The
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (
UN–HABITAT) is the
United Nations agency for human settlements. It was established in 1978 and has its headquarters at the UN office in
Nairobi,
Kenya. It is mandated by the
United Nations General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.
Its regional centres are called 'United Nations Centre for Human Settlements' (Habitat)/(UNCHS) [2][3] , and are situated at Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, and Fukuoka [4].
According to its 2006 Annual Report, sometime in the middle of 2007, the majority of people worldwide will be living in towns and cities, for the first time in history; this is referred to as the arrival of the "urban millennium". The year 2007 will also see the number of slum dwellers hit 1 billion. As regards future trends, it is estimated 93% of urban growth will occur in Asia and Africa, and to a lesser extent Latin America and the Caribbean. By 2050, over 6 billion people, two thirds of humanity, will be living in towns and cities.
The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, the Habitat Agenda, the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and Resolution 56/206.
