The Habitat Scroll of Honour award was launched by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 1989. It is currently the most prestigious human settlements award in the world. Its aim is to acknowledge initiatives which have made outstanding contributions in various fields such as shelter provision, highlighting the plight of the homeless, leadership in post conflict reconstruction, and developing and improving the human settlements and the quality of urban life.

The award, a plaque engraved with the name of the winner and their achievement will be presented to the winners during the Global Observance of World Habitat Day on 5 October 2009.

In previous years, we have received submissions describing an array of impressive initiatives to improve shelter and urban services.The deadline for submitting entries to the Habitat Scroll of Honour 2009 has passed. We thank all those who submitted entries for consideration.

Individuals, organizations, projects and any Habitat Agenda partner can be nominated for the Habitat Scroll of Honour. These include:

• Government and inter-governmental organizations or agencies, including bilateral aid agencies
• Cities, local authorities or their associations
• Civil society organizations
• The private Sector
• National Habitat committees or focal points
• Research and academic institutions
• Public or private foundations
• Multilateral agencies (United Nations Agencies, World Bank, etc.)
• The media
• Individuals

Candidates for this year’s Scroll of Honour Award should submit details of their achievements by 15 August 2009. Submissions should not exceed 10 pages but there is no limitation on supporting material that can be attached as annexes. All submissions should have the following format:

Substantive information about the organization or individual being nominated including their mission, goals, history, size, length of experience in human settlements field.

Situation or problem addressed, objectives, target beneficiaries, investment in the project in terms of human, material and financial resources, activities undertaken, duration of the project, achievements and outputs (provide photographs/evidence of outputs), lessons learnt, best practices from the project

List partners and their roles and levels of participation in the planning, design, implementation and funding of the project.

Estimated number of beneficiaries, types of beneficiaries (e.g. women, children, poor, war victims), impact on beneficiaries’ living conditions e.g. social, economic, environmental, health, education, employment, security of tenure, crime reduction, community involvement in decisions/ governance, etc. Provide quantitative and qualitative values.

Describe how the initiative has created lasting change (by enacting new legislation or policy, by promoting capacity building and community empowerment, by strengthening the institutional framework, by enforcing efficiency, accountability and transparency etc.). Indicate how long the positive impact has been sustained so far. If there is ongoing investment to maintain the positive results, give details of how this is secured, and its commercial and social sustainability

Indicate whether this is a replicable best practice and show where it has been replicated and how this was done.

Describe the main innovations aspects of the initiative.

Provide a list of references, articles, publications, media reports about the initiative starting with the most recent ones and where possible, send copies of the actual articles as an annex.

Selection

The selection process will consist of three steps:

The World Habitat Day Coordinator will make an initial assessment of the nominations and submissions and verify that they conform to the standards outlined in the submission guidelines. Qualifying submissions will be sent to the jury.

• A jury of experts on human settlements and urban development and the World Habitat Day theme for 2009 will be constituted to select a maximum of five winning initiatives. The jury will make their recommendations to the Executive Director outlining their reasons for the selection.
• UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director, based on the recommendations of the independent jury, will make the final selection of the Scroll of Honour winners.

In selecting the winners for the award, the jury will be looking for achievements in the key areas outlined in the table below. The achievements will be considered within the overall context of sustainable human settlements and urban development.

This year, the jury will give particular attention to achievements related to this year’s theme of Planning our urban future and especially those pertaining to environmental sustainability, equity, gender parity, pro-poor growth and participatory governance.

Timetable

Terms and conditions

The following terms and conditions will apply to these awards:

• The prize for the winning entry will be awarded to the person or organization named in the submission form, who may not necessarily be the holder of the copyright.
• All entries will be available for international exhibition, demonstration, publication and media coverage and UN-HABITAT will not be required to seek further permission from the copyright holders for any such use.
• Where the submission of a project is made by someone other than the holder of the copyright, a written warranty is required indicating that the holder of the copyright agrees (a) to the submission, and (b) to the terms indicated in points 1 and 2 above.

Supporting material such as press clippings, videotapes and photographs will not be returned.

Submission guidelines

English