A/HRC/34/51 rules under which they operate and their actions are consistent with the realization of the right to adequate housing. States are obliged under international human rights to ensure that private investors respond to the needs of residents for secure, affordable housing and do not cater only to the wealthy or purchase homes simply to leave them empty. 16. State compliance with the right to adequate housing must ultimately be assessed in relation to the circumstances of rights-holders. A human rights framework for addressing the financialization of housing must challenge the way in which accountability to the needs of communities and the human rights obligations of Governments has been replaced with accountability to markets and investors. Mechanisms must be established for rights-holders to be fully heard and engaged in decisions that affect them. States must ensure that financial institutions and investors are responsive to the needs of marginalized communities, behave in a manner that is consistent with the full realization of the right to adequate housing and provide complaints procedures and access to effective remedies. 11 17. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has suggested that the obligation to fulfil incorporates both an obligation to facilitate and an obligation to provide.12 In the context of the critical relationship between housing and financial markets, the articulation of a State’s fulfilment obligation to not only provide housing when needed but also to facilitate the implementation of the right to housing is helpful in capturing the wide range of States’ obligations to ensure that financial markets and the actions of private investors work towards the realization of the right to adequate housing. 18. In addition to the more obvious requirements, within the framework of human rights, to ensure that housing developers exercise due diligence, comply with safety standards and adopt policies of non-discrimination, for example, States may also be required to ensure that investment in housing complies with a rights-based housing strategy and with the target of ensuring adequate housing for all by 2030. Private actors may be required to take particular steps to ensure access to credit for disadvantaged households and to address the needs of residents of informal settlements, women, migrants and people with disabilities. The obligation of States to facilitate the realization of the right to housing by establishing a coherent strategy at both the national and international levels with clearly allocated roles and responsibilities is central to the commitments made by States in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda. III. Human rights implications of the financialization of housing A. Historical origins of the financialization of housing 19. The financialization of housing has its origins in neo-liberalism, the deregulation of housing markets, and structural adjustment programmes imposed by financial institutions and agreed to by States. It is also tied to the internationalization of trade and investment agreements which, as discussed below, make States’ housing policies accountable to investors rather than to human rights. The financialization of housing is also the result of significant changes in the way credit was provided for housing and more specifically, of the advent of “mortgage-backed securities”. 11 12 6 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, communication No. 2/2014, I.D.G. v. Spain, Views adopted on 17 June 2015, and general comment No. 9 (1998) on the domestic application of the Covenant. See also Balakrishnan, Heintz and Elson, Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice, pp. 96-97. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comments No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food, para. 15, and No. 13 (1999) on the right to education, para. 46.