OCTOBER 29 — Having a decent roof over your head isn’t just about comfort, it is about survival and opportunity.
It determines whether a family loses their entire life savings when the monsoon waters inevitable rise, or whether a wage worker can live close enough to their job to avoid spending hours in traffic each day.
Malaysia has understood the task and over the past few decades, the country has made remarkable progress in expanding access to housing, most recently pushing past national targets by delivering more than 511,000 affordable housing units under the Twelfth Malaysia Plan.
Large-scale public housing programmes, urban upgrading efforts and investments in infrastructure have helped improve living conditions for many communities.
Yet new challenges continue to emerge such as rapid urbanisation, with the national urban population now exceeding 75 per cent, changing demographics, rising living costs and climate-related risks are reshaping what Malaysians need from housing today.
As we celebrate this Urban October under the theme “Adequate Housing for All”, the question is no longer simply whether a family has a roof over their heads.
The more important question is whether that home is safe, affordable, resilient, well-connected and able to support a decent quality of life.
For Malaysia, as for the world, ensuring adequate housing is central to building inclusive, resilient and sustainable cities.
Globally an estimated 2.8 billion people face some form of housing inadequacy, and close to 1.1 billion live in slums and informal settlements.
As climate change intensifies, the need for resilient housing, risk-informed planning and safer urban development becomes increasingly important.
Malaysia is increasingly integrating climate resilience into housing and urban development policies through nature-based solutions, resilient infrastructure and risk-informed planning approaches that seek to protect vulnerable communities while improving urban liveability.
Recognising these challenges, the country recently launched the National Housing Policy 2026-2035, which emphasises housing affordability, a more responsive relationship between housing supply and local demand, stronger housing data systems, integration of housing and transport planning, and the development of a more formal and regulated rental ecosystem.
The policy reflects an important shift: adequate housing is being recognised not only as a matter of construction, but also as a matter of urban liveability, inclusion and long-term resilience.
A decade after world leaders adopted the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the verdict is clear global progress if falling far behind schedule, Member States recommitted to these goals through 2036.
Malaysia’s evolving housing agenda positions the country to lead by example to the NUA commitments.
Having hosted the Ninth World Urban Forum (WUF9) and taking on the Presidency of the UN-Habitat Assembly for 2025–2027, Malaysia is no longer following international frameworks, is actively shaping them.
Global goals only matter if they make a difference on your street.
That is where UN-Habitat and URBANICE Malaysia focus their work, helping cities and states turn big international commitments into practical local plans.
One way they do this is through Voluntary Local Reviews and Voluntary Subnational Reviews.
These are health checks that cities and states carry out on themselves.
They measure how well they are doing on the Sustainable Development Goals, the targets the world has agreed on for ending poverty, protecting the planet and improving lives.
With UN-Habitat’s support, Malaysian local authorities have used these reviews to see where they stand, plan with real evidence and bring more voices into decision-making.
URBANICE Malaysia also helps cities learn from one another.
Through the Malaysia Urban Innovation Hub, public forums and hands-on support for local councils, it connects people who are solving similar problems in different places, so a good idea in one town can take root in another.
All of this comes back to a simple point: a home doesn’t stand alone.
It needs a bus stop nearby, clean water, a safe park, jobs within reach and protection from floods, and some of the best ideas come from residents themselves.
At Malaysia Urban Forum 2026, held under the theme “The Future City I Want to Call Home”, community members, young people and researchers shared practical ideas for better places to live.
The Ministry of Local Government Development (KPKT) is now funding three community-led pilot projects to put some of those ideas into action.
It is a reminder that people who live in a place usually know best what it needs.
Urban October invites us to remember that adequate housing is about people, opportunity and dignity.
When every Malaysian has a home that is safe, affordable and connected, we build stronger communities and a future we can all call home.
* Srinivasa Popuri is the Chief of the UN-Habitat Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
