the second part of the article 11.1 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, establish this necessary collaboration and cooperation between the different actors of international society in order to protect the right to adequate housing. And also the Article 26 of the Pact of San Jose, I think is quite interesting because it is about the progressive development in the economic, social and cultural right and is also focusing on this collaboration and saying than we need international cooperation in order to achieve this right and effective protection. Regarding, I know I missed only three minutes, but I would like to mention also some problem we have. we have seen in our report about citizen poverty, which is linked to this idea, the mentioned report, which is included in the General Assembly Resolution 81/261, referred to a structural driver of poverty in cities, and is mentioning lack of access to housing, especially, and also, financing of housing. So we got the conclusion that without clear and effective urban planning and investment in inclusive housing, infrastructure and social services, and without concrete social protection measure in cities, urbanization can become a driver of poverty and also a driver of inequality and social fragmentation rather than sustainable development. In this context, Also, the Special Rapporteur on housing, we agree in the big problem we find nowadays in cities regarding the theme of housing. A huge problem on the one hand will be separation of individual and group in urban space on the basis of factors such as income, race, ethnicity, religion, migration, status or disabilities. And on the other hand, I am summarizing a lot, but on the other hand, urban development is frequently driven by the objective of maximizing land values and attracting investment, which is like making a big problem for protecting the right of housing. So in sum, I will say, Rania, an effective protection of adequate housing needs urgent action from national and also local authorities, focusing in a human rights-based approach to urbanization and consolidating human rights cities.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:21:04]:

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Elena. Thank you. And yeah, you walk us through very clearly the gap, you know, the recognition of housing by many, by the charter, the UN Charter and many international treaties. Yet the gap is still wide. And the most important thing is to look at the instruments that exist and the guidelines that enable the implementation and the, you know, responding to these commitments and also the working with at the local level with local governments to ensure that they are able to protect the rights of their citizens when it comes to the right to housing. Thank you so much. Let me now bring another perspective into the conversation. And it's about health and the impact of housing on on health, which is very important. So I'll be asking Dr. Asmus Hamrich, do I pronounce right? Dr. Asmus is the World Health Organization representative to Oman and WHO desk officer for the United Arab Emirates. You are a medical doctor too, actually, and a family medicine specialist. You worked across several WHO regions and previously led WHO's work on non-communicable diseases and mental health in the Eastern Mediterranean region. So, Dr. Asmus, the housing and health, housing conditions shape the quality of life and people's health. So when the housing conditions are not adequate, overcrowdedness, heat waves, in access to services, health services, it really affects people's health and their ability to access health services more effectively. So, can you elaborate a little bit on that? How inadequate housing translate into health impacts for people and communities and how can we improve on that?


WHO · WHO Representative to Oman and WHO Desk Officer for the United Arab Emirates [1:23:20]:

