UN Authority Figures

UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT)
Governing Council: Zimbabwe


Zimbabwe police are leaving many people without shelter in the middle of winter after Harare city council said it will demolish homes in so-called "undesignated areas". Source: The Telegraph, July 23, 2015

Mission of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT): "Habitat's mandate was strengthened and its status elevated to a fully-fledged programme in the UN system, giving birth to UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.... It is through this structure and mandate that UN-Habitat contributes to the overall objective of the United Nations system to reduce poverty and to promote sustainable development. " (UN-HABITAT website, "Our Mission")
"UN-HABITAT's Land and Tenure Section ... helps governments, local authorities and civil society partners around the world develop land management and tenure systems, policies and legislation that help achieve adequate shelter, security of tenure and equal access to economic resources for all, with a specific focus on gender equality. The main focus areas and mandate are: Implementation of land, housing and property rights, particularly women's secure tenure, affordable land management systems and pro-poor flexible types of tenure. " (UN-HABITAT website, "Land, Tenure & Property Administration")

Zimbabwe's Term of office: 2019-2022

Zimbabwe's Record on Sustainable Human Settlements:
"The constitution stipulates the government must compensate persons for improvements made on land subsequently taken by the government but does not set a timeline for the delivery of compensation. The government rarely provided restitution or compensation for the taking of private property, and police did not take action against individuals who seized private property without having secured sanction from the state to do so... As of year's end, authorities relocated more than 1,400 families, dozens of whom did not obtain houses... Most of the relocated families did not receive any compensation, while the government classified them as "people with no recognizable legal rights or claim to the land that they are occupying," citing their former land as now state land, despite customary and traditional rights to the contrary. Authorities moved some relocated households to lands inappropriate for construction, including wetlands, resulting in damaged homes or unlivable conditions. The relocated households also faced numerous challenges, including lack of access to water, arable land, and employment opportunities as well as shoddily constructed and unsafe houses and loss of livelihoods. As of year's end, the government did not complete appraisal of the land and property lost by each family for the purpose of property restitution. An estimated 2,910 families ... remained in limbo without a timeframe or destination for their impending relocation... The government prohibited residents from engaging in agriculture or other economic activities around the mining concessions. The government also failed to give land or homes to persons with rural households who worked in urban areas (a common practice in the country), accusing those persons of encroaching in the mining areas, notwithstanding acknowledgement by traditional leaders that such persons were based in the disputed areas for generations. Displaced families do not have security of tenure. The government also failed to compensate most of the IDPs relocated forcefully."
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2014, Zimbabwe)