World Habitat Day 2026; October 5th.

FORUM: "Adequate Housing for All" World Habitat Day 2026. The world is facing a global housing crisis. More than 3 billion people lack access to adequate housing today. Furthermore, more than 1.1 billion people, continue to live in an informal settlement, and hundreds of millions are experiencing homelessness. This crisis is exacerbated by conflicts, disasters, and climate change, with individuals living in informal settlements facing the harshest impacts and having the least ability to recover. Housing is acknowledged as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Other than it being well established as a right that the world is yet to deliver, people facing the challenge of inadequate housing are also deprived of dignity, safety, stability and opportunity. The Global Observance of World Habitat Day 2026 builds on a renewed wave of political commitment to Adequate Housing. At the second session of the UN-Habitat Assembly, 2023 Member States adopted resolution2/7, which focuses on ensuring adequate housing for all, and resolution 2/2, which aims to transform informal settlements and slums. In these resolutions, Member States have urged UN-Habitat to strengthen its efforts in these important areas and UN Habitat launched the Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Groupon Adequate Housing for All, as an intergovernmental process to help contribute to solving for this challenge. Further through the Pact for the Future, Member States have also committed to ensuring that everyone has access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing. This year also marks the first Urban October under UN-Habitat’s new Strategic Plan 2026–2029, which places housing, land and basic services at the centre of the organization’s mandate. The Baku Call to Action from the thirteenth World Urban Forum held in May 2026, emphasises the importance of a human rights approach to housing and encourages a shift from diagnosis to action. Housing is essential for achieving the SustainableDevelopment Goals. Making progress on both the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda is closely tied to our ability to provide adequate housing for everyone. World Habitat Day will highlight the importance of adequate housing for thriving communities and the actions needed to make it a reality. This requires targeted efforts for lower-income groups, people experiencing disasters, crisis and homelessness, and those most at risk of displacement. Success depends on how we plan and manage our cities, recognizing the social, economic and ecological functions of land, promoting secure land tenure, preventing urban sprawl, and ensuring housing is located within well-serviced, liveable neighbourhoods. Achieving adequate housing also requires diversifying how housing is produced and delivered, through social, public, rental, cooperative and community-led models alongside market-based solutions. Housing must be environmentally sustainable, climate resilient and culturally appropriate, while prioritizing the upgrading andtransformation of informal settlements to improve conditions for those most in need. Above all, these efforts rely on effective multilevel governance, supported by enabling policies and legislation, robust data, and adequate financing. The Global Observance, hosted by the Sultanate of Oman in Muscat, will kick off the Home & Building Expo and Urban October. It will provide a global platform for exchanging experiences, showcasing innovative approaches, and strengthening partnerships that advance the right to adequate housing in practice.  In line with UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029 and resolution 2/7 on adequate housing for all, the objectives of the World Habitat Day 2026 will: 1. Showcase innovative practices that advance adequate housing for all and recognise outstanding contributions through the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, one of the world’s most prestigious human settlements awards. 2. Reaffirm adequate housing as a human right and a cornerstone for achieving the SustainableDevelopment Goals and the New Urban Agenda. 3. Raise awareness of the drivers contributing to the global housing crisis, including unaffordability,informality, insecure tenure, climate impacts, displacement and inadequate conditions and highlight the ongoing gap between commitment and actual progress. 4. Promote dialogue on inclusive, integrated and holistic housing strategies that reach all households and all forms of tenure, with targeted efforts for those in the most vulnerable situations. 5. Highlight the central role of all levels of governments, effective multilevel governance, national urbanpolicies, housing law, well-planned, well-located compact neighbourhoods, in realising adequatehousing. Follow the conversations with the hashtags: #WorldHabitatDay, #UrbanOctober, #urbancrisisresponse, #Right2Housing, #MindtheGap, #LeaveNoOneBehind, #adequatehousing.

EVENTS: On 5 October 2026, the Global Observance of World Habitat Day will be related to "Adequate Housing for All". The global housing crisis whereby an estimated 2.8 billion people face various forms of housing inadequacy, in which close to 1.1 billion reside in slums and informal settlements, calls for urgent and concerted action. World Habitat Day will consider how to realize the ambition of ensuring access to adequate housing for all as a cornerstone for achieving the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda. Register to participate!

AGENDA PROGRAMME OF THE GLOBAL OBSERVANCE OF WORLD HABITAT DAY 2026.

10.30 -11:00 ARRIVAL OF ATTENDEES (All guests to be seated by 11:00)
11:00 - 11:45 NATIONAL OBSERVANCE HIGH-LEVEL OPENING
11:45 - 12:30 GLOBAL OBSERVANCE HIGH-LEVEL OPENING

UN-HABITAT SCROLL OF HONOUR AWARDS: The UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, launched in 1989, recognizes individuals and institutions that have made outstanding contributions to urban development, including improving the quality of urban life for all and ensuring adequate, affordable, and accessible housing.

12:30 - 12:45 SIGNING CEREMONY FOR DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS, INCLUDING INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS
12:45 - 13:30 INAUGURATION OF THE EXPO
15:00 - 15:15 SCROLL OF HONOUR
15:15 - 16:00 MINISTERIAL SEGMENT
16:00 - 17:15 FLAGSHIP DIALOGUE: ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR ALL
17:15 - 17:30 CLOSING CEREMONY

Related Sites and Documents: Concept note & Agenda programme (pdf).

LIVESTREAM: Watch the World Habitat Day 2026 - "Adequate Housing for All" (Muscat, Oman) (Morning Session)!

ARRIVAL OF ATTENDEES (All guests to be seated by 11:00) 10.30 –11:00 

NATIONAL OBSERVANCE HIGH-LEVEL OPENING 11:00 – 11:45 

GLOBAL OBSERVANCE HIGH-LEVEL OPENING 11:45 – 12:30 

Opening address by master of ceremonies World Habitat Day 2026 video Video message from Nga Kor Ming, President of the United Nations Habitat Assembly and Minister of Housing and Local Government, Malaysia Message from António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, read by Anacláudia Rossbach, Under-Secretary-General and Executive-Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Welcome address by Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habita

SIGNING CEREMONY FOR DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS, INCLUDING INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS 12:30 – 12:45 

UN-HABITAT SCROLL OF HONOUR AWARDS

 Introduction by master of ceremonies Award ceremony • Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab, Pakistan, representing the Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency, Lahore, Pakistan • Htoo Aung, representing Housing NOW, Bago, Myanmar • Thiago Bauermann Gubert representing Aldeia do Espraiado - Tekoa Ara Hovy: Brazil’s First Indigenous village established by a Brazilian Municipality • Abdelmalek Ghannem, Bizerte, Tunisia • Sadiq Khan, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

INAUGURATION OF THE EXPO 12:45 – 13:30

MINISTERIAL SEGMENT 15:00 – 15:45

FLAGSHIP DIALOGUE: ADEQUATE HOUSING FOR ALL 15:45 – 17:00 

MODERATOR: Rania Hedeya, Director, Regional Office for Arab States, UN-Habitat 

PANELISTS: • Elena Carolina Díaz Galán, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights • Dr Asmus Hammerich, WHO Representative to Oman • Melani Penjani Chirwa, Programmes Coordinator, Slum Dwellers International (SDI) • Rony Lahoud, General Director, Public Corporation for Housing, Lebanon • Sultan Barakat, Professor of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (Qatar Foundation) and Honorary Professor, University of York • Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, India • Wendy Werner, World Bank Group Country Manager for Oman CLOSING CEREMONY 17:00 – 17:20 

Closing session by the master of ceremonies Closing remarks, TBC Closing remarks by Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat Group photo session