A/HRC/28/62 the right to adequate housing. Forced evictions and discriminatory exclusion from housing often result from decisions or policies adopted at the local or subnational levels. Moreover, local governments have increasingly critical responsibilities with respect to positive measures required for the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing, including infrastructure development, land-use planning, upgrading of informal settlements, development and administration of housing and social programmes, market regulation and resource allocation. 7. Important advances are being made in relation to human rights and the right to adequate housing at the local level. Civil society movements to promote and enforce the right to adequate housing are emerging in response to issues of local dimension, where communities are denied adequate housing and seek to build more inclusive cities and municipalities. Those movements can enrich international human rights and at the same time, international human rights standards and principles can strengthen and support the movements as well as community struggles for adequate housing and create the opportunity for enhanced local-international linkages. 8. The present report into local and other subnational levels of governments in relation to the right to adequate housing is intended as a first step toward a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities arising at that level. The Special Rapporteur hopes to continue the ongoing dialogue with States, civil society, human rights institutions and other actors over the course of her mandate to consider how, in the context of prevailing trends and diverse domestic systems, all levels of government can be fully engaged in the realization of the right to adequate housing. II. International human rights framework 9. The international human rights obligations of a State extend to all levels of government and to any exercise of governmental authority. “All branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial), and other public or governmental authorities, at whatever level — national, regional or local — are in a position to engage the responsibility of the State Party”.4 That finds expression, in the context of federal States, in article 28 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and article 50 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which affirm: “The provisions of the present Covenant shall extend to all parts of federal States without any limitations or exceptions”. 10. The internal allocation of responsibilities for implementing the right to adequate housing is a matter for State parties to determine, but the allocation must be consistent with the obligation to ensure compliance with international human rights obligations. 5 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has indicated that “all administrative authorities will take account of the requirements of the Covenant in their decisionmaking”.6 Hence, the wide range of housing policy and programme decisions often made at the local level, including budgeting, planning, zoning, allocation of benefits and publically funded housing units, the provision or regulation of basic services, rent subsidies, and any other decisions related to access to adequate housing, must comply with relevant, applicable human rights norms. In most cases a national housing strategy is required among 4 5 6 4 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, para. 4. Ibid., para. 4. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 9 (1998) on the domestic application of the Covenant, para. 9.