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New Left Review
Examining the link between urbanization and capitalism, the authour suggests we view today's explosive growth of cities as responses to systemic crises of accumulation and issues a call to democratize the power to shape the urban experience. April 2009.
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At first glance, it might seem unusual to address housing as a basic human right. Insecure and inadequate shelter, however, threatens physical and mental health and the overall quality of life. In other words, human dignity. This idea is mirrored in relevant international legislation, such as the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
What are the elements that constitute the human right to housing? The Habitat International Coalition, a network of NGOs working on this issue, developed a monitoring tool kit that has identified 14 constituent elements of the human right to housing, derived from international treaty obligations and other commonly accepted norms.
These elements are: security of tenure; public goods and services; environmental goods and services (water, considered an essential prerequisite to the right to housing); affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; cultural appropriateness; freedom from dispossession; information, capacity and capacity-building; participation and self-expression; resettlement; safe environment; security and privacy.
There is, however, a huge gap between words and facts. According to UN figures, one billion urban inhabitants live in inadequate housing, mostly in slums and squatter settlements in developing countries. As many civil society organizations and experts have pointed out, there is one big culprit: corporate globalisation and its negative effects on the life of the poor. As Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on the subject, puts it, “the deepening inequalities of income and opportunities between and within nations has lead to an increase in the number or people without adequate and secure housing. The human rights of people and communities to housing, water and sanitation (…) continue to erode as the process of privatisation deepens and accelerates”.
A heated debate is currently underway within the spheres of the United Nations. Conferences, declarations and follow-ups have turned into battlegrounds where NGOs denounce regressions with respect to accomplished goals.
The first UN conference on the issue, known as Habitat I, was held in Vancouver in 1976. Equity, social justice, solidarity, human dignity, free choice and free movement were the main principles articulated in this conference. It recommended that Governments and international organisations make “every effort to take urgent action”. Not only did problems persist, however, they multiplied in size and scope.
Twenty years later, in 1996, Istanbul hosted the second Habitat conference. The Habitat Agenda, the main document adopted by UN member states, represented an unprecedented breakthrough and a step forward. It recognized adequate housing as a fundamental human right. The whole process emphasized the importance of civic participation, thus breaking away from the previous approach to the Vancouver goals. It allowed for both meaningful and efficient NGO involvement in the drafting process.
In the Istanbul+5 conference, held in New York in 2001, the UN reviewed the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. According to the attending NGOs, this review entailed backtracking from Habitat II in terms of meaningful NGO and local authority participation. HIC issued a statement endorsed by 30 NGOs from 20 countries, where it condemned the absence of any reference to the right to adequate housing in the conference’s final declaration. It stated that “this regressive post-Istanbul trend has been championed by very few states”.
There is another arena in which housing rights are being internationally discussed: the Millennium Development Goals. In the year 2000, UN member states agreed to work towards achieving eight development goals detailed out in 18 specific and measurable development targets. Goal 7 Target 11 calls for a significant improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers to be attained by the year 2020. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and UN Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteurs are encouraging NGOs to take part in the monitoring stage currently carried out by UN-HABITAT. They are also focusing on adopting a human rights perspective (that includes economic, social and cultural rights) in the whole process.
The World Bank has participated in this initiative through its programme “Cities Alliances” (launched together with UN-HABITAT). According to its promoters, “it was created to foster new tools, practical approaches and knowledge sharing to promote local economic development and a direct attack on urban poverty. Its activities support the implementation of the Habitat Agenda”.
When addressing housing as a human right, it is impossible to adopt a gender neutral approach. Women, either by law or by action, are excluded from or discriminated against in virtually every aspect of housing. It is necessary to take positive action to ensure their right to inheritance and the ownership of land and other property, credit, natural resources and appropriate technology, as well as to guarantee their right to security of tenure and to enter into contracts.
Another vulnerable group are Palestinians living in the occupied territories. There, demolishing houses has become a powerful and systematic means of domination. The isolated Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip, as local NGOs point out, are examples of the collective punishment inflicted by Israel on Palestinian civilians. In this regard, it is important to point out that there has been a regression. Even though their right to housing has been internationally recognised, it is being systematically violated.
