Dear Sir/Madam, Please find below the first issue of the Urban Observer - 2003. ============================================== T H E U R B A N O B S E R V E R ============================================== January 2003 Edition The Global Urban Observatory's Newsletter Apologies for cross-postings ============================================== IN THIS ISSUE ============================================== - New GUO Net homepage - Expert Group Meeting on Urban Indicators - New Members - New Urban Indicators Report from Bourgas, Bulgaria - Webshots: Lebanon Urban Observatories ============================================== New GUO Net homepage ============================================== The GUO network has now a homepage of its own. It is located at www.unhabitat.org/guonet . The GUO team at UN-HABITAT has restructured the webpage to suit the needs of the network members better. Several new features have been added. Regional lists of the network members, both Local and National Urban Observatories, are accessible through a clickable map. Try www.unhabitat.org/guonet/members.asp . The current and previous issues of the Urban Observer Newsletter can be found at www.unhabitat.org/guonet/uonews.asp . We are anxious to learn what you think about it. Please, write your comments to martin.raithelhuber@unhabitat.org. ============================================== Expert Group Meeting on Urban Indicators ============================================== UN-HABITAT in collaboration with the United Nations Statistic Division and the Cities Alliance organized an Expert Group Meeting on "Urban Indicators: Secure Tenure, Slums and Global Sample of Cities," held from 28 - 30 October 2002, at UN-HABITAT's headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. The participants of the meeting developed indicators for the "Cities without Slums Goal" or "Target 11" of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). For additional information, please, visit www.unhabitat.org/mdg. The experts formulated an operational definition for security of tenure and for slums. They produced a series of sub-indicators for the purposes of measuring security of tenure and slums as defined, and establishing composite indices and "meta-indicators". In addition, the experts recommended ways the United Nations report on progress achieved on the Cities without Slums target by specifying a global sample of cities and related methods of data collection and analysis. Through this process, the EGM adopted five indicators to measure "improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020", as specified in MDG Target 11. These are: - Proportion of urban population with sustainable access to an improved water source - Proportion of urban population with access to improved sanitation - Proportion of urban population with secure tenure - Proportion of urban population with durable housing units - Proportion of urban population with adequate living space UN-HABITAT agreed in future to modify these indicators and to refine the definitions of secure tenure and slums through consultations with EGM participants and their related networks of monitoring professionals. The role of the Global Urban Observatory is to advance monitoring of MDG targets, and to strengthen the capacity of national statistical and monitoring institutions. Towards this end, UN-HABITAT has subsequent to the EGM, produced a set of guidelines for operational definitions for household surveys and censuses on secure tenure and slums. Municipalities or research organizations, who are planning to perform household surveys on issues related to urban development, such as slums, intra-city differentials, can contact the Global Urban Observatory team at guo@unhabitat.org . ============================================== New members ============================================== The GUO network welcomes Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) as its newest member! KMDA was established in 1970, and comprises of over 40 municipalities. KMDA employs nearly 500 engineers, around 100 planners including social scientists such as economist, demographer-statisticians, economic geographers, but also soil scientists, geophysicist. Its main activities are to develop Land Use and Development Control Plans (spatial plans for land use and development), a Perspective Plan for the metropolis of Kolkata, and a Development Plan/Master Plan covering the different sectors of urban infrastructure and services. KMDA has a monitoring and management system in place since long time. This system had been developed and improved in course of implementing the Calcutta Urban Development Programmes (CUDPs) assisted by the World Bank. ============================================== New urban indicators reports from Bourgas/Bulgaria ============================================== The GUO Network member, the Municipality of Bourgas/Bulgaria, has published their latest urban indicators report with the title "Urban Indicators for Sustainable Development", in July 2002. The report covers the Istanbul +5 indicators and a short economic and historic overview. The report is available in electronic format through the Greener Bourgas Foundation (email: greenbs@unacs.bg). ============================================== Webshots: Lebanon Urban Observatories ============================================== Urban Observatories in Lebanon go online. You can find the GUO network members Aley Municipality and Chhime Municipality at www.aley.net/En www.chhime.com/ respectively. ============================================== New recipient to the Urban Observer? ============================================== This issue has been sent to a number of new recipients, including all persons or institutions that have shown interest in the Global Urban Observatory, recently or in the past, and are on email. If you feel that the Urban Observer should be sent to an email address different from the one we are using now, or you want a friend or colleague to receive the Urban Observer, please, let us know. ============================================== OUR CONTACTS ============================================== Global Urban Observatory Urban Secretariat, UN-HABITAT P.O. Box 30030 - Nairobi 00100 - Kenya Tel: 254-2-623119 Fax: 254-2-623080 Website: www.unhabitat.org/guonet Email: guo@unhabitat.org