UNITED NATIONS	HS
	Commission on Human Settlements	Distr.GENERAL HS/C/17/2/Add.1 17 March 1999 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

1. Chapter I of the present report presents The State of the World's Cities, a knowledge system which represents a new approach to the way the United Nations system gathers, manages, analyses and disseminates information about the world's cities.

2. The State of the World's Cities is intended to provide access to a broad spectrum of information on the world's cities, from global trends to local conditions. The goal is to strengthen the capacity of United Nations Member States, local authorities and key partner groups to monitor and assess urban conditions and to develop effective policy responses. In the post-Habitat II era, The State of the World's Cities has been designed as a platform for dialogue and popular engagement at all levels – a tool kit for empowerment.

3. Information from and about cities, including urban indicators and best practices, will be maintained in globally distributed, locally controlled electronic files and disseminated, inter alia, through linked websites on the internet. This will encourage direct city-to-city learning, as well as many other forms of peer exchange. The State of the World's Cities will open up the flow of information to wider analysis and increased understanding of an urbanizing world.

4. UNCHS (Habitat) will compile local, national and regional analyses from all sources on its own website, inviting reaction and topical debate, in order to round out the base of information on urban conditions and trends. Policy assessments will be produced from time to time, as feedback to inform decision-makers and civil society. New knowledge, issues of regional and global importance and policy priorities will be collected in an executive summary of The State of the World's Cities, which will be published prior to each biennial meeting of the Commission on Human Settlements.

5. Chapter II of the present report provides a summary of information on global trends, their urban impacts and policy responses, which have been synthesized from over 600 secondary sources and from the UNCHS (Habitat) urban indicators and best practices databases. It corroborates the enabling approach as the normative urban policy model in an urbanizing world and bolsters the argument that cities are the key to development. It begins by making note of the current urban revolution and the undeniable fact that the human race is increasingly urbanized.

6. In the present first report, the "state" of the world's cities is taken to mean their collective state, within the global context, from which two strong messages emerge. The first of these messages is that national development is highly correlated with the viability of a country's urban areas. In almost every instance, as urban indicators data show, national human development advances dramatically as urban indicators improve.

7. The second message is that systematic implementation of an enabling approach to governance is the most hopeful model for sustainable urban development. Best practices from around the world show that empowerment of people by governments can mobilize latent resources, strengthen the effectiveness of local authorities, make possible the ownership by all stakeholders of urban management processes, increase the flow of policy-relevant information and foster a more cooperative atmosphere among all people. The corollary to these two messages for Member States of the United Nations is that a deliberate and systematic approach to the sharing of power and responsibility will pay dividends in sustainable national development. Chapter II concludes with the identification of global urban issues yet to be resolved.

8. Chapter III contains a set of key recommendations to the Commission on Human Settlements. The recommendations are intended to encourage, promote and support self-monitoring and assessment at the national and city levels and to facilitate reporting on the effectiveness of policies in implementing the Habitat Agenda. The strategy underlying the recommendations is to establish an urban knowledge infrastructure that will expand the global base of knowledge on cities by providing information, guidelines, tools and networks that can be used to accelerate and improve self-monitoring, analysis and reporting, especially at the city level.

9. It is intended that self-monitoring will facilitate the implementation and adjustment of action plans, including local Agenda 21s, and generate indicators, indices, best practices, benchmarks and other information that may be synthesized periodically in city status reports. In an enabling environment, the process of creating a state-of-the-city report should engage all stakeholders in dialogue on local economic viability, social cohesion and exclusion, environmental sustainability and the overall effectiveness of urban policy.

10. The present report and all documentation on which it is based are posted in English on the following website: http://www.UrbanObservatory.org. In addition, the reproduction and dissemination of the report are encouraged.

11. The aim of The State of the World's Cities is to provide information on urban conditions and trends around the world and, in so doing, on progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda. In a rapidly urbanizing world where global trends result in countless local impacts, feedback mechanisms are essential in assessing changing conditions and the effectiveness of urban policy.

12. In recent years, the accessibility to information about urbanization has expanded exponentially, in tandem with the development of modern information and communication technology. In addition to aggregate information on cities from official sources, there are now widely available: innumerable stories and reports from local and national news media on local conditions and on the successes and failures of urban policy; thousands of internet websites that present urban grass roots success stories; popularized research reports that bear immediately useful information synthesized from previously inaccessible sources; and the electronic record of the interactive exchange of ideas among stakeholders in development.

13. The State of the World's Cities is intended to be a knowledge system facilitated by UNCHS (Habitat). As such, it represents for the United Nations a radical change in the way the broad spectrum of urban information is gathered, managed, analysed and disseminated.

