Aguascalientes © Goetz

In 1978, the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements (UNCHS) was founded as a standing committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The secretariat of the UNCHS was the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT). In 2002, the United Nations merged the Commission and the Centre to form the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHSP), or UN-HABITAT, a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. The word "habitat" in the name of UN-HABITAT stems from the Latin verb habitare (to inhabit) and means the place or physical environment in which a population lives.

Since 2010, Dr. Joan Clos is the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT. He is the successor of  Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, who in turn is the successor of Prof. Klaus Töpfer, Germany's former Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development, who subsequently served as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In 1986, the General Assembly of the United Nations designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day.

Goals of UN-HABITAT

UN-HABITAT focuses on the following goals:

• Adequate shelter and housing for all
• Sustainable urban and human settlements development
• Improvement of the quality of life by combating poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and crime
• Promotion of the development of local democratic structures (keywords: subsidiarity, decentralisation, local self-government, financial autonomy)
• Adoption of a World Charter of Local Self-Government

To this end, UN-HABITAT supports the work of governments, parliaments and other partners such as local authorities, private and voluntary organisations as well as non-governmental organisations. It seeks to ensure that existing economic and technological potential and know-how in the industrial countries is utilized in dialogue and practical support and shared with countries in transition as well as emerging economies and developing countries.

Important foundations for the implementation of these goals are the Agenda 21 adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Habitat Agenda adopted at the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT II) in Istanbul in 1996.

Germany followed and supported the preparations for the Istanbul Conference on Human Settlements through a National Committee for HABITAT II instituted by the Federal Government.

Until 1998, the German Bundestag had a cross-committee working group "HABITAT" which consisted of members of the former Committee on Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development and the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development. This working group addressed issues associated with the Habitat process at national parliamentary level.