What is civil society’s response to this critical global situation? Many NGOs are actively working to find alternative solutions. Their focus is both on meaningful community participation and face-to-face exchanges of experience. There is an increasing number of poor community groups mobilizing and visiting each other. This methodology of sharing and learning has proved particularly successful in breaking community isolation.
The Best Practices database, a joint product of UN-HABITAT and The Together Foundation, has collected and organized many of these experiences, demonstrating “the practical ways in which public, private and civil society sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development”.
The 30th edition of the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) annual report this year turns its focus on urban growth. It notes that in 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of world population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. This number is expected to swell to almost 5 billion by 2030. In Africa and Asia, the urban population will double between 2000 and 2030, requiring pre-emptive action to prepare for future urban growth. June 2007, pdf format.
This World Bank- UN-HABITAT led alliance provides funds to help municipal governments and design development strategies that meet their cities' needs, ensuring, in their words, that urban-dwellers' concerns are addressed in national plans.
United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, Habitat Agenda, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and Resolution 56/206.
The United Nations system assigned UN-HABITAT the responsibility of assisting Member States to monitor and gradually attain the “Cities Without Slums” target, also known as Target 11, which is one of the three targets of Goal 7, “Ensure Environmental Sustainability”. Target 11 is: “By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers”.
This web site provides several reports and statements by the special rapporteur, Miloon Kothari on issues such as gender, the Palestinian occupied territories. This also includes some country reports.
The UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, presented a set of guidelines that address the human rights implications of development-linked evictions and related displacement in urban and/or rural areas. September 2007.
This site provides several reports and statements by the special rapporteur, Miloon Kothari on issues such as gender, the Palestinian occupied territories. This also includes some country reports.
Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing
There are various international human rights obligations of the Government of India, in particular those under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The Indian government has repeatedly failed to meet these in a timely manner or to meet its commitment to report to the UN Committees that are monitoring the implementation of these instruments. The issue of housing and homelessness comes most directly under our obligations to the ICESCR. April 28, 2005.
UN Commission on Human Rights
Miloon Kothari
This progress report on women and adequate housing expands the original focus on women’s right to adequate housing to examine the interrelated issues of land, property and inheritance as well as other human rights, such as the rights to water and to health, in order to provide a more comprehensive and indivisible analysis of women’s right to adequate housing. February 2005 (pdf format).
Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, on the occasion of women’s day points out that inadequate and insecure housing and living conditions such as overcrowding, indoor pollution, precarious housing, lack of water, sanitation and electricity and inadequate building materials affect women to a larger extent than men. March 2004.
Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, highlighted that the very serious situation in Brazil with respect to homelessness, landlessness, housing deficit and housing inadequacy results from the historic discrimination against the black community and indigenous people, and the marginalization of the poor. July 2004
In the year 2000, UN member states agreed on achieving eight development goals detailed out in 18 specific and measurable development targets. Goal 7 Target 11 states that significant improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers should be achieved by the year 2020. UN-HABITAT is in charge of the monitoring tasks concerning this target.
An Expert Group Meeting on the issue recommended that the adequate monitoring of Target 11 be undertaken through five components, reflecting conditions that characterize slums: insecure residential status; inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowding. PDF format.
This joint statement by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the UN Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteurs on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights focus on the importance of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights, in the implementation of strategies to meet the MDGs. Word fromat.
When the Millennium Development Goal Seven on environmental sustainability was originally discussed, activists and researchers pointed to the urgent need to address the situation of urban slum dwellers. As a result, improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020 was set as a target of this goal.
In this conference, the UN reviewed the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. Most of the negotiations on the political declaration were held in closed sessions. This meant, according to the attending NGOs, “a step backward from the partnership spirit of Istanbul”. Another complaint has to do with the absence, in the final declaration, of any explicit reference to adequate housing as a human right.
