An ambitious goal: shelter the world
The forum topic is a call to action: Housing for the world: safe and resilient cities and communities. According to the UN, today almost 2.8 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions, while more than 300 million are homeless at all. With nearly 70 percent of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, the crisis will only intensify.
In an interview with UN Video, UN-Habitat Director Anacláudia Rossbach described the situation as a “global housing crisis.”
“This crisis has long been most severe and structural in the Global South, but is now being felt in the Global North as well.”
According to Ms Rossbach, the rising cost of living has become a major issue, while international crises, including the war in the Middle East and related risks to global supply chains, further aggravate the situation.
More than just a house
The crisis goes far beyond bricks and mortar. Housing is increasingly seen as a cornerstone of human dignity, urban resilience and even global stability. Their impacts extend to all aspects of life, warns the UN: they overload health and education systems, weaken economies and wear down the social fabric.
Francine Pickup, deputy director of the United Nations Development Program and head of the UNDP delegation at WUF13, said the agency hopes to use the forum in Baku to strengthen partnerships in promoting integrated urban solutions that combine housing, climate resilience, governance and local financing.
“This global housing crisis we find ourselves in is not primarily a construction issue,” Ms Pickup said. “We need to go beyond the construction of housing and houses and look at the urban environment and consider the issue of housing as a complex problem.”
Informal settlements: challenge and opportunity
One of the central topics of the forum will be the rapid growth of informal settlements, or unplanned areas where residents lack legal rights to land and live in substandard housing.
Today, around 1.1 billion people live in slums and projections suggest that number could rise by another 2 billion in the coming decades. Children are especially vulnerable: an estimated 350 to 500 million children live in slums.
At the same time, UN-Habitat is calling for the abandonment of approaches that consider informal settlements only as a problem. In many cases, these neighborhoods are the only way millions of people can find shelter in cities.
Reconstruction after the conflict
Another issue that will gain great importance, in the context of current conflicts and crises, is how cities recover after war and disasters. By the end of 2022, more than 123 million people had been forcibly displaced worldwide, according to the UN, with more than 60% seeking refuge in urban areas.
Losing a house is much more than losing a roof. It can mean the breakdown of communities, loss of livelihoods and a deep sense of insecurity. In Baku, the focus will be not only on providing shelter, but also on rebuilding lives, from restoring neighborhoods and creating jobs to helping communities find a path back to normality.
He added that discussions in Baku will also focus on the reconstruction and recovery of countries affected by wars and disasters.
“There is an urgent need not only to provide housing, but also to rebuild communities in an inclusive, resilient and sustainable way,” Ms Rossbach said.
Climate shocks
Another line of discussion will focus on climate issues. Experts warn that the climate crisis is quickly becoming a key driver of the global housing crisis. Extreme weather events (including floods, storms and wildfires) displaced more than 20 million people in 2023 alone. Estimates suggest that climate change could destroy 167 million homes worldwide by 2040.
At the same time, buildings themselves remain one of the largest sources of emissions: the construction sector accounts for 34 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. The forum will therefore seek answers to two interconnected questions: how to build more housing while avoiding a worsening of the climate crisis.
“The theme of the Forum is housing. We will explore housing from many different perspectives, including informality, finance, sustainability and resilience,” Ms Rossbach said.
“Today we must be fully aware of the impact of climate change and the pressure it puts on housing systems. What we build, how we build and where we build has consequences for natural resources, climate resilience and the ability of communities to withstand crises and disasters.”
Bogotá, Colombia, was selected by UN-Habitat as the official host city for World Cities Day 2025, the United Nations’ flagship event on sustainable urbanism.
A shared effort
A central theme running through the forum is the need for collective action, bringing together everyone from governments and local authorities to universities and grassroots communities.
“The World Urban Forum is our biggest platform to bring together stakeholders,” said Ms. Rossbach. “We look forward to seeing a strong and diverse community come together in Baku and emerge from WUF13 with a stronger global coalition to address the housing crisis.”
“We cannot solve the global housing crisis alone. We need governments, local authorities, civil society, academia, communities and the private sector to work together,” he added.
The New Urban Agenda, 10 years later
The Baku forum will also mark an important political milestone: this year marks the tenth anniversary of the New Urban Agenda adopted in 2016.
Additionally, in July, the United Nations General Assembly in New York City will hold a mid-term review of the Agenda, and discussions in Baku are expected to help determine how far the world has progressed in creating more sustainable, safe and affordable cities.
About the World Urban Forum
The World Urban Forum was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2001 and is organized by UN-Habitat. Held every two years, it is considered the leading international conference focused on sustainable urbanization and the future of cities.
The forum brings together governments, urban planners, researchers, civil society groups and private sector representatives to examine how rapid urban growth is affecting communities, economies, infrastructure and the climate. Since the first session in Nairobi in 2002, the forum has been hosted by cities around the world. More than 27,000 participants are registered to participate in the Baku forum.