A team of 23 experts are currently visiting some 1,000 municipal offices and schools in Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture to raise UN-HABITAT’s profile and explain its activities in the region. The promotional campaign, which started December 10 is scheduled to run through March 2003 with a series of lectures and exhibitions. The campaign is one of a number of core activities spearheaded by the agency’s Fukuoka regional headquarters for Asia. In East Timor, where the urban poor facing a serious housing problem, implementation of a new housing development project is scheduled to start in March. The government had earlier asked UN-HABITAT to help it devise a national housing policy under its National Development Plan. A key element of the new project is addressing the complex post-disaster situation in East Timor which requires an appropriate housing policy as part of a new urban housing strategy. Early in December, UN-HABITAT sent its fifth mission from Fukuoka headquarters for technical consultations with officials in Weifang, in northeast China’s Shangdong Province. The Chinese officials followed up the visit with talks in Fukuoka in mid-January. In Oslo, Norway, the Afghanistan Support Group held its annual meeting 17-18 December to foster donor interest in the country’s post-war development. UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka led a delegation which included Toshi Noda, Director of the UN-HABITAT Fukuoka office, Madhab Mathema, Senior Human Settlements Officer, Günter Karl, and Pippi Soegaaard from headquarters. The government highlighted the need for financing for humanitarian assistance to the country and outlined its development priorities. |