This statement was issued by HIC and endorsed by 30 NGOs from 20 countries. It condemns the absence of any reference to the right to adequate housing in the final declaration of the conference. It states that “this regressive post-Istanbul trend has been championed by a very few states”. Word format.
According to this article, the “conference itself was honestly a circus”. It concludes that it “will not effect or make any landmark resolutions that are going to make material changes to the lives of the poor”.
In this prepcom, in an unexpected change from its policy position during the first preparatory meeting, the US insisted that negotiations of the draft declaration be held mostly in private meetings, from which NGOs and local authorities would be excluded.
Destructive policies and private interests seek to enable markets, but disenabling people to develop their habitat and sustain their communities. Since 1976, this dynamic has left low-income people to achieve their own human right to adequate housing and human well-being as a very lonely task, as the ideological trends at WUF III suggest. Thus, alternative people-driven and community-determined solutions within the human rights framework remain even more indispensable and urgent. June 2006.
"Thirty years after the first Habitat I world summit held in Vancouver, we, citizens of the world, have witnessed the manifest deterioration of our living conditions and unalienable rights." declared the International Alliance of Inhabitants at the Third Urban Forum held in Vancouver, Canada, 19 to 23 June 2006.
The NGO signatories to a statement presented in the 12th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, representing civil society organizations working at community levels around the world, agree that “sustainable human settlements, adequate shelter, and basic services for all are goals that can only be achieved through progressive policies that realize the universal Right to Housing, access to land, secure tenure, and provision of infrastructure”. April 2004.
On the occasion of International Housing and Land Rights Day 2007, Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and its Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) are reporting on global trends in housing and land rights violations and solutions. (PDF document). October 2007.
This map is only one view of the broader state of violations to housing and land rights, and indicates the need for civil society's need for more unity and more-complete monitoring and reporting globally.
If adequate financial resources are not invested in the development of urban shelter and requisite services, more than 2 billion people will also be trapped in urban poverty, deplorable housing conditions, poor health and low productivity, thus further compounding the enormous slum challenge that exists today. A new report by UN-HABITAT sounds the alarm ahead of the Millenium +5 Summit. September 2005.
Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, highlighted that the very serious situation in Brazil with respect to homelessness, landlessness, housing deficit and housing inadequacy results from the historic discrimination against the black community and indigenous people, and the marginalization of the poor. July 2004.
This issue of ID21 Insights includes articles on security of tenure and property rights, gender and housing, customary land delivery systems, forced evictions and more.
Research conducted by Amnesty International and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) reveals that the practice of forced evictions has reached epidemic proportions in Africa, with more than three million Africans forcibly evicted from their homes since 2000. The two organizations called on African governments to halt forced evictions and abide by their international human rights obligations. October 2006.
After a two-week fact-finding visit to Zimbabwe, a UN-HABITAT special envoy says Operation Restore Order (or Operation "Murambatsvina") was based on colonial-era Rhodesian law and policy that had been “a tool of segregation and social exclusion”. It also calls on the Government of President Robert Mugabe to bring the national laws into line with the realities of the country’s poor and with international law. (PDF document). July 2005.
As the human rights situation in Zimbabwe steadily deteriorates, with more than 300,000 now evicted from their homes by the government and a UN Special Envoy appointed to investigate the destruction and evictions, a coalition of more than 200 African and international NGOs issued an unprecedented Joint Appeal to the United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) to help the people of Zimbabwe. June 2005.
This site by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) provides information on Legal Resources on Forced Evictions; Main Causes of Forced Evictions; Government Obligations to Prevent Forced Evictions; Strategies to Prevent Forced Evictions and How to Use International Procedures to Prevent Forced Evictions.
The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), called for a five-year moratorium after its research revealed that more than six million people are illegally evicted from their homes every year. Published by COHRE on 25 February 2004 (doc format).
In his annual report the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, has chosen as his thematic focus forced evictions, one of the phenomena that has emerged as one of the priority issues with respect to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. March 2004, doc format.
"Israel has used the current crisis to consolidate its occupation" of Palestinian areas, said Kothari. The building of new Jewish settlements is "incendiary and provocative" and settlers are "free to indulge in violence and confiscate land," he said.
