Resources

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. 

A research initiative lead by a global cohort of scholars to advance innovative conceptual and methodological approaches around urban vacancy, occupation, and commoning. There have been a series of seminars and engagements on the questions of vacancy, occupation and commoning, all of which are geared towards understanding these phenomena in different contexts with a view to influencing policy and practice. By University of Cape Town, Human Sciences Research Council, TU Wien, Trinity College Dublin

A collaborative research project about informal land and building occupations in Bogota, Cape Town and Sao Paulo. Developed closely with activists, the City Occupied platform seeks to properly understand and reposition land occupations in urban development discourse and practice.

A publication arguing for a shift in South Africa's housing delivery model away from housing projects built by large private developers and towards proper support and funding for self-built housing. While quite technical in nature, the core argument that the state cannot withdraw its funding and support for housing construction as it moves away from direct provision is incredibly important in the South African context. By Isandla Institute & Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa

Publication explaining how to approach informal settlement upgrading from the perspective of the Just Urban Transition. The first publication in South Africa to explicitly look at and engage with this question in any real way. By Isandla Institute.

Publication examining how the City of Cape Town could actively support the delivery of small-scale rental housing to boost housing supply, encourage formalisation, improve the city's urban form, stimulate more equitable income and address infrastructure challenges. By Development Action Group and the Human Sciences Research Council.

An advocacy publication which challenges the use of centrally located public land as parking lots for government vehicles. The report argues that it makes no sense from a housing justice or city-building perspective to use valuable public land to park government vehicles. A set of alternative proposals are put forward that center the social function of public land. By Ndifuna Ukwazi