United Nations housing rapporteur expresses dire need for "a human rights framework" in global urban development

2015-10-28T14:02:00-04:00

On 22 October, [United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing Leilani] Farha challenged the General Assembly to promote urban development through the lens of human rights. “Human rights can be transformational,” she said. “A human rights framework can provide the coherence and consistency sorely needed to achieve sustainable, inclusive cities for all.” [...] “Human rights have been largely absent from discussions of urban development,” Farha cautioned.

A "special rapporteur" is "an independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme." In a recent report to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which you can read in its entirety here, rapporteur Leilani Farha explains the pressing need for governments to champion their citizens' rights to housing, especially in advance of the U.N.'s 2016 "Habitat III" urbanization conference – a gathering that only takes place once every twenty years.

In her report, Farha is not optimistic about the direction urban development is headed: “Cities are on an untenable path, one that is encouraging vast inequalities which ultimately segregate those who have means from those who do not ... Urbanization can too often focus on wealth accumulation at the expense of the most vulnerable populations.”

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United Nations housing rapporteur expresses dire need for "a human rights framework" in global urban development