A Sustainable City... Is a city where achievements in social,economic, and physical development are made to last. A Sustainable City has a lasting supply of the natural resources on which its development depends (using them only at a level of sustainable yield). A Sustainable City maintains a lasting security from environmental hazards which may threatendevelopment achievements (allowing only for acceptable risk). Sustainable Cities are Fundamental to Social and Economic Development It is now widely recognised that cities make an important contribution to social and economic development at national and local levels. cities are important engines of economic growth cities absorb two-thirds of the population growth in developing countries cities offer significant economies of scale in the provision of jobs, housing and services cities are important centres of productivity and social advancement Full realisation of cities’ potential contribution to development is often obstructed by severe environmental degradation in and around rapidly growing urban centres. For example, development on land prone to environmental hazards such as flooding not only wastes resources but leads to further environmental degradation. This impacts most cruelly on the urban poor. Environmental degradation threatens: economic efficiency in the use of scarce development resources social equity in the distribution of development benefits and costs sustainability of hard-won development achievements productivity in the urban economy in provision of goods and services Broad-based Local Governance is Key to Sustainable Cities The cities of the world, from Katowice-Poland to Dar es Salaam-Tanzania and from Concepción-Chile to Shenyang-China are very different in their environmental setting, the type and level of their development, and the set-up and capacity of their administration. But most cities have in common enormous environmental problems and a strong commitment to resolving them. Cities also increasingly have in common a firm understanding that solutions to their environmental problems, in order to be effective and sustainable, cannot depend upon external or central government support but must rely upon local technical and financial resources. Mobilisation and proper application of these resources from the local public, private, and community sectors requires new approaches to governance and urban management. Sustainable Cities: Stronger Local Governance through Stakeholder Involvement Better Environmental Information and Technical Expertise Better Environmental Decision Making Better Implementation of Environmental Strategies Enhanced Administrative/Managerial Capacities More Effective Use of Available Technical and Financial Resource Approaches for stronger local governance have been discussed and new principles have been adopted in a series of meetings. In Africa, in June 1995, more than 20 governments subscribed to the Dakar Declaration. Representatives from Asian, Latin American, and European cities also met in Madras in February 1996 to review their own experiences, and adopted similar principles in the Madras Declaration. In June 1996, as part of the Istanbul City Summit, the consolidated conclusions were presented by the cities and international programmes supporting them during a special meeting on “Implementing the Urban Environment Agenda.” The participants unanimously adopted the Istanbul Manifesto, and called for further dialogue in an urban environment forum. The Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) Offers a Practical Response to the Universal Search for Sustainable Development The urban environment and local governance has been accorded unparalleled attention in the recent international debate on development. UNCED, the 1992 Earth Summit, will be remembered as the conference in which the world acknowledged the importance of the environment for social and economic development. This was articulated in Agenda 21, which emphasises cross-sectoral coordination, decentralisation of decision-making, and broad-based participatory approaches to development management. UNCED also recognised the potential of the SCP as a vehicle for implementing Agenda 21 at the city level, and recommended strengthening its role in this regard. Habitat II, the City Summit, took this point further in Istanbul in 1996, in a global agenda for cooperation which acknowledges the direct contribution that sustainable cities can make to social and economic development. I n the urban environmentthe mandates of UNCHS (Habitat) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)coincide and their scientific, technical, and financial resources are uniquely complementary. In the early 1980s the two United Nations agencies were instructed by their governing bodies to jointly prepare Environmental Guidelines for Settlements Planning and Management; then, in the early 1990s, to launch the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) to put the concepts and approaches of the guidelines into practice; and recently, in 1995, UNCHS’s Human Settlements Commission and UNEP’s Governing Council instructed that the SCP be transformed into a truly Joint Facility for implementing Agenda 21 at the city-level. Together, the two agencies have utilised the SCP to spearhead the UN’s new development paradigm of information sharing through a common conceptual framework. The Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) is a UN Facility to Package and Apply Specialised Know-how in Urban Environmental Management The SCP provides municipal authorities and their partners in the public, private and community sectors with improved capacities in environmental planning and management . Since its inception, the SCP has grown from a modest $100,000 per year initiative to a $30 million global programme mobilising support from many sources including UNCHS, UNEP, UNDP, World Bank, WHO, ILO, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The SCP is undertaking demonstration projects in some 20 cities worldwide. These city demonstrations result in the formulation of Local Agenda 21 which include environmental management strategies, action plans, and priority technicalcooperation and capital investment projects for the cities concerned. SCP activities, at various stages in the project cycle, are currently underway in Accra, Amman, Asuncion, Concepción, Dar es Salaam, Dakar, Freetown, Gaza, Guayaquil, Ibadan, Ismailia, Katowice, Lusaka, Madras, Maputo, Nampula, Shenyang, St. Petersburg, Tunis, and Wuhan. Some cities are about to graduate from city level demonstrations and advance to national replications (other secondary cities in Chile, Egypt, Nigeria and Tanzania); other cities have just recently requested participation in the SCP (including Belo Horizonte, Blantyre, Colombo, Harare, Jinja, Kampala and cities in the Philippines).
	WHAT.....a facility to package and apply environmental technologies and know-how HOW.....by strengthening local capacities to address urban environmental problems WHO.....municipalities and local partners with multi- and bilateral external support (UN HABITAT, UNEP, UNDP, WB, WHO, ILO, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, the USA) WHATS NEW...... broad-based stakeholder involvement rather than master-planning bottom-up problem-solving rather than top-down decision making mobilisation of local resources a framework for coordination of external support environmental concerns in urban planning and management an instrument for localising Agenda 21