Resources

This chapter is from the publication 'Legal Empowerment in Informal Settlements: Grassroots Experiences in the Global South', and is co-authored by IIED principal researcher Nausheen Anwar. The chapter looks at the law in Pakistan as a double-edged sword, addressing its role in the violent imposition of state power, despite constitutional provisions that seek to enforce individuals' fundamental rights and hold state governing bodies accountable.

This new publication from Hub partners World Habitat and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) examines the enablers and barriers of community-led housing (CLH), advocating for supportive policies, financial access and partnerships to scale CLH as a viable housing solution.

It is based on over 100 sources and case studies from Brazil, Nepal, Malawi and Zambia.

This online session will explore community-led approaches to inclusive and climate-sensitive urban development, hosted by Cities Alliance, GIZ, IIED, and Slum Dwellers International (SDI). This event will celebrate many of the achievements of those living in informality, and serve as a platform for open discussions on how to build on these successes.

Habitat International Coalition are co-organising an international exchange of social and feminist movements for human rights related to habitat, alongside South African shack dweller movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. This international meeting will create space for in-person exchanges, learning, and solidarity among social and feminist movements working to defend land, housing, and habitat rights. This convergence continues HIC’s global convergence of social and feminist movements, following on from the in-person exchange in Argentina in 2023.

This collection features 14 case studies on community-led urban innovations, showcasing existing scalable solutions to create more just and sustainable cities. It draws on experiences shared during the ‘Global Peer Learning Series: Urban Innovation for Just and Sustainable Cities’, convened and hosted by GIZ and Cities Alliance in 2024, as well as the wealth of grounded cases in which Slum Dwellers International (SDI), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and others have been involved over the last few years.

This policy brief from Pathfinders at NYU explores how rapid urbanisation in the DRC capital Kinshasa is increasing inequalities. This report includes a brief history of Kinshasa’s urban development, and unpacks housing inequality contextualized in Kinshasa and how this relates to housing justice. 

Build Change has published a white paper linking housing justice to disaster resilience, and how it can address the disproportionate impact of disasters on the world’s poor. It proposes why integrating housing justice principles is essential for building effective disaster- and climate-resilience programs.

The Human Rights and Evictions Network in Chile seeks to prevent and stop forced evictions of informal settlements, promoting and coordinating actions to monitor, establish human rights protocolm, provide legal support and document forced evictions from a human rights perspective.

There are currently 87,000 unoccupied homes in the central region of the city of São Paulo. What would be the impact of fully utilising this housing potential? This study by Instituto Polis demonstrates that allocating idle properties and empty land in the central area of ​​São Paulo for low-income housing could contribute to fair energy transition strategies and climate mitigation and adaptation.

A series of policy briefs that elaborate on six key themes in housing policy, providing examples of innovative approaches and possible entry points to deliver equitable and inclusive outcomes. The themes are policy frameworks; governance approaches; participation; access to land; housing finance; and local building materials.

A report assessesing how local and regional governments are advancing the right to adequate housing to meet the UN’s housing-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, describing the importance of local knowledge, and the power of grassroots organisations and local governments to translate the objective of adequate housing into positive action towards that goal.

What pedagogic practices enable social movements, ordinary citizens, activists & urban practitioners to become agents of change towards socially and environmentally just cities? The film explores this question through the experiences of grassroots schools of popular urbanism working under the umbrella of HIC in Latin America.

The overall goal of the HIC co-learning space on social production of habitat was to build a common understanding among HIC members, friends, and allies cross-regionally about concepts and practices of social production of habitat to raise a collective and global voice for political action and joint advocacy strategies.

The Land Policy Observatory, launched by Public Works Studio, is an innovative online platform dedicated to producing and disseminating critical knowledge on land issues in Lebanon. By closely monitoring urban planning institutions, particularly the General Directorate of Urban Planning, the observatory examines laws, decrees, and policies affecting public property, housing, the environment, and urban development. It aims to promote equitable development and spatial justice within Lebanon's policy-making framework.

In an effort to advocate for affordable housing and more inclusive cities, Think Housing competition sought innovative proposals for inclusive urban housing options that challenge the dominant models of urban development by reversing ongoing displacements of low and middle-income residents from the city. Teams of multidisciplinary practitioners and/or students were invited to articulate feasible proposals that respond to the imperative of inclusive housing.

This article argues that the everyday city-making practices of the ‘unsheltered’ are inextricably linked to the politics of bare citizenship. As those stigmatised become individualised, isolated and undermined, they also are deprived of being part of a collective experience and are deeply challenged to reclaim their agency as entitled citizens.

A research project in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone investigates the factors affecting the governance of the supply chain for building materials used in informal settlements, seeking to fill a knowledge gap that is crucial to improving the housing conditions of the urban poor and achieving a fair transition towards a more sustainable building and construction industry.

This Habitat for Humanity and IIED report for the "Home Equals" campaing shows that the substantial benefits from increased access to adequate housing not only improve the lives of those living in informal settlements but also affect entire societies.

A series of videos from across the world shows the lived experiences of those on the front line of housing injustice, and what housing justice means for them.

Grassroots organisations in São Paulo and Lagos are using digital and social media technologies to denounce rights violations and transform discourses about marginalised residents. This IIED-led project aims to uncover, strengthen and create synergies between these practices to advance housing rights.

A collaboration between IIED and World Habitat, working with local partners from Brazil (Catalytic Communities), Malawi (Center for Community Organisation and Development), Zambia (Civic Forum on Housing and Habitat), Nepal (Lumanti Support Group for Shelter), Switzerland (urbaMonde), and Slovenia (Zadrugator), promoting community-led housing as a feasible and effective solution to advance housing justice and to provide housing that delivers the social and environmental outcomes for our cities and the planet to thrive.

How do global coalitions of civil society, non-governmental and community-based organisations, social movements and academics, make visible, defend and produce habitat rights? This conversation with the President of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Adriana Allen, examines HIC’s perspectives on the practices, knowledges and pedagogies for translocal housing activism through reflections structured along several themes.

An open knowledge portal for advocacy on fair housing and spatial justice. Main themes: Awareness material, investigative reports, policies & strategies, data & mapping. By 10 Tooba.

This Resource Guide is the outcome of a Summer Institute on Methodologies for Housing Justice convened by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy as part of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network. The Resource Guide foregrounds innovative methods that are being used by researchers across academia and activism and explicitly situates such methods in an orientation towards housing justice.