What do we do to contribute to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable?
Housing Europe at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland, 29 March 2023 | Published in Future of the EU & Housing
A year and a half after the launch of the #Housing2030 report, Housing Europe’s Secretary General was back at the United Nations in Geneva to inform on the role of Housing Europe members in reaching the Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) to make the places we inhabit safer and more resilient.
The high level-attention to housing at the UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development along with the call for increased investment is a good precedent for the European Affordable Housing Consortium, SHAPE-EU Finance Summit coming up this June in Paris.
“There is some catching up to do. While there is no shortage of examples of projects implemented to meet growing and changing housing needs, decades of reduced resources coupled with a lack of regulation of the broader housing market undermine efforts. Extractive investment patterns and reliance on market forces have undermined the capacity of cities to cater to people's housing needs or to align with nature's limits,” Sorcha Edwards stressed.
She also reminded that #Housing2030 - our joint work with the UNECE and UN-Habitat - can be a useful resource, bringing together the policies and tools to inspire cities and national governments to turn the trend around.