The 13th Session of the World Urban Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan felt like one of those moments when new possibilities were opening up.
Over the course of WUF13, more than 53,000 participants from 176 countries gathered under the theme “Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities.” Heads of state, governments, mayors, researchers, grassroots organizers, faith leaders, activists, architects, financial institutions, businesses, NGOs, and community practitioners came together around a growing global realization: housing is not merely about buildings. It is about dignity, belonging, resilience, justice, and the future of human community itself.
And before anything else, I simply want to say: thank you to Baku.
Thank you to the people of Azerbaijan. Thank you to the organizers, staff, volunteers, translators, security teams, transportation workers, hospitality workers, and countless unseen hands who made this gathering possible. Even after unprecedented rainfall and operational disruptions at the venue in the opening days, the city responded with resilience, hospitality, adaptability, and generosity.
Baku became more than a host city. For one week, it became a living crossroads of the world.
Housing Is Not a Commodity Alone
Again and again throughout WUF13, one truth kept surfacing: housing cannot be reduced to a market transaction or technical problem.
The newly released World Cities Report 2026 warned that more than three billion people globally live with inadequate housing, unaffordable costs, displacement, informality, or lack of access to basic services. Yet the conversations at WUF13 refused to stop at statistics.
Participants spoke of homes as the place where children are nurtured, elders are honored, neighbors become community, and human beings discover safety, identity, and possibility.
We heard over and over that housing is where opportunity begins — or where it is denied.
This is why the conversations continually moved beyond construction toward deeper questions of land, climate resilience, transportation, water, public health, ecology, governance, social cohesion, and belonging.
Because building houses without cultivating flourishing communities simply reproduces fragmentation with better architecture.
The Faith Pavilion: A Different Kind of Presence
Within this larger global gathering, the Faith Pavilion emerged as a remarkable space of encounter.
Hosted by Faith for Cities – a global multifaith urban initiative – the Pavilion convened religious leaders, urban practitioners, academics, activists, and policymakers from across traditions around a shared conviction: faith communities have a vital role to play in shaping more just, compassionate, resilient, and sustainable cities.
And much of that possibility exists because of the tireless leadership of Chris Elisara, Faith for Cities Director.
Chris has spent years cultivating relationships across sectors, traditions, and institutions — helping people who rarely sit at the same table discover shared commitments to human flourishing. What unfolded at the Faith Pavilion did not happen accidentally. It was the fruit of long faithfulness, deep collaboration, and courageous imagination.
One of the major outcomes of the Pavilion was the release of the Multi-Faith Call to Action on Housing, a global statement affirming that housing is not simply a technical or economic issue, but a moral and spiritual imperative tied to the sacred dignity of every person.
The statement called for partnerships across faith communities, governments, civil society, and the private sector to advance affordable housing, climate resilience, community-led development, relational infrastructure, and human-scale placemaking.
In a world increasingly shaped by fear, polarization, extraction, and fragmentation, the Faith Pavilion embodied another possibility: cooperation without erasure, conviction without domination, and shared action rooted in human dignity.
Trust as Urban Infrastructure
Among the many compelling ideas I encountered during the week came through Jacob Bloomberg’s work around the T.R.U.S.T. framework.
At a moment when institutions around the world are fraying, democratic confidence is eroding, and social fragmentation continues to accelerate, Jacob helped surface something both ancient and urgently contemporary: cities cannot flourish without trust. I’ll see if I can get permission to share his presentation in a future blog post.
Trust. Relational trust. Civic trust. Institutional trust. Neighborly trust. The kind of trust that allows communities to collaborate across difference, endure uncertainty, and imagine shared futures together.
In many ways, trust may be one of the most overlooked forms of urban infrastructure in the modern world.
There were many presentations throughout the week that stirred my imagination, but I was especially grateful for the work and witness of Grace Dryness. Her presentation carried both intellectual depth and human tenderness — refusing simplistic solutions while still insisting that another future is possible.
I was also deeply moved by Michael Crane’s work engaging the prophetic imagination of Isaiah. Isaiah reminds us that cities can become places of exploitation, exclusion, violence, and spiritual numbness. But the prophetic tradition also refuses despair. Again and again, the prophets imagine deserts blooming, streets filled with children, ruins rebuilt, and communities restored.
Not through domination. Not through empire. But through justice, mercy, humility, repair, and peace.
That prophetic edge mattered at WUF13. And so much more. Because it is entirely possible for global gatherings like this to become performative exercises in institutional language while the world burns and people remain unhoused.
And yet, at its best, WUF13 pushed beyond rhetoric toward implementation, collaboration, and moral urgency.
And on a more personal note: after hearing about him for years, it was a gift to finally meet Tim Svoboda in person. Some people arrive in a room carrying the quiet gravity of long faithfulness. Tim felt like that.
Our conversations reminded me again that sustainable change is rarely built through charisma alone. It is built through relationships, patient collaboration, integrity, humility, and years of showing up.
Beyond the Forum
As WUF13 comes to a close, I leave Baku with both gratitude and ache. Gratitude for the people, conversations, partnerships, and imagination that emerged here. Ache because the scale of the global housing crisis remains staggering.
Billions still live without adequate housing. Entire communities remain vulnerable to displacement, climate disruption, war, extraction, and abandonment. Too many cities continue to prioritize profit over people.
But I also leave convinced that another urban future is still possible.
A future where housing is understood not merely as shelter, but as the foundation for human flourishing. A future where faith communities help cultivate relational, ecological, and moral imagination. A future where cities are designed not simply for economic growth, but for belonging. A future where we rediscover that the measure of a city is not the wealth of its skyline, but the well-being of its people.
I also leave excited to continue collaborating with my international multifaith colleagues of Faith for Cities. In two years Mexico City will host UN-Habitat’s 14th convening of the World Urban Forum, and where lovers of the city will engage the updated “New Urban Agenda” and may even get updates on the updates and revisions to the SDGs.
Thank you, Baku.
Thank you, WUF13.
Thank you, UN-Habitat.
Thank you, Faith for Cities.
May what began here continue to grow.
Peace, dwight