Thank you so much. Salaam alaikum. Good afternoon, good evening, and thank you so much for inviting us, the UN, but also the WHO, the World Health Organization. And I think the question really is a very intuitive one, I would say, and something that we have been knowing for a long time. It's a little bit like saying we are what we eat. When it's about nutrition, I would extend to say we are where we live. because housing obviously has been a key social determinant of health for as long as there has been human existence on this planet. So I think intuitively we know it, but yet it's very important to be a little bit more specific. And as was already stated in the key messages of this event, in the short tagline, for example, health begins at home. or a home is more than shelter, it's a foundation for dignity, health, safety and opportunity. That is really describing again the importance of housing and the physical environment for health. And we need to always think when we plan urban infrastructure and rule, of course, that we need to facilitate access to basic services, including basic of services and that is really the foundation, I think, of a healthy life. When it comes to a little bit more granularity and especially social housing and its planning and management, we also know, I believe, that poor and overcrowded housing and unsanitary conditions can increase health risks. while extreme temperatures and other environmental exposures can further affect health and well-being. These are particularly relevant in the context of rapid urbanization and climate change in the region, including Oman. Here, it's important to note that Oman has been very active in what globally we call the WHO Healthy Cities Initiative. and over decades really the country has now applied a health and all policies approach. I think this event is a reflection of this where we have different sectors and the whole of society coming together talking about urban development but also about health, education and the other social sectors. And in my own experience here and around the region and the world it's critically important to bring health, local authorities, education, housing, of course, and other sectors together, bring them together with communities to jointly address social, environmental, and economic determinants of health and find solutions together. And that's, by the way, also the case for the so-called non-communicable or chronic diseases that require a multi-sectoral and whole-of-society approach. The Healthy Cities Initiative here in Oman promotes integrating health into urban planning and local development. Healthy housing therefore needs to be considered alongside safe water and sanitation, environmental quality, accessibility, mobility, public spaces and opportunities for healthy living. In reality, we all know what it means, giving space for people, greening housing from the very beginning, creating public spaces where people can move and exercise indoors or outdoors, whatever is possible. And a lot can be already done by design. With Oman facing extreme heat and other climate-related risks, housing and neighborhood planning should increasingly protect people from heat and environmental health and contribute to resilient communities. Local assessment and community engagement can help identify populations experiencing poor living conditions or greater environmental risks and ensure that solutions respond to their needs. And for the visitors of Muscat, it's worthwhile to look at the river mouse because there's many wadis here and people including in this city have been affected by floods actually not so long ago with some lives lost and a lot of damage done. And I think the municipality and the government have now done a lot of preventive infrastructure for that. The Healthy Cities Initiative is expanding nationally, I'm happy to say, not just healthy cities, also healthy communities, healthy universities, schools, even a healthy island that's quite unique, I think, in the region are now designated. And we've been witnessing and supporting this development which really moves forward healthy social development overall. It's expanding nationally and provides an established multi-sectoral mechanism through which housing, urban planning, environment and health actors can work together to create healthier and more sustainable living environments. I thank you very much and wish all of us a very good meeting. Thank you. Shukran.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:29:03]:

Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Hamrich. Yeah, you did remind us about some, you know, very important principles when we talk about housing. which is dignity, safety and opportunity. That's very good. And I'm very happy to hear about how Oman is connecting and is cooperating with WHO on the Healthy Cities initiatives. That's very interesting. And the, yeah, again, the principles on for adequate housing to to ensure it's it is accessible, it's accessibility to services and infrastructure. And that has to begin from the design phase, not later on. These are very important messages that you gave. So thank you very much. And now we will move to a different lens. And that has to do with housing and informalities. And here we will move to Melanie. Melanie Benjamin Chirwa. Melanie is the program coordinator at Slum Dwellers International. She has more than a decade of experience working with organized communities of the urban poor on housing, security of tenure, and basic services. and on strengthening partnerships between communities and government. So the relationship between informality and inequality is very strong. And as we said, the numbers of, you know, looking into the numbers, more than 1 billion people living in informal settlements, that's big. But the problem is that when we talk about informality, we talk about it as a problem in its own and not and not talk about it in the sense of it does respond to some needs of the people that the governments were not able to respond to, and how it represents the inequality and how many people have been excluded from the formal housing systems, people who live in slums. What needs to change to adjust that in the way that governments and city leaders deal with informal settlements or slums or slum upgrading? What needs to change in the way they deal with the subject matter to narrow the gap of inequality when it comes to informalities and slum upgrade?


Programme Coordinator [1:31:44]:

Thank you, Rania. I'd like to recognize the UN-Habitat I'd also like to recognize the city of Oman and the city of Muscat and the Sultan of Oman. And thank you for the opportunity to be able to be part of this panel discussion. So I'd like to share experiences from where I'm coming from and the network that I am representing, Slum Dwellers International. And so when we look at informality and the issues that people living in informal settlement space and slum dwellers face, you look at, if we go back to what our founding father said, Jockin Aputam, when he gave a speech at one point, he talked about the city, where cities look at informality and people living in informal settlements, and there is this narrative that they're dirty, they're lazy, they bring disease, and yet people from the informal settlements are the people that are coming to clean your home, take care of your children, they're the people making sure that the streets are clean, they're the people that are building the cities, are involved in construction and are providing for the city. They are contributing to the economies of our cities and helping our cities to grow. And yet we see them as a problem. We see them as people to get rid of. We're saying we want cities without slums, but it does not have to mean that we remove the people from the slums. We should be removing the slums from the people. So it's about creating partnerships. and coming to work with people living in the informal settlements, we have values that we believe in as a network. We believe that poor people should be at the center of the development process. We believe that poor people are a resource and they have resources and that's where they start with their own savings and bringing their resources and then challenging their governments to say, we are bringing something to the table, what is your contribution? So from our experiences, we have had situations where we have engaged with the authorities after collecting data. This is community-led data collection processes, where communities understand their challenges, they understand the needs that they have, and then they engage with the local authority and say, we have ready, we know what we require within our spaces, we need to get security of tenure, and we need you to support us also with land land rights. So if we have policies that are able to work for poor people, then we can change how things work in the communities. So by them being able to contribute to that, we're able to see that if we invest through their urban poor funds and then the local authority provides them with land at no cost. Sometimes we have to negotiate, sometimes they won't give you land at no cost, but you can negotiate and pay for the land. And then we're also reaching out to the private sector. We have been working with the bank, for instance, in Zambia and also in Namibia, where they have put into the urban poor fund, and it's a revolving fund. So communities are not just expecting handouts, they are ready to work, they are ready to invest, resources. They're ready to partner with other organizations. We need the technical support. Communities have the local knowledge, but we do need your support as engineers, as architects to work with us and ensure that communities receive the resource that they need in order to change their communities. So we all need to be coordinated, the different ministries, Doc said here that we all need to bring in the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Urban Development, the Ministry of Water. Everybody needs to come together and work in partnership.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:36:15]:

That's excellent. Again, new messages on the table. The fact that, as you said, informal areas do respond to a need. and people living in informal settlements contribute to the economy. They have their own markets and they have their own activities, income generating activities. So we need to look at them differently. You brought up the issue of the importance of working with the community because they know the context, they know what they need, but they lack technical expertise and it's very important to work with the community and to have policies that support the way we deal with informalities based on the engagement with the community and learning more about their issues and how they want to bring up the solutions. So thank you very much, Melanie, for that. And now, I think my question, my comment question relates also to the conversation from a different lens, and that will be to Ronny Lahoud. Ronny Lahoud is the chairman and general director of Lebanon's Public Corporation for Housing. It's a position that he has held since 2014. An engineer by training, right? And you bring more than 25 years of experience across the public and private sector, including housing, urban planning, banking, and financing. So we will continue the discussion on informality, as I said, from a different lens. We want to speak about who's left behind. In the context of Lebanon, if you tell us nowadays with what was happening and what, you know, Lebanon is actually living the conflict and the... I can't hear it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. In the context of Lebanon and what's happening in Lebanon now, and the amount of displaced that rose extensively in the past few months and even close to a year. And this, of course, puts a lot of pressure on the housing sector and on the infrastructure. So from your own view, if you can tell us more about the context in Lebanon and how you were able to deal with this challenge of having to deal with the displaced, putting more pressure on the infrastructure and on the housing sector, while the government is also facing an economic and financial problem. It's a very complex situation. So if you can elaborate on that, please.


Lebanon · Chairman and General Director [1:39:19]:

Hello, everybody. Thank you to Amman for your warm welcome. Thank you, Rania, and thank you to UN-Habitat for bringing housing to the center of this global discussion. It's a particular privilege for me to contribute from the perspective of Lebanon. For Lebanon, the question of adequate housing is not only a question of how many housing units we have. It's a question of whether families can access a safe and adequate home in the right location with secure tenure and at a cost that is compatible with their income. Lebanon has been facing a housing challenge for many years, but the successive crises since 2019 have fundamentally changed the equation. We have experienced a financial and economic crisis, a dramatic loss of purchasing power, the consequences of displacement, the Beirut port explosion and renewed conflict that has damaged housing and infrastructures and displaced communities. The World Bank estimates that housing was the hardest hit sector in the current conflict, with approximately $7 billion in damage and $11 billion in recovery and reconstruction needs. After 2026 conflict, more than 70 village are totally destroyed. More than 300,000, I repeat the number, 300,000 housing units across Lebanon has been partially damaged or completely destroyed. More than 1 million displaced. homes lost, livelihoods destroyed, and communities struggling to preserve dignity and hope after repeated crisis. For Lebanon, reconstruction is not only about rebuilding homes, it's about restoring social stability, economic recovery, and confidence in the future. At the same time, reconstruction should not focus only on replacing damaged units, quickly. Speed is important, but rebuilding vulnerable structures without improving standards can recreate future risks. But behind these figures are families, and this is why I believe we need to look at housing not simply as real estate, but as a form of social protection. A home provides stability It protects household income from excessive housing costs. It gives children a stable environment for education. It allows families to remain connected to employment, schools, health services, and their communities. Housing is therefore both a social necessity and economic necessity. The construction and housing sector also has a very broad economic impact. When housing finance functions, it does not support only the purchase of an apartment. It activities construction, construction engineers, material, transport, banking, insurance, professional services, and many other activities. So it's more than 65 economic sector. In Lebanon, the link became very visible after the suspension by the central bank of subsidized housing finance in 2018. The contraction of housing demand affects construction activities, and the situation was subsequently compounded by the financial crisis that began in 2019. The experience gives us an important lesson. When long-term housing finance disappears, the consequences go far beyond the housing sector. The Public Corporation for Housing was established in 1996 with a mandate that includes facilitating access to housing and providing mid- and long-term housing finance. Over the year, PCH worked with the banking sector to help 85,000 of Lebanese families access home ownership. But the environment in which that model operated has changed. Today, we cannot simply recreate the past. We need to build a new housing system adapted by the economic and social realities of Lebanon. For me, these are five priorities. I'll not go through the details, but I listed. First, affordable long-term housing finance. Second, targeted support. Third, mobilizing the private sector. Fourth, making better use of land and existing housing stock. And fifth, Lebanon needs a national housing strategy. UN-Habitat works in Lebanon. has already identified the needs to address housing through integrated policies covering land and real estate markets, housing finance and delivery, and the regeneration of existing formal and informal housing stock. I believe the next step is to run this knowledge into a national framework One that connects housing policy with social protection, economic recovery, urban planning, infrastructure, land policy and the constructions. For Lebanon, this is particularly urgent because housing has to serve two purpose, protect families today and support economic recovery tomorrow. And finally, I would emphasize One principle, adequate housing is an investment in people, in social stability, and in economic recovery. Our objective should therefore not simply to be finance more housing units. It should be to build a housing system in which families can access adequate housing with dignity, affordability, and security, and in which government, banks, the private sector, and international partners each have a clear role. Thank you.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:46:06]:

Thank you very much. You touched upon the context in Lebanon, how different it is, and absolutely in conflict situations, the effects and the impact on the housing sector is humongous. uh it conflicts do affect the implementation of housing programs and housing construction and you did elaborate and you did refer to uh the need for a new housing strategy that adapts to the look current local context in Lebanon uh you know um highlighting the importance of the engagement of multi stakeholders in the provision of housing in Lebanon. So thank you very much for your insights. My question is for Dr. Partha Mukhopadhyay. And Dr. Partha is a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. and economist specializing in urbanization and infrastructure. He has worked with the World Bank and taught at several leading institutions in India and served on a number of high-level government committees on urban development and related issues. So we'll continue the discussion with you, Dr. Partha, on housing and crisis, in crisis context. Much of the housing debate still focuses on how many units need to be built. But actually, the narrative should be about how housing actually works for people who really need it and how this happens when it connects to other sectors and other services, accessibility, access, of course, to different markets, labor markets and other markets to services and others. So can you tell us how the current urban housing approaches are getting the system not, I don't want to say wrong, but not as appropriate as it should be. And what would be a more realistic approach to adjust the situation?


Senior Fellow [1:48:41]:

Thank you. And thank you so much to you and Habitat, and of course, to the people of Oman, and especially the people of Muscat, for having us over. Let me begin by first the issue of units. And it's extremely important, and I think that message is getting across, because in the morning, when you looked at the video from the government of Oman, the focus was on human centricity and the idea that housing meant much more than just the unit. You heard that also from the representatives of Qatar and Egypt in the previous session. And of course, a colleague from Lebanon has just sort of laid out that in much more detail. So, and that is, I think, extremely important to recognize. The issue, therefore, is how is current policy responding to that challenge? And sadly, I think there are many, the three main issues that I will focus on, one is I think we are doing a very bad job with land. And because of that, a lot of the housing that is coming up, even when it is coming up, is not very well located because it's peripheral, where land is cheap. And that creates a problem, let's say, like in Mexico, in South Africa, where even people who get these houses and abandon them and come back to previous places. So that's one of the issues that comes through. The other issue comes in the form of built form. So you have high rises, and those high rises then lead to issues of habitability, partly because of construction issues, but also issues around crime, et cetera, an issue that is very common in the global north when you're looking at what in America would be called the project housing, but also in the banlieues of France and so on and so forth. So that's one of the issues that we sort of looked through. And habitability is also important as we found out recently during the big heat wave that happened where in the global north we found that a lot of the housing that was built was just not resilient for issues like heat structures and so on. The second big issue is that we continually try to remove informality instead of upgrade it, and that's a matter of attitude, and I think And Claire read that out very nicely in her presentation. And informality, of course, comes along with this climate risk. It comes with health risks. It comes with flooding risks, heat risks, and how that's going to affect, as a colleague from WHO just pointed out. The one missing area that I want to highlight, on which there has been not much discussion today, is the issue of rental. We haven't had so much work on rental, and rental is very important, not only because of the large migrant populations, but also because not everybody wants to own a house in the place where they're currently working. And that's true even in China, where you had these restrictions and migration and so on and so forth. So that's, I think, a big missing piece into what we are doing now. So where do you move from here to how do you go forward? The first is to focus on upgradation of informal settlements, provision of services to those settlements, and trying to make sure that they are as climate resilient as possible. So that would be my first sort of structure move forward. And when you are building new buildings, as we heard from the representative from Turkey, energy efficiency, water efficiency, et cetera, then becomes much part of the story. And here I will take a quick pause as we move forward, because the next thing that I think is important is to do this upgradation as much as possible, not by direct public works, but by financing, by facilitation. And therefore, the upgradation is done by the people themselves rather than by the governments. The problem here is that ensuring climate resilience when you're doing it by large number of people is difficult than if you're doing it like in Turkey, et cetera, and doing it by single, by public agencies. And this is a challenge that we have to solve if you want to move forward. But habitability, good location, all of that, and cultural, as we've learned from our friends both in Myanmar and in Brazil, as part of the scroll of honors today, that these are much more possible when the upgradation has been done by the individual. And then of course rental and upgradation would also include the increase the supply of rental housing in these particular areas and that's also one of the big positive issues, but we also need to focus on rental for worker housing, and that's happening in large manufacturing states. It happened in China, it's happening in states like Tamil Nadu in India, and so on. The good news is these approaches can be delivered. The state of Orissa, for instance, in India, under part of the Jaga mission, which got, I think they got a bronze award with the World Habitat a couple of years ago. They have managed to give land rights to informal settlements. They took federal grants and used it to improve housing. They provided infrastructure, and they even provided employment by employing the people who are living in the settlements on upgrading local infrastructure. So it was possible for them to overcome this governance challenge of granular where different departments were doing different things by creating an overarching agency which coordinated across these departments. So these places have shown that it is possible to do so. So given that, it's important to recognize therefore that housing to go back to the front is not just a matter of increasing supply, but also fixing systems. And the fact, the good news is that it can be done. Thank you.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [1:55:29]:

That's a very important message that you give. The real message here is it's not really about supply, but really fixing the systems of housing provision. And thank you very much for the elements that you put also on the discussion on how housing and its relationship with informal areas And the best way forward is to upgrade these informal areas in a way to have better access to services. And the upgrade itself should be more climate resilience and be done by the people facilitated by local authorities and national authorities. You also talked and referred to the rental market as one also of the elements that should be taken into consideration when we're working on the housing sector and providing solutions. Thank you very much. Now our last speaker, Ms. Wendy Werner. So Wendy Werner is the World Bank Group Country Manager for Oman. She lead the World Bank Group's engagement with the government and she oversees its country program. She brings more than 20 years of experience across emerging markets with a particular focus on private sector development, climate finance, and sustainable infrastructure. So, Wendy, we want to talk now when we're concluding the discussion on how to turn ambition into delivery. So, from the World Bank point of view and based on the World Bank experience, What would it take to move from housing commitment to delivery at scale and get more stakeholders involved in the process, but particularly in cities facing affordability issues and infrastructure and climate pressure issues? And how can government bring together the public and private investment when they work on solutions that relate to the housing sector? So how, in your view, can we think about affordable houses, housing not only as a social priority, but also as an investment in jobs, in economic opportunities and other?


