Start Date : 21 Mar 12   End Date : 22 Mar 12 Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The 23rd session of the Governing Council of UN-HABITAT adopted a resolution to formulate and review the implementation of the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000 and to formulate a new Global Housing Strategy to the Year 2025, taking into account the challenges of providing adequate and sustainable housing and basic infrastructure and the need to integrate housing policies into broader urban planning strategies and governmental actions, aligning them with other social, economic and environmental policies.  This calls for an immediate action to formulate a road map and nail down the vital steps required for reaching the new strategy.

The first activity on the path to the GHS 2025 is the preparation of a Global Assessment Report on the  Global Strategy for Shelter to the year 2000 (GSS 2000), focusing on the impact and effectiveness of the GSS 2000 in different countries and regions of the world. This report will include six substantive chapters, each of which will address one region – Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, North Africa and Greater Arabia, Europe and North America and Oceania.

Each regional chapter will build upon the review of experiences in implementing enabling shelter strategies in countries of a particular world region. Each chapter takes into account available evaluations, publications, reports as well as articles published in international journals focusing on the implementation of enabling shelter strategies.

Objectives and structure of the event:

The Expert Group Meeting will bring together the co-authors of the global assessment report of the Global Strategy for Shelter to the year 2000 (GSS 2000). Participants will present, discuss, and reflect on the regional assessments of the housing sector and the regional analysis of the GSS 2000 implementation. From this an understanding of the current shifts in housing policy and practice in the world region will be harnessed, in the context of a fast urbanisation, high rates of slum formation, and with respect to the current challenges faced by countries regarding the provision of adequate housing, with special attention to low-income households and vulnerable groups. The event has five principal objectives:

• To present the main findings and trends from the regional papers;
• To compare and contrast the findings and trends through experts discussion and dialogue to reach a common understanding of the GSS 2000 at the global level (including definitions, indicators, etc);
• To prepare a draft of the synthesis Chapter of the report that will include the key lessons from the GSS 2000 and the key contemporary issues – both of which will inform the GHS 2025;
• To refine regional and global roadmaps to the GHS 2025;
• To discuss and reach a consensus on the methodology and format for the consolidated global report.

The formulation of a global road map will take into account a timeline leading to the Third United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT III Conference, 2016) that incorporates the discussions and outcomes leading to the Sixth and Seventh Sessions of the World Urban Forum (WUF 6 to be held in 2012 and WUF 7 slated for 2014), as well as the proposed regional road maps.

The event will be an opportunity to draft the outline of the forthcoming global event to present the final GSS assessment report, as well as the Global Housing Strategy to the year 2025 agreed roadmap at the 6th session of the World Urban Forum in Naples, 1-7 September 2012.

EGM Agenda

Participants:

• Alan Gilbert, author of the regional chapter for Latin America and the Caribbean
• Graham Tipple, author of the regional chapter for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Chin Yee Wong, co-author of the regional chapter for Asia
• Julie Lawson, author of the regional chapter for Europe and North America
• Mohamed Salheen, author of the regional chapter for Middle East, North Africa and Greater Arabia
• Joe Flood, author of the regional chapter for Oceania
• UN-HABITAT team

Contacts:

For all matters pertaining to the Expert Group Meeting, please contact the Global Housing Strategy UN-HABITAT project team: Christophe Lalande (Christophe.Lalande@unhabitat.org) and Matthew French (Matthew.French@unhabitat.org).