With millions of dwellings standing empty across Europe while affordable housing remains out of reach for many, Habitat for Humanity is bringing together cities, policymakers, researchers and housing experts to explore a different approach: turning vacant spaces into homes.
Across Africa, millions of families living in informal settlements face growing climate risks, including floods, extreme heat, storms and other climate-related shocks.
As governments and development partners seek scalable solutions, the Building Climate Resilience with the Urban Poor (BCRUP) Programme is emerging as a landmark initiative to strengthen resilience in some of the continent’s most vulnerable urban communities.
Across Africa, millions of families living in informal settlements face growing threats from floods, extreme heat, storms and other climate-related shocks. As governments and development partners seek solutions that can protect vulnerable communities, a simple reality is becoming clear: resilience starts at home
The Building Climate Resilience with the Urban Poor (BCRUP) Programme hosted by the Government of Kenya and co-led by Kenya and Brazil, is emerging as a landmark initiative that is helping place housing at the centre of Africa’s climate adaptation agenda.
BCRUP has expanded to 20 African countries and established a Governance Structure, Operational Framework and Resource Mobilization Strategy all aiming to strengthen resilience in vulnerable urban communities through improved housing, basic services and more inclusive urban development.
Habitat for Humanity Africa has played an important role in helping to elevate the role of housing within this agenda by contributing evidence, country experiences and data that demonstrate how climate-resilient housing, secure land tenure, neighbourhood upgrading and access to basic services can help communities adapt to climate change.
Across Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, common challenges underscore the need for collective action. Informal settlements remain a dominant urban reality, exposing millions of residents to flooding, poor sanitation, insecure tenure and climate-related risks. These realities are compounded by significant gender disparities in housing and land ownership.
Through BCRUP, Habitat for Humanity is helping elevate these challenges from isolated local concerns to part of a coordinated continental agenda focused on resilient urban development and climate adaptation.
In Kenya, Habitat for Humanity’s partnerships with county governments have supported responses to land tenure insecurity, recurrent flooding, WASH challenges and climate-resilient housing. Initiatives such as the Building Resilient and Habitable Housing programme and insights from the Home at What Cost? survey demonstrate how housing investments can contribute to climate resilience while informing policy discussions at national and local levels.
A notable example of our engagement in BCRUP was the contribution of Habitat for Humanity Ethiopia to the Africa Development Action Network (AfDAN)/BCRUP Pilot Countries Workshop in Addis Ababa in February 2025. As a co-sponsor of the workshop, and drawing on its experience in climate-resilient housing, land tenure security and inclusive urban development. Habitat Ethiopia advocated for stronger engagement of civil society, youth, persons with disabilities and women in climate resilience planning. They further committed to supporting Ethiopia’s Ministry of Urban Development and Infrastructure as the country advances BCRUP implementation.
These collective efforts contributed to Habitat for Humanity International’s participation in a high-level dialogue during the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where governments, climate finance institutions, UN agencies and development partners came together to mobilize support for scaling BCRUP implementation.
For Habitat for Humanity in Africa, this marks an important opportunity to deepen collaboration.
As Africa’s cities continue to grow, investing in safe, resilient and inclusive housing will be essential to protecting vulnerable urban populations. By connecting community realities with regional and global policy action, Habitat for Humanity is helping demonstrate a powerful principle: resilience begins at home.
After nearly 18 months of implementation across six African countries, the WASH for Food Security programme funded by Aktion Deutschland Hilft (ADH) through Habitat for Humanity Germany is generating valuable lessons that extend beyond individual country projects.
Across six Habitat for Humanity National Offices in Africa, teams are testing different approaches to WASH, food security and climate resilience, while building a shared body of learning that can strengthen programmes across the region.
After nearly 18 months of implementation across six African countries, the WASH for Food Security programme funded by Aktion Deutschland Hilft (ADH) through Habitat for Humanity Germany is generating valuable lessons that extend beyond individual country projects.
