The World Habitat Awards are presented each year at the global celebration of World Habitat Day. This is organised each year on the first Monday of October by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), providing a unique opportunity to focus attention on the importance of shelter in people's lives.
Two awards are given annually to projects from the global North as well as the South that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems.
The World Habitat Awards were established in 1985 by the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF) to identify and promote examples of good housing practice. They were initiated as part of BSHF’s contribution to the United Nations International Year of Shelter for the Homeless in 1987. The concept of identifying good practice was virtually unknown in 1985 and the Awards were originally intended to run for only three years. Since there was such a positive response however, BSHF decided to carry on running the competition and more than twenty years later, the World Habitat Awards continue to go from strength to strength.
Over the years a wide range of excellent housing projects have been identified in countries of both the North and the Global South. These projects address a wide range of housing needs and come in all shapes and sizes. From the very beginning the emphasis has been not just on identifying the good examples of housing practice, but also on sharing this knowledge and experience with others who can use it in their own situations. The first international study visit to a World Habitat Award winning programme took place in 1987 and these annual visits have continued ever since.
The very first awards were presented in 1986 in London by HRH the Prince of Wales and Dr Arcot Ramachandran, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.
The Previous World Habitat Award winners and finalists and international study visits to winning projects can be found on the World Habitat Awards website.
Every year an award of £10,000 is presented to each of the two winners at the annual United Nations global celebration of World Habitat Day. Travel and accommodation costs are also met for one representative of each winning project to attend the awards ceremony.
To date, these ceremonies have been held in Angola (2008), Mexico and the Netherlands (2007), Italy and Russia (2006), Indonesia (2005), Kenya (2004), Brazil (2003 and 1995), Belgium (2002), Japan (2001), Jamaica (2000), People's Republic of China (1999), Dubai (1998), Germany (1997), Hungary (1996), Senegal (1994), and the USA (2009, 1993 and 1992).
For further information on the World Habitat Awards please follow the following link: http://www.worldhabitatawards.org/