14. Most mechanisms employed by the United Nations system for collecting global information are centralized and do not disaggregate data by city. The usual method of relying on national focal points to gather subnational information suffers from critical communication failures within or among Member States, including developed countries. Where information is available by location, comparisons have shown that the both quality and definitions vary from place to place, undermining the reliability of analytical results. In countries where rigorous standards for verification are applied to ensure the reliability of data, there can be several years' delay in dissemination, diminishing the value of such data for the assessment of emergent conditions.

15. Most global information gathering systems have not been designed to make policy-relevant comparisons at the city and subcity levels. An exception is the successful UNCHS (Habitat) effort to collect key urban indicators data and best practices information from Member States in preparation for Habitat II. This experience shows that local-level information, which can be collected and understood quite readily, empowers civil society and policy makers by putting immediately useful and affordable information in their hands. Urban indicators and best practices are both policy-oriented by definition and, in today's world of increasing civic engagement, both will involve broad-based consultative processes, an essential feature of the enabling approach advocated by the Habitat Agenda.

16. To adopt policies that can effectively change urban conditions, it is necessary to understand the global context that drives the current urban revolution. Accordingly, The State of the World's Cities will be much more than just a report on city issues for passive consumption. It will be an active agent and advocate for a global learning process that benefits all stakeholders in sustainable urban development, by helping to make the connections between global trends, local conditions and urban policy.

17. At the United Nations Conference on Human Settlement in Istanbul in 1996 - the City Summit, Member States of the United Nations committed themselves to implement the Habitat Agenda through policies and plans of action designed at each level in cooperation with all interested parties. All partners, including local authorities, the private sector and communities, are asked to monitor and evaluate their own performance in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. The role of UNCHS (Habitat) is to track progress in implementing of the Habitat Agenda by reviewing relevant inputs from all partners. UNCHS (Habitat) serves this review function, inter alia, by establishing an appropriate process for analysing and monitoring urbanization trends and the impact of urban policies and by helping to establish guidelines for national and local monitoring and evaluation.

18. Since adopting the enabling strategy of the Habitat Agenda, UNCHS (Habitat) has determined that an appropriate process for universal monitoring and assessment should comprise three components:

    (a) Promotion of broad-based consultations among stakeholders to identify and integrate urban information needs;

    (b) Building of capacity at the local level for the collection, management and application of urban information (e.g., indicators and best practices); and

    (c) Dissemination of monitoring and analysis results to all stakeholders to help them become more effective participants in urban decision-making processes.

19.  UNCHS (Habitat) has begun to implement the three components of this enabling approach by supporting the systematic formation of networks of, respectively:

    (a) Local, national and regional urban observatories;

    (b) Institutions for training and capacity-building;

    (c) Policy-makers and other users of empirical information.

20.  By providing stakeholders with guidelines, tools, training and technical assistance, UNCHS (Habitat) promotes urban observatories and their partners as they evaluate the local harvesting and analysis of information on urban conditions and trends and on progress toward sustainable urban development.

21. The State of the World's Cities is proposed as a knowledge system that will help organize information from all urban observatories and other relevant sources and networks for the local, national, regional and global assessment of urban conditions and trends, for feedback to national and local policy-makers. More than just an account of issues and remedies, The State of the World's Cities will present new guidelines, recommendations and learning tools to assist Member States, local authorities and their partners in expanding the base of knowledge needed to improve urban policy.

22. Cities represent change. They have played a key role in the evolution of human society since the third millennium BC. For nearly all of human history, however, most people have lived in the countryside. City dwellers were the exception rather than the rule, even as recently as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, accounting for barely 2 per cent of the world's population in 1800.

23. The surge toward global urbanization has taken place only in the twentieth century, in particular since the 1950s. The rate of growth of cities increased rapidly, first in developed countries and soon thereafter in developing countries, under the double stimulus of population growth and rural-urban migration.

24. The data are incontrovertible: in 1970, approximately 35 per cent of the world's population lived in urban areas; by the year 2000 this proportion will be close to 50 per cent. This rapid expansion of the world's cities can justifiably be described as an urban revolution. Cities are the nexus of nearly all global trends and will soon become the habitat for the majority of all people.

25. The astounding growth of cities is not an independent phenomenon but part of a broader global process that is moving humanity rapidly toward a more interdependent world. Progress toward development, in today's world, requires a better understanding of the relationships between urbanization and global trends which, not coincidentally, find their fullest expression in cities.

26. Sustainable development depends to an ever greater degree on the effective management of urban areas. As the footprint of cities grows in scope and influence, the city and its urban region will increasingly become the test bed for the adequacy of political institutions, the performance of Governments, and the effectiveness of efforts to combat social exclusion, conserve natural resources and promote economic development.