World Bank · Country Manager [1:58:03]:

All right, thank you. Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you to UN-Habitat and to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. I hope everyone's enjoying their time here in Muscat. And representing the World Bank Group, I want to talk a little bit about maybe the bigger picture. Housing is critically important in almost any economy. On average, it represents around 15% of GDP and 10% of jobs all linked to housing. And a number of panelists have touched upon that in various ways. So it's a really important foundational sector. beyond the points around dignity and safety that have already been highlighted. So, but at its heart, it's fairly simple. We all live in a house. We all need to think about the same things. We need to be able to access a job and employment. We need our children to go to school. We need to have other services available to us. We need the environment to be safe and comfortable in order to be habitable, as Partha was highlighting. So, how we go about doing that? I want to just bring up three points. I want to be quite brief. So one is an easy way that many times we look at housing, private sector enablement in housing is, of course, housing finance, which should be and is primarily provided by the private sector. But housing supply is also critically important in that. And I think some of the points that were already made on the panel are ones that I would reiterate. So Simple mortgages, basic, you know, standard mortgages may work for many people, but there needs to be far more innovation when it comes to the type of housing products and the type of housing available for residents. So the ideas already highlighted to look at how do you do financing for self-build, or how do you do financing for upgradations, these are the sort of things that I think innovation in housing finance is developing and the World Bank Group, we have worked on this in many countries. At the same time, you need to have a variety of products and housing stock that meets different models, different cultures, as well as different income levels. And to make sure that you have that infrastructure and the delivery for developers and builders, as well as self-building, is really multifaceted. So I think there's not one answer when it comes to housing, but both the financing and supply have to have that multifaceted approach to many different income levels. So the second major area I would want to highlight is the role of government, which has obviously been highlighted a couple of times here. Government has a critically important role, but at the same time, it doesn't need to build every house. So the scale that we need to achieve when it comes to filling a gap on affordable housing really has to include financing, it has to include developers, it has to include the land development, but government needs to work on the availability of accessible land and the services, transport, planning, building rules for safety, as well as looking at infrastructure and the service aspect of infrastructure. I think one of the things that was kind of touched on a little bit, but is on simple land registration. So in emerging economies, around 70% of land is unregistered, according to our colleagues. And this is really a basic constraint, so the point of informality moving towards more formal registration and ownership is extremely important. And the role of government really is to reduce all those various risks so that you can attract more investment into the housing stock, as well as to reduce risks for homeowners and households. So it's to complement public spending, public policy should definitely complement private investment and create those conditions where you can attract more private investment. And another point that I would like to highlight is really around the affordability, not only because of the look at the financing side, but really the design. And it was already touched on with regard to climate adapted housing. These can be simple, simple solutions that address the constraints of our changing climate, but also design can help us to reduce the cost, the overall lifetime cost of a home. So I think affordability should not just look at the initial investment, but also looking at the cost of living in a home over many years. And finally, as I highlighted, I think the location issues Barth mentioned are extraordinarily important because if you have a home that you may be able to afford, but it's very far from anywhere that you would be able to work, you won't be able to afford it for long. So the integrated urban planning and making sure that services are enabling affordable housing is really one of the key factors. The World Bank Group as a whole, we work towards bringing both public and private solutions in the housing space. We work, of course, on policies, institutions, land, and infrastructure. And IFC is invested from our private sector side with many developers in housing finance with financial institutions and many other private sector partners enabling housing. And we really try to bring those both together and enable the growth of housing stock, housing finance, and to make sure that people have quality housing. So just as an example, in Brazil, a combined effort of both World Bank and IFC private sector financing around 400 million, we estimate enabled more than 3 billion in sustainable housing and approximately 12,000 homes were supported through such initiatives. So the combination and looking at all of these factors ensure, hopefully, inshallah, that all people can have affordable, safe and enjoyable homes. Thank you.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:04:50]:

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you very much. You talked about the multi-phase approach to different income levels. It's very important that we take this into consideration. The role of government, as you know, it has to avail the land, the services, the infrastructure, the issue of land registration, and how important it is to deal with informalities. And the role of government to also be there to reduce risks when we talk about investments in hou- in housing. And, uh, uh, yeah, other elements that relate to the affordability and how the design is, the design from the very beginning can work, uh, can, can enable, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, put down the costs and the importance of also the location where the housing is, is, is housing is built itself. So thank you really very much for responding to the questions and coming to the end. I will ask only one question, one question for all of you. And if you can in one minute, just one minute, prioritize one action to be taken from your perspective, that would make the biggest difference when we talk about providing solutions to the housing sector. So if we, just one minute, if you can prioritize one action to be taken that will have the biggest and real big effect on housing as a sector and providing solutions to the housing provision.


UN · UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights [2:06:27]:

Yes, well, I think as mentioned for all of us, public policies, of course, are essential to realize the right to housing. However, on their own, like any action taken in isolation, we can say they are insufficient. So I will say from a legal point of view, and taking account that an effective collaboration between national, regional, and local government is required, I the proposal to adopt a treaty on people living in poverty. I think we need it. And being recognized in this treaty as one of the main legal obligations that the state could or should assume, ensuring access to adequate housing. Maybe that is so complicated, Rania, but at least another possibility, I think, will be to negotiate a specific treaty concerning access to housing because of the close link between that assist with other human right as a basis for achieving sustainable development. So I think thanks to this treaty, we can have more specific mechanisms and more effective mechanisms and also real reparation considering the special situation of those living in vulnerable situation. Shukran.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:07:53]:

Very good idea. So from WHO's perspective?


WHO · WHO Representative to Oman and WHO Desk Officer for the United Arab Emirates [2:07:59]:

Thank you so much. And from the health point of view, two things come to mind. Number one, to put maximum emphasis on the immediate building surroundings, such as green spaces, spacing of buildings often, for example, walking tracks, open air gyms, and other greening facilities that make healthy living an easier choice and I think oftentimes it is done but there's also limitations especially in densely populated cities as we know. The second one related to it is the importance of keeping distance to pollutants and I think we all know examples of industrial pollutants, oil and gas for example, but also highways and It does make a difference when it comes to pollutants. And I think we have realized that around the world when COVID struck and when more people around the world actually started to suffer from respiratory illness. And guess what? There's more long covid after mass effects and people around the world are more sensitive to pollutants now than even before COVID. So I think although economically, sometimes it's a little bit debatable, from the health point of view, it's important to avoid the proximity to pollutants. Thank you.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:09:31]:

Thank you very much. An important suggestion and recommendation. So, Melanie.


Programme Coordinator [2:09:40]:

Okay, from my point, I would say it would be finance. And I think it's something that we need to believe in communities, partnering with communities and community-led practices. There is a high demand. We've seen the numbers, the 3.4 billion people. So we're saying to developers, we're challenging you, work with poor people, our governments, work with poor people and help us to finance the housing sector and see the change that we can bring to the sector. Thank you.


Lebanon · Chairman and General Director [2:10:17]:

Mobilizing the private sector. The government does not have to finance or build everything itself. The public sector should create the framework that allows banks, developers, institutional investors, and international financial institutions to participate while ensuring the affordability remains at the center. Thank you.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:10:41]:

Very good suggestion. Wendy.


World Bank · Country Manager [2:10:45]:

So almost the same, honestly. So I would just say affordable housing really depends on an entire system working well. You know, you can't compensate with finance for a lack of serviced land and vice versa. You can't expect public investment to compensate for lack of private investment. So achieving that sort of scale really looks at finding the right mix of risk reduction, the public investment, attracting more private investment and designing products and homes that fit the needs of people. So those are the different parts, not so easy But it all has to work together.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:11:27]:

Thank you. And Partha.


Senior Fellow [2:11:30]:

Thank you. I'll go with something very simple, which is transport. Cities need to make people move from place to a place. And we just don't pay enough attention to that. So fixed transport and fixed tenure. You fix transport, you fix tenure. The rest of it might start to fall into place. If you fix tenure, finance will definitely fall into place. That's two things. One quick thing that I think can be done very easily, and it's done sometimes and not, is just removing homelessness. Very few of our cities have too many of them. Governments are capable, all of us are fiscally capable of addressing that issue. They are not addressed because they are marginalized, and that is something that could possibly be something that could be put in a high priority, because there's really no reason in human dignity why people should be on the street.


