Every year, the first Monday of the month of October is celebrated as World Habitat Day. This practice was initiated in the year 1986, with the first World Habitat Day ever being celebrated in Nairobi, Kenya, with the theme that year being “Shelter is My Right”. The United Nations General Assembly decided that this should be an annual event and the first Monday of October was chosen. The event focuses on the state of human settlements and on the basic right of all to adequate shelter and is intended to remind the world of its collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat. This day particularly focuses on improving all levels of partnership between Government and relevant stakeholders in successfully implementing policies and methods to ensure adequate and affordable homes to all. Other previous themes have included: “Shelter for the Homeless” (1987, New York), “Shelter and Urbanization” (1990, London) and “Future Cities” (1997, Bonn), to name but a few.
As an incentive to reward good efforts and exceptional achievements, The UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award was launched by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in 1989. It is currently the most prestigious human settlements award in the world. Its aim is to acknowledge initiatives which have made outstanding contributions in various fields such as shelter provision, highlighting the plight of the homeless, leadership in post conflict reconstruction and developing and improving human settlements and the quality of urban life.
The global observance venue for this year’s World Habitat Day is Surabaya, Indonesia. With the coronavirus pandemic in full swing all over the world, safe and adequate housing is more important now than ever before, to check the spread of this disease and to ensure that people have sanctuary from the outside world. An estimated 1.8 billion people were already living in slums and informal settlements, inadequate housing or in homelessness before the pandemic began. Some 3 billion people lack basic hand-washing facilities. This means that millions of people worldwide are more likely to experience poor health due to the absence of basic services and exposure to multiple socio-economic and environmental hazards.
Housing is a basic human right. In the present scenario where social distancing and to remain at safe distance and maintaining good hygiene practice is just impossible without adequate housing. The absence of basic services and the prevalence of stress and unhealthy living conditions also contribute to poor health. People living in informal settlements and slum areas in populated countries are going to be the victims of the pandemic COVID 19. In the absence of proper primary health care centers and protective clothing and less access to medical care for women and children are the biggest uncertainties and crisis the world will have to face.
