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The slow motion tsunami: urban poverty
Nairobi, 5 April 2005 – The United States on Tuesday
reaffirmed its support for UN-HABITAT when the Governing Council met in
plenary on the second day of a five-day conference to devise a work programme
aimed stopping what has been called a “slow-motion” Tsunami
wave of growing urban poverty around the world.
In a keynote address, Mrs. Shannon H. Sorzano, Head of the United States
Delegation, said UN-HABITAT challenged governments to recognize the importance
of sustainable human settlements as part of the overall health of nations.
While the world’s urban population is expected to grow by 2 billion
by the year 2030, she said much of this growth would be seen in the developing
world – already facing the challenges that rapid urbanization and
ill-prepared institutions yield.
“In working with UN-HABITAT over the last biennium, we have appreciated
its contributions to international, national and local dialogues on sustainable
human settlements,” she said. “We saw the efficacy of the
UN-HABITAT model in Barcelona when the Second World Urban Forum assembled
a large, diverse and experienced set of public and private practitioners
to exchange ideas, challenge conventional wisdom, and work toward keeping
promises that are a generation old.”
Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director, warned the
government ministers and representatives of the 58 countries on the Governing
Council that Target 11 of Millennium Development Goal 7 - improving the
living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020
– was not ambitious enough and had to be revised upwards. This quest
would be a priority high on the agenda of the meeting which will last
until Friday. She likened the rising urban poverty in the world to a slow-motion
Tsunami.
“The United Nations,” Mrs. Tibaijuka said, “has to
become an institution that responds to the slow-motion Tsunamis of the
developing world.”
The Governing Council of UN-HABITAT meets every two years in a high-level
forum of governments at the ministerial level to set UN-HABITAT’s
policy guidelines and budget. This year, they are discussing two special
themes on involving civil society in the improvement of local governance,
and assessment and reconstruction in post-conflict and natural and man-made
disasters.
Mrs. Sorzano said Washington was impressed with UN-HABITAT’s role
in joining the African Union to convene the first African Ministerial
Conference on Housing and Urban Development where housing delivery and
associated water and sanitation provision were prioritized on the African
development agenda.
But she added: “Because the challenges of urban governance and
poverty are complex, UN-HABITAT is pulled in many directions. It will
need to remain focused on its core mission and find the proper balance
between its normative and operational activities. It particular, UN-HABITAT
needs to carry forward its global campaigns on urban governance and secure
tenure.”
Ultimately, she said, national and local authorities, civil society and
private sector were responsible for meeting the multiple challenges of
urban development: “UN-HABITAT can assist, but cannot substitute
for them. The United States values our partnership with UN-HABITAT. Through
our development assistance agency, USAID, we have supported UN-HABITAT’s
central normative role in collecting and managing data on urban indicators,
which we ourselves use.”
Representatives of a number of other countries, including Kenya, Nigeria
and Uganda, agreed that the thirteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD-13) scheduled to take place at the United Nations Headquarters
in New York, from 11 to 22 April 2005, would provide an important opportunity
for UN-HABITAT to showcase its expertise in best practices and policy
options, as well as help it identify and advance practical measures and
mechanisms that deliver results.
Norway, a major donor country, said the challenges of urbanization still
remained “unseen and neglected” on the international development
cooperation agenda.
Norwegian State Secretary, Mr. Roger Iversen, announced that the Nordic
countries and the United Kingdom had therefore decided to launch a high-level
commission for the legal empowerment of the poor.
“We see this commission as an important opportunity for UN-HABITAT,
based on its vast experience and knowledge of tenure issues, to support
and contribute to the work of the commission and beyond,” Mr. Iversen
said, adding that it would be established in September.
Mr. Amos Kimunya, Kenya’s Minister for Lands and Housing, said
his country supported new mechanisms being put in place to monitor MDG7,
Target 11 on slums. At the country level, he said, the government and
UN-HABITAT had together undertaken mapping surveys of the capital, Nairobi,
Kisumu and Mombasa as part of a programme to be extended to other towns
in the country.
Mr. Kimunya, echoed the views of a number of countries at the plenary,
when he added that if the agency was to help meet the target on improving
slums around the world, “UN-HABITAT requires the requisite resources
to enable it to carry out this mandate. We underscore the efforts made
in establishing the Slum Upgrading Facility as a technical assistance
and a bridging finance vehicle to mobilize domestic capital for slum upgrading.
If adequately funded, the facility will enhance slum-upgrading in developing
countries.”
In a related event, Canada’s Minister of Labour and Housing, Mr.
Joe Fontana, hosted a luncheon meeting at the Governing Council to formally
announce the launch of the third session of the World Urban Forum next
year in Vancouver. He said UN-HABITAT and the Canadian government had
already started preparations for the forum, which will bring together
public and private institutions, experts and leaders from around the world
to discuss the key challenges confronting our rapidly urbanizing planet.
World Urban Forum III will mark the 30th anniversary of Habitat 1 –
the first United Nations conference on human settlements. Held in Vancouver
in 1976, the occasion, which led to the creation of UN-HABITAT, marked
the first time the challenges of urbanization were brought onto the international
agenda.
For further information, please contact: Sharad Shankardass,
Spokesperson & Head, Press & Media Relations Unit, or Ms. Zahra
Hassan, Media Liaison, Tel: (254 20) 623153, 623151, Fax: 624060, E-mail:
habitat.press@unhabitat.org,
Website: www.unhabitat.org
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