The Kigali Declaration during the 2nd Tripartite Conference ACP/EC/UN-Habitat.

Informal settlements are a global urban phenomenon. They exist in urban contexts all over the world, in various forms and typologies, dimensions, locations. While urban informality is more present in cities in developing countries, housing informality and substandard living conditions can also be found in developed countries.

There are one billion slum dwellers worldwide and an additional 3 billion people will need adequate housing by 2050 as population increases and people move to cities and urban centres.

In our world, one in eight people live in slums. In total, around a billion people live in slum conditions today. This not only amounts to a rather unacceptable contemporary reality but to one whose numbers are continuously swelling.

"Making Slums History A Global Challenge for 2020"

According to UN‐Habitat estimates, between the year 2000 and 2010 a total of 227 million people in developing countries have experienced significant improvements in living conditions. In other words, governments have managed to beat by a multiple of 2.2 MDG Target 7‐D, namely to "Significantly improve living conditions for a least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020."

On the 3rd to 6th of September, 2013, the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States, the European Commission, and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) hosted the 2nd International Tripartite Conference on Sustainable Urbanisation for Urban Poverty Eradication, with a special focus on Slum Upgrading and Community Empowerment.

Urban indicators are regularly collected in a sample of cities worldwide in order to report on progress in the twenty key areas of the Habitat Agenda at the city level. Data collection is conducted through local and national urban observatories as well as through selected regional institutions.

Quito, 17 October 2016 - Making the New Urban Agenda a cornerstone of participatory, integrated and  sustainable urban development is the core message from the opening of Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development.

Drawing on the experience from the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP), international research on slum and informal settlement upgrading, this quick guide provides planning design recommendations for slum and informal settlement upgrading, building on and enhancing UN-Habitat’s current five principles for sustainable neighborhood plann