Across six Habitat for Humanity National Offices in Africa, teams are testing different approaches to WASH, food security and climate resilience, while building a shared body of learning that can strengthen programmes across the region.
During a regional learning and knowledge dissemination workshop convened in Malawi in September by the Africa Area Office, teams from Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Lesotho, Tanzania as well as senior government officials shared experiences and explored scalable approaches for greater impact.
A field visit to Traditional Authority Masumbankunda provided a practical example. Delegates visited sites where Habitat for Humanity Malawi is implementing integrated WASH, climate-smart agriculture and food security interventions, and engaged directly with community members and local implementers. The discussions that followed offered an opportunity to look beyond individual activities and identify lessons that can be applied across the programme.
Different contexts, shared purpose
The six National Offices have not followed a single model. Instead, each has adapted the programme to local priorities, partnerships and opportunities.
In Malawi, the team partnered with LUANAR to bring irrigation to an existing water scheme. In Tanzania, 10 government-provided acres are being irrigated from a high-yield borehole. Uganda established six demonstration gardens with district government, while Kenya focused on strengthening government extension capacity and introduced Water ATMs to support accountability.
In Zambia, school gardens were linked to the national school feeding programme. In Lesotho, a solar water system was combined with school sanitation and keyhole gardens in Mafeteng.
These different approaches are part of what makes the regional programme valuable. They provide an opportunity to see how similar goals can be pursued in different settings, and to identify approaches that others can learn from or adapt.
Key takeaways
The experiences across the six countries highlighted several lessons about delivering integrated WASH, food security and climate-resilience programming in different contexts.
1. Engage communities, government and academia from the start
The programme showed the value of bringing key stakeholders into the process from the outset. Working alongside communities helps ensure interventions respond to local priorities, while partnerships with government and academic institutions can strengthen technical expertise, ownership and the potential for approaches to continue beyond the project.
The country experiences reflected this in different ways, from Malawi’s partnership with LUANAR to Uganda and Tanzania’s collaboration with government structures.
2. Connect WASH with food security and climate resilience
The programme reinforced that water access cannot be considered in isolation from how households and communities produce food and respond to climate pressures. Integrating WASH with food security and climate-resilient approaches can help address several interconnected challenges at once.
The different country interventions demonstrated how this can work in practice, from irrigation and demonstration gardens to school gardens and solar-powered water systems. Schools also emerged as useful entry points for connecting WASH, food and resilience.
3. Build on existing systems
Another clear lesson was the value of working through systems and structures that are already in place, rather than creating parallel structures. Government extension services, existing water infrastructure, school programmes and community structures can provide a foundation for new interventions while strengthening local capacity.
This approach can also support sustainability by leaving behind stronger systems and skills rather than creating parallel structures that are difficult to maintain after a project ends.
4. Make accountability part of the programme
The teams also identified accountability as an important part of effective WASH programming. Approaches such as Kenya’s Water ATMs provide mechanisms for greater transparency around water services, while the wider programme emphasized accountability in line with the Core Humanitarian Standard.
For the teams, accountability is not simply about reporting results. It is about creating ways for communities and other stakeholders to understand, influence and provide feedback on the services being delivered. This is an important part of building WASH services that are responsive, sustainable and grounded in the needs of the people they serve.
For 40 years, Habitat for Humanity Tanzania has worked alongside multiple partners including communities, government, donors, civil society and the private sector to open doors to decent housing for more families in Tanzania. On September 30, these partners came together in Dar es Salaam to celebrate four decades of impact and look ahead to the next chapter of transforming lives through housing.
The testimonies shared at the celebration highlighted the difference access to decent housing has made for families and communities.
The celebration also marked Tanzania’s local activation of Habitat for Humanity’s global Let’s Open The Door campaign, bringing more people and partners together around a shared ambition: a Tanzania where every family has access to safe and decent housing.
A decent home is more than four walls and a roof. It can provide safety, a heathier environment for children and a pathway to opportunities.
