UN‑Habitat launches SDG 11 Global Report 2026, warns housing crisis threatens progress

Anna Claudia Rosbach, Under‑Secretary‑General and Executive Director of UN‑Habitat, presented the SDG 11 Global Report 2026 at a press briefing, saying the report finds some gains — including an increase in urban populations with convenient access to public transport from about 53.2% in 2020 to 61.5% in 2025 in many countries — but that progress is too slow and too unequal to meet SDG 11 by 2030.

"The report shows that progress is possible, but it is neither fast enough nor equitable enough to achieve SDG 11 by 2030," Rosbach said, and identified housing as the most urgent challenge. She noted that more than 1,000,000,000 people live in slums and informal settlements and that about 3,000,000,000 people lack adequate housing worldwide, while nearly half of households spend more than 30% of income on rent.

Rosbach called for stronger political leadership, greater investment in adequate housing, and improved urban governance and data systems so that cities can translate planning into implementation. She emphasized the need to strengthen urban monitoring — citing recent progress in 44 additional countries since 2020 on urban monitoring systems — and to invest in disaggregated data for women, children, persons with disabilities and informal‑settlement residents.

Ambassador Lokale, Permanent Representative of Kenya, said Kenya has placed affordable housing, integrated urban planning and resilient infrastructure at the center of national priorities. He gave national figures, saying Kenya estimates an annual housing demand of about 250,000 units against a current supply of roughly 50,000 units, and that more than 270,000 units have been completed or are in advanced stages of construction over the past three years.

In a question‑and‑answer session, Rosbach addressed adaptation to extreme heat and the role of air conditioning, saying context matters: while cooling can save lives in heat waves, reliance on air conditioning raises energy and emissions concerns. She advocated passive cooling, green and energy‑efficient building design, and stronger building codes so that new construction reduces future cooling demand.

On transport, Rosbach attributed the rapid reported gains in access to reliable public transport partly to scaled development finance and the prioritization of transport by international financial institutions, which have expanded transport portfolios and technical expertise. On tenure in informal settlements, she described a phased, evidence‑based approach — mapping and protecting residents to minimize evictions, then improving tenure guarantees where feasible under local law, while acknowledging some settlements are in high‑risk areas that may require relocation.

The briefing framed the report as a call to action ahead of next week’s high‑level midterm review of the New Urban Agenda: Rosbach said the next four years will determine whether cities become engines of inclusion and resilience or places where inequalities deepen. The session closed with a request for renewed investment and international cooperation to accelerate implementation of SDG 11.