In an unprecedented move, governments at the 19th Session of the Governing Council adopted a resolution calling on UN-HABITAT to establish a special Human Settlements Programme in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In the report “Fifteen months – Intifada, closures and Palestinian economic crisis: an assessment”, the Bank has provided analysis of the cost of material destruction and deterioration of living conditions arising from the economic blockade of the West Bank and Gaza, including consequences on the housing sector.
The Geneva based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) has identified the countries guilty of most consistently abusing and defying international housing rights laws in 2002 for its new annual Housing Rights Violators Award. Israel is among the ten states chosen to receive the award.
Israel and the Occupied Territories: destruction of homes and land by Israeli army
In recent years the Israeli army has demolished thousands of homes and properties as well as vast areas of agricultural land in Israel and in the Occupied Territories. Tens of thousands of men, women and children have been made homeless or have lost their source of livelihood. Many more live in fear that they will be next. Updated May 2004.
This paper examines the legality of the Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian houses, whereby families are punished by house demolition for the unlawful actions (no matter if actual or suspected) of a single member of that family. The paper argues that these demolitions constitute acts of collective punishment, expressly prohibited under international law (doc format).
According to this report, with the separation wall Israel violates, among others, the human rights to property, work, freedom of movement, water, and all the elements of the right to adequate housing, especially security of tenure, access to public goods and services, enjoyment of natural resources, freedom from dispossession and deprivation of means of subsistence, the right to participation & self-expression and physical security.
"The placing of the housing and discrimination aspects within the context of the indivisibility and universality of human rights is critical. The realization of the right to housing in an environment free from racial discrimination will have a direct bearing on the realization of congruent human rights" (pdf format).
This paper explores the various aspects of an adequate living environment with a strong housing rights framework and connects it to children’s play and recreation needs in cities. Word format.
Report of a workshop held by the Tibet Justice Centre and HIC in the context of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002) and the NGO Forum. Several cases in which peoples have been deprived of their land were presented. Word format.
Report of the World Conference against Racism, where HIC members highlighted issues of discrimination in the sphere of housing and land use in different countries and societies. Word format.
Interview with Joseline Brandâo, leader of the National Coordination of Quilombos Communities (CONAQ), who participated in the workshop on the right to land and housing of Afro-descendant communities in Brazil. World Social Forum, January 2005.
Of all the achievements chalked up by South Africa's ruling African National Congress over the past 10 years, none seems to match its gains in providing housing for the poor. However, several critics stated that instead of providing housing, the government should have provided jobs for the poor.
This campaign, which is being carried out by UN-HABITAT, aims to further the commitment of Governments to provide Adequate Shelter for All, one of the two main themes of the Habitat Agenda.
ICAHD, working with both Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, is launching a campaign to rebuild damaged and demolished Palestinian homes as acts of resistance to the Occupation.
For 2007-2008 the Habitat International Coalition calls on all housing and land rights organizations to mobilize in response to the sharp increase of massive forced evictions caused by mega-development schemes, global investment and property speculation in urban and rural areas across the planet.
This declaration was adopted by the UN Conference on Human Settlements held in Vancouver in 1976 (known as Habitat I). It states that "adequate shelter and services are a basic human right which places an obligation on governments to ensure their attainment by all people”.
The agenda contains the principles, commitments and programme of action negotiated and adopted by the 1996 Istanbul conference (known as Habitat II). It also recognizes that adequate housing is a fundamental human right. In this process, NGOs were given unprecedented participation.
It is the United Nations General Assembly Resolution S25.2 of 9 June 2001 reaffirming that the Istanbul Declaration and the Habitat Agenda will remain the basic framework for sustainable human settlements development in the years to come.
This resolution of 1 January 2002, is the UN General Assembly resolution in which governments strengthened the agency by transforming the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements (Habitat) into a fully programme renamed as the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), under the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which coordinates the work of all the United Nations 14 specialised agencies.
