UN Report Warns On Land Ownership, Homelessness
A report on the latest trends on homelessness and landlessness in the world released last week warns that inequality in global land ownership is on the increase with a mere 2,5% of landowners believed to be in control of nearly three-quarters of all private land.
250.000 tenants household in Germany have a transnational fund as landlord now
Viterra AG is privatising huge parts of their original social housing stock and creates new speculation bubbles -- with a contract missing obligations and securities for tenants.
Translate Rights into Action
Orientation on the recognition, realization and defense of local dwellers’ human rights within all strategies towards human settlements development is a basic pre-requisite in order to avoid or overcome social exclusion and poverty. Promoting rights mobilizes peo-ple to work on their own solutions, builds capacities for responsible and democratic re-forms and allows duty holders to work on sustainable responses to basic needs. Instead of treating people as a problem human settlement policies must reaffirm people as key to solve the problems.
Social Regularization and Upgrading of Slums
Security of tenure should focus on legal regularizations which keep and strengthen social control of urban land use. Legalization of irregular settlements and security of tenure should not be reduced to private property and titling, but - depending on the local conditions – should use various options to secure social tenure.
Sustainable Urbanisation and Social Economy
Sustainability-orientated management of urbanization-processes in its various forms (all types of human settlements and all types of changes in spatial development) is a basic challenge in the field of human settlements. A fast improvement of coordinated target-driven action at local, regional, national and international levels is needed in order to meet this challenge and to overcome its obstacles.
China: Sixty housing rights activists detained outside UN meeting in Shanghai
Around sixty activists were detained by the police the 1st December in front of the Oriental Pearl building in Shanghai after they attempted to deliver a letter to United Nations officials attending the UN Global Compact Summit taking place nearby. Around 40 are still believed to be detained at Century Plaza police station in Pudong, Shanghai. The twenty others have reportedly been taken back to their home districts by local district officials. Their current legal status is unclear.
Entitlements of the Right to Adequate Housing
Concepts and meanings of the components of the Right to Adequate Housing
Call to action: Housing and Land Rights Day 2005
Throughout October 2005, local, national and regional organizations, social movements, NGO’s and academic institutions are called to organize public actions and events to denounce destructive impacts of neo-liberal development policies and economic globalization (such as: budget cuts, forced evictions, land speculation and privatization of social housing and utilities) on people’s housing and land rights across the planet.
Latin American Women speak out about their Access to Adequate Housing
AWID Interview to Maria Silvia Emmanuelli.
Call to Action to Stop the Violence Against the Farmers, Women and Children of Egypt
Number of social movements and organizations -interested in farmers cases and their rights in land- have united in solidarity with the Egyptian farmers to stop the humiliation and violence practiced against them, so that they could enjoy safe land possession and a decent life. The campaign can lead to positive results with your solidarity.
Report on equality between women and men
While addressing very important issues of equality on the labour market does not deal with other very key issues such as ensuring a gender perspective in economic policy, trade or development cooperation policy.
Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR)
PWESCR will work to promote women’s human rights, especially in the context of economic, social and cultural rights by bringing a gender framework to policy, law and practice at local, national, regional and international levels through ever-evolving strategies and activities in both conceptual and practical realms.