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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →UN-Habitat presented its 2026 Scroll of Honour to five recipients at the global observance of World Habitat Day in Muscat, Oman, on 5 October 2026. Their work spans bamboo construction, lower-cement building blocks, Indigenous-led village development, housing finance and city policy. Together, the profiles show how adequate housing depends not only on building methods, but also on land, services and access to funding.
Who received the 2026 UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour?
The five recipients are Housing NOW in Myanmar, Abdelmalek Ghannem and his company SOIB in Tunisia, Aldeia do Espraiado – Tekoa Ara Hovy in Brazil, the Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency in Pakistan, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan in the United Kingdom. UN-Habitat says the awardees were selected from 101 nominations across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
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Launched in 1989, the Scroll of Honour recognizes individuals and institutions whose work advances adequate housing, sustainable urbanization and better urban life, in line with the New Urban Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2026 guide says eligible nominees may include individuals, organizations, programs, institutes and initiatives with significant societal impact; nominations must come from a third party, not the nominee. UN-Habitat’s 2026 announcement and award guide provide the award and selection details.
What are the five approaches to adequate housing?
Housing NOW: bamboo homes for communities facing crisis
Based in Bago, Myanmar, Housing NOW builds low-cost bamboo homes for families affected by conflict, displacement, disasters and poverty. UN-Habitat describes a system in which thin bamboo stems are bundled into frames using a portable guide; assembling a house on site takes about a week, according to the announcement.
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The same design has been used for homes, classrooms, a preschool, an orphanage and a community centre. Housing NOW also helped families rebuild after Myanmar’s 2025 earthquake. At least half of its paid workers usually come from the communities it serves, and its illustrated Burmese building guide is intended to help local carpenters build stronger homes. The approach links a locally available material and a repeatable building method with skills and employment in affected communities.
SOIB: blocks made with local earth and quarry and mining leftovers
Abdelmalek Ghannem founded Société Industrielle de Blocs (SOIB) in Bizerte, Tunisia, in 2009. The company makes blocks from local earth and leftover quarry and mining materials, designed to use less cement than conventional masonry. UN-Habitat says the blocks interlock and need little mortar, while the resulting walls can help keep homes cooler in hot weather.
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UN-Habitat reports that SOIB had completed more than 100 building projects across Tunisia and trained local architects, engineers and builders. A first franchise on Djerba is testing expansion of the approach. These are reported outputs; the award announcement does not provide a comparative life-cycle assessment or measured energy savings.
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Tekoa Ara Hovy: a village established with Guarani Mbyá families
Aldeia do Espraiado – Tekoa Ara Hovy in Maricá, Brazil, is described by UN-Habitat as the first Indigenous village established by a Brazilian municipality. Thirteen Guarani Mbyá families live there. The municipality worked with families to establish the village, while residents chose the site and families helped design homes built using traditional methods. The community moved in during early 2025.
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The village’s listed facilities include bilingual education, well water, shared solar lighting, a cultural centre, a community kitchen and a health post with a traditional-medicine room. The approach treats housing as part of a broader set of community priorities: land, services and cultural practices are considered alongside the homes themselves.
Punjab’s Apni Chhat Apna Ghar: staged, interest-free construction loans
The Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency runs the Government of Punjab’s Apni Chhat Apna Ghar program. As described by UN-Habitat, eligible low-income families who own a small plot can apply online for interest-free loans to build homes. The Bank of Punjab and partner microfinance institutions release funds in stages as construction progresses.
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The program aims to reach women-headed households, informal workers and others often excluded from formal housing finance. Its model addresses a different barrier from the construction initiatives: families may have land but still lack access to financing that lets them build.
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London: housing supply, affordability and planning policy
UN-Habitat credits Mayor Sadiq Khan’s leadership on affordable and sustainable housing and inclusive, climate-resilient urban development. Its announcement points to support for council housing construction; a Key Worker Living Rent tenure with rents based on workers’ incomes; planning policy intended to increase affordable housing in large developments; and higher standards for energy use, living space and building safety. It also says residents vote on plans before large social housing estates are rebuilt.
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This is an award profile of policy measures, not an independent evaluation of their outcomes. The announcement does not establish how many additional homes, affordability gains or emissions reductions resulted from these measures.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How do the five approaches differ?
| Recipient | Primary barrier addressed | Mechanism described by UN-Habitat | Scale or intended community |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing NOW, Myanmar | Housing disruption linked to conflict, displacement, disasters and poverty | Low-cost bamboo construction, local worker participation and a building guide | Families and community facilities in affected communities |
| Abdelmalek Ghannem / SOIB, Tunisia | Material cost and construction’s environmental footprint | Interlocking blocks made with local earth and quarry and mining leftovers, designed to use less cement | Building projects and trained construction professionals; a franchise is testing expansion |
| Aldeia do Espraiado – Tekoa Ara Hovy, Brazil | Secure housing, land and services for an Indigenous community | Municipal collaboration with families on site selection, traditional homes and village facilities | Thirteen Guarani Mbyá families |
| Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency, Pakistan | Limited access to formal construction finance | Online applications for interest-free loans, disbursed in stages during construction | Eligible low-income families who own a small plot, with attention to groups often excluded from formal finance |
| Mayor Sadiq Khan, United Kingdom | Urban affordability and housing supply, alongside sustainability and inclusion | Council housing support, income-based rent, planning policy and standards | London renters, key workers and social housing residents |
The table summarizes the approaches as UN-Habitat presents them; it is not a ranking. Their mechanisms are too different—and the announcement does not provide comparable outcome measures—to establish which has had the greatest impact.
Why does the award matter amid the housing shortage?
UN-Habitat’s announcement cites its World Cities Report 2026 estimate that up to 3.4 billion people lack adequate housing. It also reports that more than 1.1 billion people live in informal settlements and slums, a figure attributed to UN-Habitat and UN system partners’ SDG 11 Global Report 2026, representing growth of more than 130 million since 2015.
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Those estimates help explain why the award highlights more than one route to housing. In some places the central challenge is rebuilding quickly with local materials; elsewhere, it is lowering material burdens, establishing land and services with a community, financing construction, or changing city-level housing policy. An award announcement can identify these varied models, but it does not by itself show that they deliver equivalent or independently verified long-term results.
UN-Habitat Executive Director Anacláudia Rossbach said: “This year’s winners prove that the global housing crisis is not beyond our reach – whether they are expanding affordable homes in major cities, turning waste into building materials or giving displaced and Indigenous communities a secure place to live, each of them puts people and their right to a home at the centre of urban development.”
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