Roundtables - The Rights of Persons with Disabilities…

What will it take to move from accessibility to truly inclusive housing for all?

As global urbanization accelerates, cities built without universal design create persistent barriers for nearly 16% of the world's population, leading to systemic exclusion and costly retrofitting. While the CRPD and the New Urban Agenda mandate inclusion, an implementation gap leaves persons with disabilities disproportionately vulnerable to housing insecurity and climate-related emergencies. Aligned with the UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2026-2029, the WUF13 Roundtable, "Beyond Accessibility: Realizing the Right to Adequate Housing for All," aims to bridge this gap by shifting from reactive accommodation to universal design. By convening stakeholders to explore shock-responsive social protection, inclusive financing, and community-led innovation, the session will translate global commitments into local action, ensuring that urban recovery and development prioritize the rights, safety, and dignity of all residents.
The session will convene organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), governments, and UN entities, alongside urban professionals, academia, and other development partners, to explore how inclusive design, innovation, and finance can deliver accessible and affordable housing, foster resilience in informal settlements, and systematize inclusive infrastructure solutions.
The Roundtable will showcase emerging practices and partnerships that demonstrate how universal design and disability inclusion benefit all urban residents, enhancing safety, mobility, and quality of life. It will also identify policy and financing models to advance accessibility through cross-sector collaboration. Taking place alongside the New Urban Agenda mid-term review and the assessment of SDG 11, the roundtable will contribute actionable insights to the Baku Call to Action, reaffirming that inclusive and accessible cities are central to the global pursuit of adequate housing for all.
In alignment with all WUF13 stakeholder-led sessions, this roundtable is co-designed by persons with disabilities, OPDs, and stakeholders working to advance their protection and rights, ensuring that representation and diversity are central to the participatory process.

Guiding questions

1. Beyond physical accessibility, what specific regulatory reforms and financing tools are needed to guarantee adequate housing for persons with disabilities in complex urban environments?
2. How can we restructure relationships among developers, investors, and OPDs to bridge the financing gap and scale innovations that deliver affordable, accessible and inclusive housing, infrastructure and services?
3. What governance structures can ensure that OPDs move from consultative roles to positions of leadership and co-design in sustainable urban development, ensuring WUF13 commitments lead to long-term local accountability?

Expected outcomes

1. Evidence-based recommendations to bridge gaps between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) mandates and local building codes.
2. Good practices and community-led case studies on disability-inclusive housing and basic services.
3. Actionable insights on using urban indicators to track disability inclusion in urban environments.

1. Identify critical gaps in municipal-level inclusive design policies and develop strategies to integrate mandatory universal design standards, secure tenure, and anti-discrimination protections into the delivery of housing and basic services for all.
2. Showcase scalable, community-led and multi-stakeholder solutions that successfully provide safe and inclusive housing and basic services for persons with disabilities in complex environments such as informal settlements and post-disaster areas.
3. Explore available, affordable building technologies and financing models that reduce the cost of safe, accessible, and resilient homes while supporting assistive mobility needs.
4. Highlight financial and social protection measures that link climate-related urban recovery to disability-inclusive infrastructure and essential services.
5. Promote the use of disability-disaggregated data to align urban monitoring with CRPD and SDG reporting.