On 15 April 2005, at this year's UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) session, the Commission adopted wihtout a vote its latest resolution on women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing.
This fact sheet explains the structure and procedures of the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies and special mechanisms related to the human right to adequate housing.
With the adoption of the Declaration in 1948, the right to adequate housing joined the body of international, universally applicable and globally accepted human rights laws. The Declaration states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for their own and their family’s health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”.
One of the main drawbacks in securing attention to the grave condition of housing, land rights and living conditions is the lack of a system of assessment and inquiry on these rights and a set of indicators and benchmarks that could be utilized to determine the extent of violations of housing and land rights and the extent to which these rights have been realized. This toolkit is designed to fill the existing gaps in the field.
This text is regarded as containing the most significant foundation of the right to housing found in the entire body of legal principles which comprise international human rights law.
The African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD) met from 3-4 April 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss strategies for the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals relating to slums. In light of the ongoing and growing crisis in urban housing in Africa, Amnesty International, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and Hakijamii Trust called on the ministers to adopt concrete and human rights-based strategies that ensure the poorest members of African cities can live in human dignity. April 2006.
Although the state of being homeless presents an undeniably harsh and unforgiving reality for anyone, especially during the winter months, it is women and children who tend to experience more acutely the adverse impacts of the lack of adequate shelter. The Housing and Land Rights Network highlights the issue of homelessness in Delhi, India and its impact on women. January 2006.
The human rights of people and communities to housing, water and sanitation—guaranteed under international law and commitments of development targets made at global summits, including the Millennium Summit and the World Summit on Sustainable Development—continue to erode as the process of privatisation deepens and accelerates.
Urban studies specialist Saskia Sassen challenges conventional wisdom on the homogenising effects of globalisation. On a recent visit to Mumbai she talked about the ways in which the corporate built environment co-exists and sustains a new type of informal economy. November 2007.
The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights is a regional network of grassroots community organizations, NGO's and professionals actively involved in urban poor development processes in Asian cities.
International non-profit organisation based in Dakar, Senegal. It has several programmes concerning urban exclusion, for example the PADE Programme (Urban Environment Sustainable Improvement Process).
A directory of organisations related to the right to housing, created by the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net).
ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories.
COHRE's work involves Housing Rights Training; Research and Publications; Monitoring, Preventing and Documenting Forced Evictions; Fact-finding Missions; Housing and Property Restitution; Women's Housing Rights; Active Participation and Advocacy within the United Nations and Regional Human Rights Bodies and activities in all regions of the South.
Examining the link between urbanization and capitalism, the authour suggests we view today's explosive growth of cities as responses to systemic crises of accumulation and issues a call to democratize the power to shape the urban experience. April 2009.
"The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it. We need to be sure we can live with our own creations. But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights". July 2008.
This volume, edited by David Westendorff, brings together a series of eight papers arising from UNRISD research activities during the years 2000-2001 concerned with governance aspects of urban sustainable development in developing countries. These activities included the N-AERUS 2000 Workshop in Geneva, Cities of the South: Sustainable for Whom?, Geneva 2000 (the Five-year review of the World Summit for Social Development) and Istanbul+5 (the Five-year review of Habitat II). The five core chapters of this volume are country/city case studies written from the perspective of urban development practitioners assisting in efforts to achieve dignified living and working conditions for some of the most vulnerable groups in large cities of the South.
The World Charter on the Right to the City has been discussed and supported at the Americas Social Forum (Quito, July 2004) and to the World Urban Forum (Barcelona, September 2004). As every draft its open to discussion, comments and sugguestions. It aims at constructing a sustainable model for urban society and lifestyle, based on first principles of solidarity, liberty, equality, dignity and social justice.
In this resolution the Government Council requests the Executive Director, in developing and implementing the UN-HABITAT gender policy, to promote the full integration of gender perspectives in all activities of UN-HABITAT, especially in the campaigns on secure tenure and urban governance and in slum upgrading projects (pdf format).
