With October 5 being recognized as World Habitat Day, and under the United Nations theme "Adequate Housing for All," Bangladesh must face its inescapable urban crisis.
In a rapidly urbanizing nation where millions of people reside in informal settlements in our major cities, the right to adequate shelter remains a distant promise for a vast segment of our population.
Housing is not merely a roof overhead but encompasses basic sanitation, clean drinking water, and safety. For millions of low-income families, the absence of these basic conditions represents a daily struggle for human dignity.
Our urban planning apparatus has long suffered from a deep structural imbalance. While high-end residential real estate and luxury high-rises dominate development plans, affordable housing for the working poor receives little more than token budgetary allocations.
This disparity is compounded by sprawling slum settlements prone to frequent fires and severe vulnerability to seasonal natural disasters. Given the impact of climate change, flooding and erosion displace rural households daily and our major cities are forced to absorb thousands of new arrivals without the infrastructure to house them safely.
Addressing this deficit therefore will require moving past ad-hoc interventions. The state must treat housing as a fundamental social right and a public good.
Delivering "adequate housing for all" demands integrated and planned urban development -- including low-cost public housing projects, long-term rental assistance, slum-upgrading initiatives, and decentralized urban planning to ease pressure on the capital and other major cities.
Urban sustainability cannot be achieved while millions remain functionally unhoused or trapped in hazardous living environments. We need the authorities concerned to enact inclusive housing policies that prioritize marginalized populations.
Ensuring safe, dignified, and climate-resilient shelter for every citizen is not an impossible ideal but a prerequisite for a stable, equitable, and humane nation.