From Rubble to Resilience - Housing as the Backbone of Urban Recovery in Protracted Crises

Urban crises are increasingly defined by the loss of housing, placing cities at the frontline of humanitarian response, recovery, and long-term reconstruction. From the perspective of municipalities in Gaza and conflict-affected cities in Syria, housing loss is not only a physical challenge, but a disruption to governance, social cohesion, service delivery, and local economies.
This session amplifies the voices of cities managing housing collapse, mass displacement, and return under extreme constraints. Drawing on direct municipal experience from Khan Younis Municipality and Syrian cities, the session presents housing as a strategic entry point for urban recovery rather than a standalone sectoral intervention. It shares a housing-led recovery framework rooted in practical city-level experience, emphasizing housing, land, and property (HLP) rights, municipal coordination, community-led recovery, and the integration of housing with infrastructure, livelihoods, and services.
The session also benefits from the contribution of Hadhramout University, which brings an academic and applied research perspective to support evidence-based analysis, documentation of municipal lessons, and the translation of city experiences into transferable policy insights.
In addition, Clima-Med – Acting for Climate in the South Mediterranean contributes by integrating climate resilience, environmental sustainability, and climate-informed recovery approaches into housing-led urban reconstruction in crisis-affected cities.
The session will showcase policy lessons emerging from cities that have navigated repeated cycles of destruction, emergency shelter, and reconstruction. It will highlight how municipalities act as anchors of stability, even when institutional capacity is strained, and how locally driven housing strategies can bridge the humanitarian–development–peace nexus.
Through city-to-city dialogue, the session will foster peer learning between municipalities facing conflict, disaster, and large-scale displacement. It aims to reposition cities not as beneficiaries of recovery, but as knowledge producers and partners shaping resilient, inclusive, and rights-based housing responses in crisis and post-crisis contexts