27. With a view to reaching a better understanding of the process of globalization and the manner in which it interacts with the world's cities, a large number of information sources have been analysed, leading to the identification of 30 global trends with measurable dimensions. 1/

28. Many of the trends entail profound changes in the way contemporary society functions. The most significant of these trends are: the greater importance of knowledge in all aspects of social life; the emergence of new social and economic actors; the emergence of Governments and public administrations that are unable to adapt to rapid change; the spread of democratization and decentralization; and the acceleration of technological innovation.

29. Other trends, such as the rapid increase in international migration, the emergence of transnational actors, the increased flow of capital, goods and services and greater population mobility, are resulting in greater interdependence among different regions of the world and, in particular, among cities.

30. Lastly, some global trends seem to be expressed mainly as new collective risk factors, or negative factors, which, when operating on the global level, take on new dimensions and characteristics. Among these is the spread of social exclusion, jobless growth (i.e., economic growth without a corresponding growth in employment), the increase of urban poverty and environmental degradation.

31. Global trends are no longer managed mainly by the State, public administrations or other public entities, but, to an increasing extent, by a multiplicity of actors that have very different organizational structures, identities, goals, capacities and cultural backgrounds. The transnational activities of the private sector are a major force for the loosening of control, but the trend towards decentralization also contributes to the process. Local authorities, being closer to the social reality they administer, are requesting more authority to extend their span of control on issues that affect their citizens directly. It is reasonable to expect that their contribution to global trends will increase gradually as cities gain access to resources and enjoy increased autonomy.

32. The global picture is rendered more complex when the impacts of trends on cities are examined. A review of almost 600 sources from around the world resulted in the identification of 28 different impacts, which may be gathered into three groups:

    (a) One group includes impacts on the physical form and socio-cultural character of urban areas. These affect, for example, the growth of mega-cities, the fragmentation of urban areas, the formation of national and international urban systems and diversification of social behaviours and lifestyles within cities;

    (b) A second group includes impacts that are notable for their negative effects. These are revealed as growth of insecurity in urban areas, lack of affordable housing or secure tenure, increasing social exclusion, traffic congestion, environmental pollution, shrinkage of the formal economy and the crisis in urban management;

    (c) There is a third group of impacts that seem to have mainly positive effects. Included among these are the spread of urban democracy and the increase in urban productivity, particularly in the informal sector.

33.  Most modern urban phenomena are the result of the combined effects of various global trends. The expansion of the informal economy in urban areas, for example, is not merely the result of processes like privatization or of economic growth without increase in jobs. It can be more fully understood in the light of non-economic factors, such as the knowledge revolution (which leads to higher levels of individual enterprise), increased mobility and changes in the social fabric.

34. Contrary to what one might expect, globalization does not produce uniformity in urban areas, but rather tends toward diversity. In the face of a mix of global processes, cities react in different ways, taking different - and at times unexpected - courses in development. While urban problems tend to be analogous (i.e., traffic congestion, overcrowding, pollution, crisis of management, etc.), cities, in their responses, appear to be becoming dissimilar. Even where successful policies are transferred from place to place, they are adapted to the local context, which gives them a new character.

35. Surveying the impacts of global trends on urban areas as a whole, three general messages emerge. The first concerns the increased speed, diversity and extent of the processes of change that are affecting cities. Seen from within, cities seem to be becoming more heterogeneous, decentralized and characterized by autonomous and diversified cultural, economic and decisional poles. Externally, cities appear to be included in a complex of interactions that must somehow be absorbed, metabolized and exploited at the local level. Not only is the size of cities changing, but so is their physical and social structure, and also their relationship with the surrounding regions, as well as with distant territories.

36. The second message concerns the shortcomings of urban management in a globalizing world. Many of the impacts analysed suggest a "high risk" scenario for cities – the presence of "dangers" that have not been dealt with, in all likelihood because traditional methods of city management are inadequate when the city's character, dynamics and size are changing so radically. Most of the 600 sources consulted emphasize the crisis of urban governance and the inadequacy of traditional instruments for managing urban development (e.g., land use planning, economic planning, direct provision of services by public bodies). The majority of the negative impacts are the direct result of the failure of institutional structures to adapt to rapid change and to perform efficiently the tasks within their purview.

37. There is, however, a third message that emerges, mainly from a study of the impacts deemed prevalently positive by sources consulted. Such impacts, viewed in their totality, indicate the presence of innovative reactions to crisis situations. Despite severe economic problems, cities are actually making gains as centres of productivity, knowledge generation and technological innovation. Among such gains, the following are worth noting:

    (a) In the face of shrinking employment opportunities, the informal sector is expanding and is no longer viewed as a pocket of illegal activity, but as an important source of urban employment;

    (b) In the face of demographic growth, the city is a catalyst and accelerator of positive social relationships and demographic transition;

    (c) In the face of the crisis of centralized structures, new responses in the area of service provision by collective actors and new methods of democratic and participatory management appear;

    (d) In the face of rigid bureaucratic administration, a more realistic and consultative attitude is emerging in many countries.

