In September 2000, as a part of the Millennium Declaration adopted by the United Nations, member states resolved to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, adopted in June 2001 at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly review of the Habitat Agenda, recognised that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has developed much faster and more dramatically than could have been foreseen five years earlier at the Habitat II conference in Istanbul. It resolved to intensify efforts at the international and national level against HIV/AIDS and in particular to formulate and implement appropriate policies and actions to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on human settlements. It also recognised the problem of accessing financial resources for housing by HIV/AIDS victims and the need for shelter solutions for accommodating HIV/AIDS victims, especially orphans and the terminally ill. In recent years, urbanization has emerged as an increasingly important factor in the spread of the disease, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to more than 60 per cent of all people living with HIV, or more than 25 million people. Recent Demographic and Health Surveys in seven African countries – Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Zambia – show that in all countries, HIV prevalence was higher in urban areas than in rural areas, and was also higher among urban women than among rural women. Clearly, HIV/AIDS poses a significant challenge for local authorities, who need to provide health care and services to communities while they themselves are losing resources to the same pandemic. UN-HABITAT, as the lead UN agency for shelter and local authorities, has developed a programme to build the capacity of local authorities and other stakeholders in Africa to manage the HIV/AIDS pandemic at the local level. UN-HABITAT has completed a study on HIV/AIDS orphans and shelter, supported by the Rockafeller Foundation. The report is entitled, Challenging the Challenge: Shelter Dimensions of HIV/AIDS and Orphans in Urban Slums of Sub-Saharan Africa (January 2005). UN-HABITAT undertook a situation analysis in selected urban slums in Kenya, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda and a rural community in Kijwire Muleba district in Tanzania. The aim was to establish, in depth, the shelter dimension in the care and support of HIV/AIDS orphans and other children in distress, and explore opportunities for strengthening the capacities of households, communities, community-based organisations and local authorities in helping HIV/AIDS orphans, especially in the provision of shelter and related services. During 2003-4, UN-HABITAT, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, supported pilot projects in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, Louga, Senegal, Blantyre, Malawi, Mumbai, India, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Burj El-Barajne, Lebanon. The projects involved leadership training, and assistance to local authorities engaged with communities in developing city level action plans to manage the pandemic. The openness and positive outlook of the projects set the stage for successful awareness campaigns and activities. Since 2004, UN-HABITAT has been active in Abengourou, Cote D’Ivorie, Blantyre, Malawi, Kisumu, Kenya, Louga, Senegal and Makurdi, Nigeria, helping local authorities assess the impact of HIV/AIDS at the local level and planning responses with local communities. The programme, supported by SIDA, also supports national and regional networks of municipalities in their local-level HIV/AIDS activities, including the replication of experience.
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Abengorou Report