UN-Habitat

UN-Habitat (the United Nations Human Settlements Programme) is the UN entity responsible for sustainable urban development, adequate shelter, and the planning and management of human settlements. It was established by the General Assembly in 1978 as the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS, "Habitat"), following the first Habitat Conference held in Vancouver in 1976. In 2001, the General Assembly upgraded its status and renamed it UN-Habitat. Its headquarters are at the UN Office at Nairobi (UNON), Kenya.

The programme is governed by the UN-Habitat Assembly, a universal-membership body created by GA resolution 73/239 (2018) that replaced the former Governing Council. The Assembly meets every four years; an Executive Board of 36 member states oversees work between sessions. The agency is led by an Executive Director at the Under-Secretary-General level.

UN-Habitat's normative work is anchored in two major frameworks:

• The New Urban Agenda, adopted at the Habitat III conference in Quito in October 2016.
• Sustainable Development Goal 11 ("make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable"), for which UN-Habitat is the custodian agency for most indicators.

Operationally, the agency works on slum upgrading, land tenure, urban planning, municipal finance, urban resilience and climate adaptation, post-crisis reconstruction, and basic services such as water and sanitation. It publishes the flagship World Cities Report and co-produces the Global Urban Indicators Database.

In Model UN, UN-Habitat is a popular specialized committee for debating affordable housing, informal settlements, urban climate adaptation, refugee and IDP shelter, and smart-city governance. Delegates should note that UN-Habitat is a programme funded largely by voluntary contributions, not a specialized agency, so its resolutions are recommendatory and rely on partnerships with national governments, local authorities, and entities such as UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments).