This background paper for the 2003 expert group meeting on housing rights monitoring presents a framework for the development of a set of housing rights indicators. A set of 6 housing rights elements and 17 housing rights indicators is proposed in the report.

This document was produced through a joint initiative of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat in association with Rand Water.

The world’s governments agreed at the Millennium Summit to halve the number of people who lack access to safe water, mainly in the world’s cities, by 2015. With rapidly growing urban populations the challenge is immense. Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities is a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the problems and how they can be addressed. This influential publication by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) sets out in detail the scale of inadequate…

Demonstrates that most arguments leading to the current bias against rental housing are highly flawed. Argues for more tenure-neutral housing policies, and urges governments to modify regulatory frameworks, develop credit programmes and other forms of assistance to support housing production, with a view to creating more rental housing and to improve the existing stock.

The current paper presents the results of a first global enumeration of slums at the country level. The data are analyzed and comparisons established at sub-regional and regional levels while trying to understand what is happening globally. This document is the culmination of attempts to come to grips with changes in the way we measure slums, starting by providing an agreed universal definition of this type of settlements and a clear methodological approach. The preliminary estimations…

This guide represents a milestone in the efforts of the United Nations to monitor the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN member states in the year 2000.

Summary of existing UN-HABITAT publications, reports and other documents on building materials and construction technologies. Provides readers with an overview of work undertaken by UN-HABITAT in these fields during the last two decades. Provides a general introduction and summary of each reviewed report, as well as an indication of their availability in printed and/or electronic formats.