BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 22. As the 13th session
of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) concludes in Baku, the final text
of the Baku Call to Action has been officially
published, establishing a comprehensive international framework
that urges renewed global efforts to tackle the escalating housing
crisis, Trend
reports.


Developed through a extensive and inclusive consultation
pipeline, the Baku Call to Action explicitly synthesizes the core
priorities and strategic recommendations formulated throughout the
panel tracks at WUF13, as well as during the months of preparatory
multilateral dialogue leading up to the summit.


Rather than operating as a formally negotiated intergovernmental
treaty, the Baku Call to Action serves to lock in shared priorities
and practical field steps generated via live debates and
stakeholder proposals at the forum. The document is engineered to
function as a strategic roadmap for collective responsibility and
heightened cross-border cooperation in resolving systemic housing
deficits across diverse geographic and economic contexts.


With an estimated 2.8 billion people worldwide currently living
in substandard housing conditions, the document underscores the
urgent necessity for more aggressive, synchronized interventions
across all tiers of government to alleviate the mounting pressure
bearing down on national housing supply systems.


A foundational pillar of the Baku Call to Action is the
institutional mandate that housing must never undergo evaluation
exclusively through the narrow lens of physical construction.
Instead, the document demands the cultivation of integrated
residential ecosystems tightly woven with proactive land-use
management, baseline infrastructure, public transport networks,
universal utility services, and local economic opportunities.


Throughout the WUF13 sessions, delegations repeatedly
highlighted that the global housing crisis is being accelerated by
a matrix of interconnected macro-factors. These include soaring
real estate prices, speculative land acquisitions, forced
displacement cycles, weak regulatory governance systems, and
climate anomalies. The Baku Call to Action asserts that mitigating
these structural challenges requires a decisive departure from
fragmented municipal approaches in favor of holistic, human-centric
urban design models.


The final text concurrently directs sharp analytical focus
toward the compounding intersections connecting housing security
and global climate change. It underscores that populations
navigating high levels of residential vulnerability are
simultaneously the most exposed to acute climate risks, including
catastrophic flooding events, extreme heat waves, and localized
environmental degradation.


To build systemic resilience, the Call to Action recommends
aggressively expanding public and private investment into
climate-resilient housing systems. It advocates for the deployment
of nature-based solutions, the deep retrofitting and green
renovation of existing residential stock, grassroots community-led
development initiatives, and the reinforcement of localized
disaster preparedness frameworks.







Beyond merely diagnosing global urban deficits, the document
places its primary emphasis on implementation mechanics and shared
operational accountability. It issues an explicit call to reinforce
multi-level governance architectures, expand innovative municipal
financing mechanisms, optimize access to localized spatial data,
augment institutional support for municipal authorities, and
empower grassroots communities to execute field-level
solutions.


As highlighted across the closing tracks of WUF13, a vast array
of scalable urban solutions are already undergoing deployment by
forward-thinking cities, local communities, and international
partners worldwide. The Baku Call to Action seeks to consolidate
this vast repository of global field experience and accelerate its
transformation into unified, collective actions long after the
formal adjournment of the Baku forum.


The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) was held
in Baku from May 17 to May 22.


Convened by UN-Habitat and co-organized with the Government of
the Republic of Azerbaijan, WUF13 was held under the theme “Housing
the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities”.


The Forum hosted 579 sessions throughout the week, while the
Urban Expo brought together 260 exhibitors, innovators and solution
providers. WUF13 featured 11 heads of state, 9 high-level guests,
88 ministers and 76 deputy ministers, and 130 mayors, alongside
representatives of international organizations, financial
institutions, academia, civil society and grassroots
organizations.


A key outcome emerging from WUF13 was the presentation of the
Baku Call to Action, a stakeholder-led document developed through
contributions from civil society organizations, local authorities,
practitioners, researchers, community representatives and other
urban actors. Framed around the urgent global housing crisis, the
Call to Action advocates for renewed political commitment to
adequate housing through people-centred, inclusive and
climate-resilient approaches, while encouraging stronger multilevel
governance, investment and community participation in housing
solutions.