From Delivery to Knowledge Affordable Housing as a System for Equitable and Climate-Resilient Cities

The Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency (PHATA), the Government of Punjab’s lead authority for affordable housing and urban development, advances inclusive city-making through state-led delivery, regulatory reform, and evidence-based policy innovation. Affordable housing is increasingly recognized not merely as a construction challenge, but as a complex urban system shaped by governance, finance, climate resilience, design innovation, and social equity. This Urban Library session presents an integrated knowledge package emerging from Punjab, Pakistan, combining implementation evidence from large-scale provincial housing programmes with analytical outcomes from an international conference on equitable and sustainable housing. Led by PHATA, the session will launch a series of project reports from ongoing affordable housing initiatives alongside key findings from the international conference Beyond Affordable Housing: Policy and Design for Equitable Living, organized in collaboration with UN-Habitat, the World Bank, and SDPI. The outcome of this conference will be shared in the form of a book of papers that will be launched at this event and will remain available for academics, urban design professionals, and policy designers after the event. Together, these knowledge products examine housing through policy evaluation, climate-responsive design, alternative material systems, governance models, and socio-spatial impacts, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 11. The session will showcase how state-led land provision, interest-free housing finance, digital governance, and private sector regulation are being integrated with climate-resilient planning and people-centred delivery. Drawing on regional and international case studies, it will highlight practical approaches to reducing housing deficits while strengthening urban resilience and inclusion. Beyond presenting evidence, the Urban Library will create space for critical dialogue on translating research into policy action. Participants will engage in moderated discussions on scalable housing frameworks, behavioural dimensions of sustainability, and pathways for embedding equity and climate responsiveness into housing systems. By connecting empirical project data with comparative research insights, the session aims to support cities and governments in advancing affordable housing as a catalyst for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban futures.