Habitat Urges Governments At WUF13 To Place Housing At Heart Of Dev't Agenda CEO (Exclusive Interview)

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 19. Habitat for Humanity International, non-profit organization, headquartered in the U.S., urges governments at the 13^th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku to place housing at the heart of its development agenda, Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat said in an exclusive interview with Trend on the sidelines of the forum.

“Despite its foundational role in economic mobility, climate resilience, and human wellbeing, housing remains strikingly underrepresented in global strategies. Analysis finds that housing receives less than 1% of Official Development Assistance, and only 2% of national climate plans show real ambition in this area.

Habitat urges Governments to place housing at the heart of its development agenda by:

- Championing housing as a crosscutting catalyst for development, recognizing its central role in driving economic growth, improving health and education outcomes, and expanding opportunities for women and marginalized communities.

- Committing to improving how housing is measured within Official Development Assistance, ensuring that investments are visible, comparable, and aligned with the scale of global need. Current measurement systems obscure the true level of support and limit effective planning.

- Working with counterpart countries to expand and replicate and adapt proven housing solutions, drawing on successful approaches already present within development portfolios and scaling interventions that deliver measurable economic and social returns.

- Ensuring housing strategies are explicitly inclusive of the most vulnerable, while creating enabling environments for partnerships with civil society organizations that can bridge the gap between need and delivery. This includes prioritizing underserved populations within national housing plans and recognizing the role of NGOs in reaching last-mile communities,” he said.

Reckford also spoke about how the organization views the global challenge of affordable housing in rapidly urbanizing cities.

“We're still trying to solve the urban housing crisis with too narrow a lens, focusing on new units and homeownership, while overlooking the reality that most people rely on existing housing stock, informal settlements and a wider range of tenure options. In addition, a persistent barrier to scaling housing solutions globally is not a lack of evidence or interventions, but a lack of shared understanding. Across donors, governments, and practitioners, housing is defined and measured inconsistently and narrowly, leading to fragmented policy, misaligned investments, and under-recognition of the full spectrum of housing needs and pathways,” he explained.

The CEO noted that Habitat is introducing a Global Continuum of Housing Adequacy to address this gap-offering a unified, globally relevant framework that reflects the full range of housing conditions, from homelessness to market-based solutions, and explicitly includes incremental housing as a central pathway. Habitat urges Governments and development partners to:

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