DPU part of side-event on Right to Housing at the 25th Session of Human Rights Council in Geneva

The guiding principles for Adequate Housing and Security of Tenure produced by UN Special Rapporteur in Adequate Housing and Human Rights Raquel Rolnik was discussed at a side event that took place on March 12th, at the 25th Session of Human Rights council of the United Nations. The panel discussing the guiding principles included Raquel Rolnik, DPU lecturer Alexandre Apsan Frediani, and President of Habitat International Coalition Lorena Zárate. The event was put together and chaired by Ignacia Ossul, Director of TECHO UK and PhD researcher at DPU.

The event was organised by TECHO, a Latin American NGO that works in informal settlements, with the objective to discuss about the main challenges of the right to housing in Latin America, and discuss about the role of the guiding principles produced by the Special Rapporteur in addressing them. The event brought together UN specialists, academics, States and non-governmental, who shared experiences on housing strategies for the urban poor with a human rights perspective.

The public that attended were representatives of missions at the UN, especially those from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries in the United Nations (GRULAC), social movements and other NGOs. Also, local offices of TECHO and other organisations joined through the live-streaming.

The main topics discussed were the housing strategies in the region and the challenges in terms of access to the city, specifically taking into account the key role of land in the acquisition of adequate housing, the role of social movements and the notion of citizenship and democracy in bringing about change.

Furthermore, in order to disseminate the information and encourage the discussion about this topic there will be a publication of the event (English and Spanish) that will be launch and disseminated in the next few months.

More information will be available in www.techo.org/en.

The guiding principles for Adequate Housing and Security of Tenure can be downloaded at the following website: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx