South Africa and the United Nations will host the Habitat III Thematic conference on Informal Settlements from 7 to 8 April 2016 in Pretoria at CSIR Convention Centre in Pretoria under the theme - From slums to integrated safe, resilient and suitable human settlement.

Habitat III is the major United Nations Conference on housing and urbanization in the last 20 years. Habitat I took place in 1976, Habitat II in 1996. Habitat III will take place in Ecuador in October 2016. Habitat III is expected to generate a 'New Urban Agenda' for the 21st century. Habitat III will secure a renewed global commitment to addressing housing and sustainable urbanization through the adoption of a forward-looking, action oriented outcome document.

The thematic conference on informal settlements is in preparation for Habitat III and will explore approaches and strategies in the inter-related areas of tenure security and housing, livelihoods, safety, and governance. For this purpose, lessons learned, challenges, pro-poor solutions, and partnership mechanisms will be shared.

About 500 delegates from governments and civil society across the globe are expected to come up with an agreed framework and global action plan to inform the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III in Ecuador.

The conference will be preceded by an Urban Journalism Academy on the 6 April 2016. The Urban Journalism Academy is a pioneering and innovative initiative to engage journalists and media professionals who are already interested or involved in urban development with reference to social, economic and economic issues facing cities in the 21st Century.