UN-Habitat Arena - Housing Market Innovation: Blending Planning and Finance for Inclusive Urban Growth (WUF13).
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities. Exploring market innovation opportunities such as blended finance structures, green and municipal bonds, public-private partnerships (PPPs), and digitally enabled land and property systems. Cities are growing rapidly, with an anticipated 68% of the world's population living in cities by 2050. This growth is driving housing and infrastructure demand that remains chronically unmet. primary drivers of this deficit are weak financing systems and poor linkages between planning and development. Globally, there is$1.5Trillion gap in annual infrastructure financing (World Bank). Urban planning is a powerful value creation instrument when aligned with infrastructure sequencing, regulatory certainty and market-responsive land-use controls. Interventions such as land-use zoning and strate...