"Across the world, many women still do not have equal rights and access to housing and resources essential for their living. Women also bear the brunt of violation and denial of the right to adequate housing, particularly in forced evictions, domestic violence and the consequences of globalization and privatization policies". Briefing by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari. Word format.
By focusing specifically on women and their housing rights as articulated in international human rights law, this guide aims to provide some insight into how international human rights law can be used to meet women's housing needs and to transform housing into a site for women's autonomy, independence and freedom. PDF format.
This network is part of the Habitat International Coalition. It is a group of organisations that recognise the particular struggle of women in accessing land and housing.
This report highlights the gender dynamics of women’s right to adequate housing in India by examining certain laws and policies that facilitate or limit or deny women this right. Word format.
According to this report, increased female labour force participation, particularly among the lowest income households, is the single most important coping strategy, making female-headed households and poor women in general a distinct group.
This report, based on COHRE’s research in six global cities (Accra, Buenos Aires, Colombo, Mumbai, Nairobi, and Sao Paulo) also found that violence against women is rampant in urban slums across the world. July 2008.
Miloon Kothari, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, on the occasion of women’s day points out that inadequate and insecure housing and living conditions such as overcrowding, indoor pollution, precarious housing, lack of water, sanitation and electricity and inadequate building materials affect women to a larger extent than men.
On 15 April 2005, at this year's UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) session, the Commission adopted wihtout a vote its latest resolution on women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing.
There are various international human rights obligations of the Government of India, in particular those under the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The Indian government has
repeatedly failed to meet these in a timely manner or to meet its commitment to report to the UN Committees that are
monitoring the implementation of these instruments. The issue of housing and homelessness comes most directly under our
obligations to the ICESCR. April 28, 2005.
During the 61st session the Commission will adopt another resolution on "Women equal ownership of, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing". On this occasion the UN Rapporteur on the Right the Adequate Housing presented his report on Women and the right to housing, resulting from studies and regional consultations organized by civil society. Pdf format, March 2005.
Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) announces the launch of a new international initiative: Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) in the area of gender and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). March 2005.
The main purpose of the consultation was to advise the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Miloon Kothari, and provide testimonies on women’s housing and land rights issues across the region, and to generate guidance for States on how to meet their housing and land rights duties in a context of gender equality. It took place from 23-26 July 2004 in Alexandria, Egypt.
Women's already fragile land rights were being further eroded in a global context of privatisation, World Bank-sponsored land reforms, HIV/AIDS, changing employment and international trade patterns, and the food crisis in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa. This was the general consensus of issues raised in presentations and discussions at a workshop last year on Women's Land Rights in Southern and Eastern Africa (doc format).
The report analyzes how inheritance rights and legal capacity have been ensured to women in countries that ratified the on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, since it is the only human rights treaty body that deals specifically with rural women.
This article analyses the consequences of the lack of adequate sanitation, with a special focus in India. It shows how women are the most affected ones.
Over forty years of continual conflict between the Colombian armed forces, leftist guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitary organisations has generated what has been referred to as “the largest humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere”. This conflict has resulted in a massive human migration, precipitated, at least in part, by systematic forced evictions and the destruction of civilian housing. Forced displacement is now widely seen as a premeditated war strategy rather than a mere by-product of the armed conflict. (PDF document). November 2005.
According to this article, there is a way to shake off an age-old tradition which excludes the poor from being responsible of their own solutions to housing problems: people-to-people learning through the exchange of experiences. It shows how this model has worked in several cases.
This experience was part of a new approach in dealing with urban exclusion, which argues that local problems can be solved by local communities, by all groups in the community working and taking decisions together.
This edition of the Housing by People magazine takes a look at some groups who, in different ways, “have made their peace with the ongoing storm of bad news, and found enough good news to charge forward with chins held high”. PDF format.
This searchable database contains proven solutions to the common social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. According to its promoters, it demonstrates the practical ways in which public, private and civil society sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development.
This paper on Chilean housing policies is part of the publication "Civil Society and Social Movements. Building Sustainable Democracies in Latin America" by the Inter-American Development Bank. (PDF). May 2008.