UN-Habitat · Regional Director, Interim [2:12:35]:

Okay, I cannot thank you enough. These are excellent ideas coming from the panel. We started with the effective collaboration between the different levels of government, national, regional, and local, and the recommendation to have a treaty of people living in poverty, I love that. The greening, the designs, greening designs more and urban planning and construction and keeping distance to pollutants. Financing between, and you also talked about financing community-led policies. and believing in communities and believing in the people and the right of people to lead their own development process and work with the poor and listen to them more when we're working on policies and when we're working on providing solutions related to the housing sector. The idea of multi-stakeholder from both Lebanon and the World Bank and the idea of involving other stakeholders like the private sector and having the whole system, housing, as a system that works, that gets people and entities to work well together. And finally, mobility of people, fix the transportation, accessibility, and the way people move, mobility of people. and homelessness, work on homelessness as a priority. Thank you very much. Really, that was a very rich discussion, and I really want to thank the panelists that you contributed to an in-depth discussion on housing. Thank you very much for sharing your points of view and your lens, and thank you for also the participants and for you listening and engaging with us in the discussion. Thank you very much and we will have to come to an end of the panel. Thank you.


Moderator [2:14:54]:

Thank you, Mrs. Hadaya, and thank you to all of our speakers for a wonderful discussion. Much appreciated. Thank you again. Dear guests, we are almost at the end of our observance today. I'd now like to call upon Ms. Anna Claudia Rosbach to deliver the closing remarks for the Global Observance of World Habitat Day 2026.


UN-Habitat · UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director [2:15:30]:

So good afternoon, excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues and friends. So this morning, I left us with a very practical question. So how we move from recognizing adequate housing as a right to making it a reality at the scale that it is required. So I think that the conversations that followed helped us to look at this question from two different but very complementary perspectives. So first we began this morning with a clear message from our high-level opening. Adequate housing for all requires sustainable leadership and collective action. We heard a strong commitment to placing housing at the heart of sustainable urban development and to translate that commitment into concrete action. Through the scroll of honour, we saw what action already looks like in practice. This year's recipients are working in very different contexts and using very different approaches from housing finance and community-led solutions to sustainable construction and more integrated approaches to land, housing and services. Their experiences remind us that solutions do exist and that there is a great deal we can learn from what is already working. Our ministerial segment this afternoon brought together ministers responsible for housing to reflect on how these commitments are being taken forward at the national level. The interventions demonstrated the strong political commitment behind the goal of adequate housing for all and the importance of maintaining this momentum through continued cooperation, exchange and action. Then in our flagship dialogue, we looked more closely at why adequate housing remains out of reach for so many people and what needs to change. We heard about the gap between recognizing adequate housing as a human right and people's lived reality. We heard why informal settlements cannot simply be treated as a problem to eliminate and why communities need to be part in shaping solutions. We heard from senior leadership in government about their commitment to ensure housing systems reach those most at risk of being left behind, including in context of economic pressure and displacement. We also heard how conflict and displacement can deepen housing insecurity and why housing needs to be considered from the beginning of recovery. And we stepped back to look at the wider system and ultimately the question of how policy and finance can turn ambition into delivery at scale. What comes through for me is that there is no single housing solution, because solutions need to be crafted within local context by the stakeholders who are most affected by it. What matters now is that each of us identifies where we can make a difference. takes forward the solutions that are relevant to our context and build the partnerships needed to make them happen. None of us can address the housing challenge alone. We each have different strengths, and we will achieve much more when we bring those strengths together. If the global housing deficit continues to grow, Doing more of the same will not be enough. This is why the discussions we have had today must continue beyond this room, but they also must lead to action. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, the World Habitat Day marks the beginning of Urban October. Only today, we had 800 persons 800 participants in person and more than 2,200 online. And over the coming weeks, cities and communities around the world will continue this conversation, leading us towards World Cities Day on the 31st of October and beyond. I hope each of us leaves Muscat with at least one idea, one partnership, or one action that we are already to take forward. Before closing, I would like to thank all the ministers, the speakers, partners, Scroll of Honour recipients, and participants who have contributed to today's discussions. And once again, my sincere appreciation to the government and the people of the Sultanate of Oman for their hospitality and partnership in hosting this amazing global observance. Thank you. Shukran.


Moderator [2:21:29]:

Thank you, Ms. Rosbach. Dear guests, that brings us to the conclusion of the global observance of World Habitat Day 2026. A big thank you and shukran to all of our speakers, partners, delegates and participants. And a big shukran and thank you to all of you attendees here today. Have a lovely evening. Thank you very much.