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The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs organized an event to celebrate World Habitat Day on 3rd October 2022.
The theme of World Habitat Day 2022: 'Mind the Gap. Leave No One Behind and No Place Behind’.

Details

World Habitat Day is observed on the first Monday of October each year.
It is acknowledged by the United Nations.
The day reminds the world that everyone has the power and the responsibility to shape the future of towns and cities.
World Habitat Day was first celebrated in 1986 in Nairobi, Kenya.

United Nations - Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022

World Cities Report 2022, Envisaging the Future of Cities, is published to coincide with the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum, the premier global conference on sustainable urban development.
The biannual report is an authoritative, thorough and far-sighted look at the state of the world’s cities, trends in urban policy and the outlook for sustainable development.
World Cities Report 2022: The Report proposes a state of informed preparedness that provides us with the opportunity to anticipate change, correct the course of action and become more knowledgeable of the different scenarios or possibilities that the future of cities offers.

Key Points of the Report

Poverty and inequality are increasingly becoming pervasive in cities globally.
In developing countries, slums and informal settlements are the most enduring spatial manifestation of poverty and inequality.
Residents of slums and informal settlements experience multiple levels of deprivation.
Millions of households lack access to basic private infrastructures such as clean water and sanitation facilities, sufficient living spaces and secure housing conditions.
Like poverty, urban inequality has economic, social and spatial manifestations. Urban inequality is marked by differential access to income and wealth, urban services and infrastructure, technology, public health, social security and education.
Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are off-track from ending poverty by 2030, according to the report. The region has the highest incidence of urban poverty with about 23 per cent of the urban population living below the international poverty line and 29 per cent experiencing multidimensional poverty.
Current projections suggest that the number of people living in extreme poverty will remain above 600 million in 2030, resulting in a drastic rise in the global poverty rate.
The report also noted that the migrants, refugees, women, the elderly and others who live in overcrowded and risk-prone informal settlements, bear the burden of environmental risks because of their physical, social and economic vulnerability.
Not only does climate change make it difficult for people to escape poverty, but it also creates a vicious cycle of deprivation.
The report stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had reversed years of remarkable progress made in the fight against poverty. The pandemic resulted in the emergence of newly poor people. In 2020, the pandemic-induced newly poor stood between 119 and 124 million.
According to the report, inequalities between developed and developing regions have become worse. The average income of people living in North America is 16 times higher than in sub-Saharan Africa.
South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. The poorest 40% there have annual incomes of less than $1,000 per person, while the richest 10 per cent earn more than $39,000 per person.
The report highlighted the adoption of a multi-dimensional approach to address urban poverty and inequality. It stressed adopting urban sensitive social security measures as a potentially powerful policy tool for redistributing wealth and addressing poverty and inequalities.
It suggested urban leaders participate with grassroots civil society and private sector efforts to build local alliances to deliver more effective strategies for addressing poverty and inequality.

India-specific findings

India’s urban population is estimated to stand at 675 million in 2035, the second highest behind China’s one billion, the UN has said in a report, noting that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the global urban population is back on track to grow by another 2.2 billion by 2050.
By 2035, the percentage of the population in India at mid-year residing in urban areas will be 43.2 per cent, it said.
The report said that very big economies like China and India have a large share of the world’s population and their development trajectories have greatly influenced global inequality.
The notoriously overcrowded slums in Mumbai, India; Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro; chronic homelessness in London; and persistent concentrated poverty in Baltimore, US, all send one clear message to policymakers: tackling urban poverty and inequality is one of the key priorities for building inclusive and equitable urban futures.
Noting the challenge of climate change, the report said that cities, especially those in warm climates or low-lying coastal areas, face existential threats due to the risks and impacts of climate change and extreme weather events “such as increased heatwaves in Delhi, India, and the pervasive flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Durban, South Africa.
Many cities around the world, especially those in developing countries such as China and India, reported unprecedented reductions in the level of airborne pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, CO2, NO2 and SO2. Declines were significant in cities that imposed lockdowns given the dominance of road transportation and associated emissions in an urban area.
Highlighting the implications of transportation trends during the COVID-19 pandemic, it said that in some countries like India, car dependency increased since the emergence of COVID-19, and people formerly interested in active and public transportation shifted towards private cars.
The most progressive forms of empowerment of women often come from civil society, such as the self-help organisation Kudumbashree, which has over 4 million female members and played an instrumental role in removing absolute poverty from the state of Kerala, India
Informal settlements on the edge of urban jurisdictions are vulnerable to eviction due to unclear regulatory frameworks, as was demonstrated by a recent large-scale eviction in India.
Many municipal administrations choose to adopt a smart city agenda, to provide strategic and programmatic direction for urban development. They are often encouraged by national governments that use competitions to entice cities to invest in smart city programmes, as illustrated by India’s 100 Smart Cities Mission and the Republic of Korea’s Smart Challenge.