When a senior official of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) received a document in 1976 suggesting that that the environmental concerns and conditions of women receive attention from his agency, he scribbled “over my dead body” on the forwarding note. I know, because I had to the process the note to its next destination, being a junior functionary of UNEP at the time. If the statute of limitations on this piece of internal UN bureaucratic information has not expired, I hope the relevant authorities feel free to sue me. As to whether the subsequent involvement of UNEP in women and environment matters, such as the massive Global Assembly on Women and Environment in 1991, actually took place over his dead body, I am not aware.
In this article I aim to present, based on my professional and personal experience, the evolution of women and habitat issues, including an assessment of how well these are being addressed currently, in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (Habitat). It is a history that necessarily covers the interaction between UN-Habitat and civil society, as well as with some other UN events and agencies, especially UNEP.
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