A practical guide to conducting comprehensive national housing profiles with a direct objective of understanding the housing sector, while offering evidence-based data to inform policy reform. The housing profile process also aims to be highly participatory and engage multi-stakeholder groups that influence and are influenced by the housing sector.

This is a guide that has global relevance to a world that is rapidly urbanizing and where populations growth continues to create unprecedented housing demand, particularly in developing countries.

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.