The Government of Spain has committed new funding of US$592,000 for UN-HABITAT's Rapid Urban Sector Profiling for Sustainability (RUSPS) programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Senegal.  The Rapid Urban Sector Profiling for Sustainability (RUSPS) programme undertakes assessments of urban conditions in selected cities. It entails undertaking a rapid analysis of the current urban situation in several thematic areas with urban stakeholders. These areas include governance, access to basic services, slums, local economic development, the environment and gender. The studies focus on priority needs, capacity gaps and look at how existing institutions at local and national levels respond to urban issues. The goal of the studies is to develop urban poverty reduction policies at local, national and regional levels
In these three countries, stakeholders agreed, during city consultations, on areas for priority action including the need to strengthen local governance, enhance public participation in planning and budgeting, strengthen institutions and ensure gender mainstreaming as key pre-conditions for poverty reduction and sustainable urban development. Funding for 2007 activities has been released. Responses to cities' needs in these countries have been packaged by UN-HABITAT in a three-year programme entitled Programme for Local Participatory Planning, Budgeting and Gender Mainstreaming. Three pilot cities in each country, yet to be selected, will benefit from training on participatory planning and budgeting. These cities will be selected through a participatory process during implementation. The training will be followed by implementation of priority projects financed by funds raised through the participatory budgeting process and supported with complementary seed funding from the programme. This innovative programme will be supported by UN-HABITAT’s Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States, its Training and Capacity Building Branch, as well as the Governance and the Gender units. |
