WUF13 concludes with a powerful call to action on the global housing crisis
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Azerbaijan concluded on Friday with superlatives — and a splash — that underscored how WUF has grown over nearly a quarter-century from humble roots to a gathering that has galvanized a global movement.
Attendees continued to stream into the Baku Olympic Stadium on the Forum’s closing day, bringing total participation to over 57,000 (including at least 3,000 online) from 176 countries. The figures make WUF13 the largest ever in the event’s 24-year history, surpassing even the numbers at the once-every-generation Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador in 2016. This year’s Forum also achieved gender parity, with over 55 per cent of attendees identified as women and girls.
“We met at a moment when the global housing crisis has reached unprecedented scale, affecting billions of people through affordability pressures, displacement, informality, climate vulnerability and declining conditions of harm,” said UN-Habitat Executive Director Anacláudia Rossbach.
“The discussions here in Baku have reinforced the clear message: housing must be placed at the centre of integrated urban policy, linking land, infrastructure, climate action, finance and governance.”
Baku Urban Award: A WUF13 legacy
Azerbaijan declared 2026 the “Year of Urban Planning and Architecture.” And as WUF13 comes to a close, a legacy will live on. The Baku Urban Award, launched this week, will become the only international award officially presented within the structural framework of the World Urban Forum. It will honour initiatives that promote and scale up advanced urban solutions in the fields of sustainable urban development and adequate housing. Beyond the Forum, it is intended to serve as an international mechanism supporting the long-term advancement of the global urban agenda.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Sir Richard Foster will serve on the inaugural jury. “Solving global problems like climate change and inequality directly depends on the policies implemented within cities,” he said.
Azerbaijan Chairman of the State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture Anar Guliyev introduced the award, noting the potential for local solutions to address the Sustainable Development Goals. “They are being developed and applied every day in various cities around the world,” he said. “The problem is that many of these solutions remain excessively local, are not disseminated, and do not become a source of learning.”
“The Baku Urban Award was created precisely to fill this gap.”’
Closing ceremony
At the closing ceremony, a capacity crowd enjoyed a traditional Azerbaijani cultural performance with drummers, a tar player, and dancers in national dress.
Reflecting on a week that brought together over 150 ministers and deputy ministers to a conference that hosted 580 sessions and an Urban Expo that registered over 74,000 visits, Guliyev made the case that “WUF13 will go down in history not only as the largest Forum, but also as the platform that brought housing back to the center of the global political agenda.”
That agenda is a crowded one, but WUF13 ended with a powerful reminder that the world is at the halfway point of the New Urban Agenda, which will be reviewed in July in a high-level meeting at United Nations Headquarters, and approaching the end of the Sustainable Development Goals’ horizon in 2030.
“Our shared future is, for the most part, a story about territorial planning,” said United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. “And at its heart, it is a story about housing.”
Delegates depart Azerbaijan with the Baku Call to Action, an inspiring outcome document with 15 recommendations driven by an intensive week of stakeholder engagement not only with the participation of government officials, but also representatives of civil society, academia and the broader public. They return to their home countries, cities and communities with inspiration and purpose.
They also leave with an invitation, as shared by Mexico’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Maria Victoria Romero Caballero, to check back in on their progress in two years at WUF14 in Mexico City.
That invitation came in the form of a traditional Mexican expression: Mi casa es tu casa. My house is your house.