Housing in the Context of Sustainable Development Goals 

All member states of the United Nations, including India, adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a universal pledge to end poverty while protecting the planet, peace and prosperity. The motto of the SDGs is to “Leave No One Behind.” The progress towards the goals is globally monitored and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), while the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) provides capacity-building support for the SDGs. There are 17 universally acknowledged goals that all countries and stakeholders in the development sector have aligned their poverty alleviation work to.

At IHF, we believe access to housing can play an important role in directly or indirectly addressing many of the 169 targets under the 17 goals. This sentiment was clearly articulated by Dr. Joan Clos, Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in his message on the World Habitat Day under the 2017 theme ‘Housing Policies: Affordable Homes’: 

“For housing to contribute to national socio-economic development and achievement of the SDGs, the New Urban Agenda (Habitat III) calls for placing housing policies at the centre of national urban policies along with strategies to fight poverty, improve health and employment.”

Target 11.1 under SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) directly calls for adequate, safe and affordable housing, providing a clarion call for adequate housing for all by 2030. 

However, since access to safe, stable, affordable and adequate housing connected to basic amenities is a prerequisite for access to stable livelihoods, health and education services, and social and cultural development, achievement of Target 11.1 is likely to have a permanent positive impact on the achievement of many other targets. According to an assessment by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF), investment in low-income housing can have “a profound and direct impact on at least 14 of the SDGs,” through access to basic services and inclusive and sustainable growth.

We attempt to represent this complex and nuanced inter-dependence between housing and the other SDG targets through the following infographic.