The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1978 as an outcome of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976.
UN-Habitat operates in over 90 countries to promote transformative change in cities and human settlements through knowledge, policy advice, technical assistance, and collaborative action.
UN-Habitat seeks to enhance national and city level decision-makers’ understanding of the challenges facing urban youth, as well as of the opportunities for dealing with those challenges
Though youth are vital to the prosperity of cities in the developing world, they still face many barriers — most notably underemployment and unemployment, and a lack of access to basic services such as healthcare and education — which prevent them from reaching their potential. UN-Habitat has worked with cities globally to overcome these barriers through the development of programmes that achieve three key objectives:
- Improve youths’ livelihoods by increasing their employability
- Decrease their vulnerabilities
- Integrate them fully into the economic and social life of the city
These programmes assist youth to become leaders in their communities and to lead healthy and productive lives.