Multi-stakeholder Pledge: Sustainable Human Settlements for Refugees and their Hosting Communities

What are Sustainable Human Settlements?

Sustainable Human Settlements refer to urban and rural areas that are designed, developed, and governed in ways that seek to create livable, safe, resilient communities for both forcibly displaced populations and their hosts. It also emphasizes the transition from temporary camps to more sustainable, integrated forms of settlement, such as municipalities or planned urban areas, fostering long-term resilience and community cohesion.

Background

The last decade has witnessed escalating frequencies and scales of crises which has led to unprecedented levels of refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people who require protection and assistance. By mid-2024, the global number of forcibly displaced people reached an unprecedented 123 million, a significant increase from approximately 42 million in 2013. The majority have been displaced for over five years, emphasizing the protracted nature of contemporary displacement crises and the need for responses that can be sustained over time, both financially and socially. Escalating emergencies strain host countries and communities while the global humanitarian response capacity is dangerously overstretched. The urgent and unmet needs of forcibly displaced populations highlight the necessity for enhanced collaboration among humanitarian, development, and peace actors to ensure sustainable responses.

Displacement crises are lasting longer, leading to protracted humanitarian situations that strain efforts and cause chronic conditions for dependency on humanitarian support, most of the time insufficient. By mid-2024¹, an estimated 25 million refugees (66%) had been displaced for over five years. The average duration of 33 protracted refugee situations at the end of 2014 was about 25 years². This requires innovative and sustainable responses beyond traditional humanitarian solutions.

Some 18% (15.3 million) of forcibly displaced and stateless persons currently reside in camps or camp-like settings worldwide, including over 60% of all UNHCR assisted refugees in Africa and over 35% of those assisted in Asia. The long rates of protraction and insufficient resources pose massive challenges in addressing their needs.

Pledge description

This multi-stakeholder pledge aims to mobilize support for Sustainable Human Settlements, while creating favorable conditions for resilient communities where individuals can thrive independently and sustainably. The pledge also aligns with the GCR objective of burden and responsibility sharing, and to ease pressures on host countries. It aims to galvanize support through close collaboration with other initiatives and pledges on the adoption of enabling policy and legislation for enhanced human settlements, economic inclusion and self-reliance, access to basic services including health and education, connectivity, and safe movement within and between settlements.

Key outcomes

• Promote and implement a sustainable and integrated approach to shelter and housing, access to basic services (water, sanitation, hygiene, renewable energy, connectivity), livelihoods and self-reliance, governance, comprehensive urban planning, livelihoods and self-reliance, for the development of resilient, sustainable human settlements for refugees and their hosting communities.
• Mobilize states, individuals, private sectors, NGOs and international/national organizations to raise support, visibility and coordinated efforts to implement individual and multi-stakeholder commitments that result in Sustainable Human Settlements.

Thematic priorities

The pledge was framed around six thematic priorities, based on the UNHCR-UN-Habitat Guidance for Responding to Displacement in Urban Areas:

• Urban Planning and Management
• Policy, Legislation and Governance
• Housing and Shelter
• Basic Services, including water, sanitation, solid waste and sewerage management, hygiene, renewable energy, and connectivity
• Economy and Finance
• Environmental Sustainability

References

1. Source https://www.unhcr.org/mid-year-trends
2. https://www.unhcr.org/innovation/10-infographics-that-show-the-scale-of…

Leadership

• Government of Ethiopia
• UN HABITAT

Supported by UNHCR.

Contact details

Vasiliki Tsioutsiou, UNHCR [email protected]; Felipe Decorte [email protected]; Mrs. Hana Teshome, Government of Ethiopia Permanent Mission in Geneva, [email protected]

View the roadmap pdf