For 40 years, Habitat for Humanity Tanzania has worked alongside multiple partners including communities, government, donors, civil society and the private sector to open doors to decent housing for more families in Tanzania. On September 30, these partners came together in Dar es Salaam to celebrate four decades of impact and look ahead to the next chapter of transforming lives through housing.
The testimonies shared at the celebration highlighted the difference access to decent housing has made for families and communities.
The celebration also marked Tanzania’s local activation of Habitat for Humanity’s global Let’s Open The Door campaign, bringing more people and partners together around a shared ambition: a Tanzania where every family has access to safe and decent housing.
Four decades of opening doors
Over the past 40 years, Habitat Tanzania’s work has evolved from building homes to addressing interconnected housing needs, including improving access to clean water and sanitation, supporting the use of better building materials, promoting environmentally sustainable practices and expanding access to clean solar energy. Through these efforts, Habitat Tanzania has reached more than 1.3 million people across the country.
As Magdalena George, National Director of Habitat Tanzania, noted during the celebration, the organization’s impact reflects the power of partnership and a shared commitment to ensuring that every family has the opportunity to live in a decent home.
Partnering for impact
The anniversary offered an opportunity to recognize the many people and organizations who have contributed to this progress, while reinforcing the need to continue working together to reach more families.
Speaking at the event, Mr Grace Lubaale, UN-Habitat Representative in Tanzania, emphasized the importance of working together to accelerate impact: “We are partners working toward the same goal. Let us use our resources together and find more innovative ways to collaborate.”
He highlighted opportunities to strengthen collaboration in advancing climate-resilient housing, an important priority as communities face the effects of climate change.
The importance of collaboration was echoed by Hon. Dr. Leonard Akwilapo, Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, who reaffirmed the government’s commitment to supporting housing development, strengthening land-use planning and helping families secure land ownership an essential step towards improving housing conditions long-term stability.
Opening the door to the next chapter
The event also marked the launch of Habitat Tanzania’s five-year strategy for 2025–2029, setting the direction for its next phase of work. Through the Lets Open The Door campaign, Habitat Tanzania is bringing this ambition to life, creating a shared platform to deepen existing partnerships, invite more stakeholders to the table, encourage innovative housing approaches and mobilize the resources needed to respond to the scale of housing challenges across Tanzania. As Habitat Tanzania Board Chair Neema Ndikumwani reflected, the next chapter will require building on lessons learned, strengthening partnerships and expanding collective action so that even more communities can benefit from decent housing: “We encourage continued efforts to build on what has been achieved, learn from our experiences, strengthen partnerships, increase our efforts, and mobilize more resources so that we can reach even more communities,” Said Neema.
Join us in opening more doors
The story of Habitat Tanzania’s first 40 years is ultimately a story of what is possible when communities and partners come together around a shared vision.
We invite governments, businesses, donors, development organizations and communities to join us in opening more doors. Together, we can help ensure that every family has access to a safe and decent place to call home.
Learn more about Habitat for Humanity Tanzania: https://www.habitat.org/where-we-build/tanzania
Support Habitat Tanzania by designating your gift to Tanzania: https://www.habitat.org/donate
DOBŠINÁ/BRATISLAVA – October 2026 – Instead of taking a holiday, they are picking up work gloves, saws and paintbrushes – and dedicating a week to helping others. Nearly 20 volunteers from eight countries will travel to Dobšiná in early October to help renovate the premises of the Domček Parent Centre, which has been supporting children and families at risk of generational poverty for the past 13 years. The volunteers will come from as far away as Japan, New Zealand and Australia, as well as Denmark, Germany, Poland, Ireland and Croatia.
[BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — 5 October 2026] — A new Habitat for Humanity study finds that people around the world are cutting back on food, using savings and changing plans for the future to afford housing.
Three in four people surveyed worldwide said they had cut at least one expense to afford housing. One in three spent less on food; nearly a third used savings or emergency funds, and 31% took on extra work. Nearly half, 48%, worry that one unexpected problem could threaten their housing security.