38.  These more positive impacts of global trends may be interpreted as the beginning of a transition from one type of city to another and, most importantly, from one type of urban regime to another.

39. After examining global trends and their urban impacts, attention may be turned to current urban policy responses and their relevance and effectiveness. In examining the various research results, over fifty categories of urban policy responses to the urban impacts of global trends were identified around the world.

40. The vast majority of policies recently adopted by Governments and local authorities appear to be based on what has been called an enabling approach to urban governance, characterized by at least three tendencies:

    (a) The tendency, on the part of public actors, to encourage the participation of other entities and actors, including private firms, non-profit enterprises and local organizations (community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, etc.), which are seen as partners rather than antagonists;

    (b) The consequent tendencies to decentralize national government responsibilities – thus increasing the role of local authorities – and to include an increasing number of stakeholders in the decision-making process;

    (c) The tendency to mobilize various sources of financing, with emphasis on local economic resources.

41.  This approach is radically different from the traditional direct approach taken by the State and public administrations, which is characterized by:

    (a) Reliance on public bodies for the supply of services and for planning and production of housing and infrastructure;

    (b) Centralized decision-making power;

    (c) Exclusive recourse to public financing for the provision of public infrastructure and the development and maintenance of social services.

42.  The public sector clearly dominates in the direct approach, while in the enabling approach it plays a role of facilitation and integration, especially as regards encouraging, regulating and exploiting the actions of other partners.

43. The global transition from the direct to the enabling model of local governance is undeniable and its positive effects are confirmed worldwide. Constitutional tensions exist, however, between the different tiers of government in many countries, with particular respect to metropolitan government. Linked to these tensions is the fact that decentralization is sometimes used as a means for a higher level of government to devolve some of its own fiscal and political responsibilities, without a corresponding transfer of resources.

44. The enabling approach, validated as a universal norm by the Habitat Agenda, progressively emerges as the principal characteristic of a new urban regime, globally, and may be understood as a set of policy objectives that either stand in lieu of, or complement, those of the traditional direct approach to urban governance. These objectives may be characterized as follows:

    (a) The first objective is to mobilize private and collective actors in housing and urban development, encourage all members of society to participate in the economy and remove barriers to their effective engagement in development activities. To reach this objective, enabling policies will serve, inter alia, to promote the informal sector, as well as small and medium enterprises in the formal sector, and to equalize the position of women. They will also invoke special measures to strengthen people's participation in decision-making and to improve the general level of education and training. Specifically, policies in this cluster may aim at removing monopolies in the housing market, at supporting cooperative housing societies and self-help activities, and at promoting the privatization of infrastructure and service management;

    (b) The second objective is to mobilize local resources for the production of housing, infrastructure and services at a sustainable cost for local communities. Enabling policies will include various approaches to cost recovery at the local level, public-private partnerships, the elimination of legal barriers, setting up financial and credit mechanisms for the whole spectrum of housing needs, promoting the use of local building materials and application of low-cost technologies;

    (c) The third objective is to recognize and upgrade the existing situation. These enabling policies would include, inter alia, those that promote the revision or elimination of inappropriate standards, changes in property regulations, improved systems of land registration, upgrading of informal settlements and the legalization or recognition of informal settlements;

    (d) The fourth objective is to increase the capacity of local authorities. Enabling policies are those that help ensure access to accurate, usable and timely information; measure programme performance; improve management of services and infrastructure; increase research and improve local planning; promote inter- and intra-urban networks of actors; improve monitoring and assessment of conditions and trends; and help mitigate the potential effects of natural and human-made disasters;

    (e) The fifth objective is to strengthen the policy-making and enabling roles of central Governments. Enabling policies will, inter alia, promote national urbanization policies, integrate urban policy with macro-economic policy, promote political, administrative and fiscal decentralization and promote the role of Governments as facilitators and reform subsidy systems.

45.  There are still very serious gaps in the overall urban policy set, as compiled from the many sources surveyed. As more is learned about the damage caused by corrupt practices and lack of openness and accountability at every level, stronger policies need to be developed to identify and promote norms of good governance and ethical standards for all partners.

46. In addition to transparency, the most intractable issues for policy may be those that hide behind established norms and values. Exploration of such dysfunctional social behaviour as child and spouse abuse and self-destructive economic behaviour (e.g., unsustainable consumption of non-renewable resources and environmental pollution) is made difficult, because it would challenge established patterns and privileges. The first step toward dealing systematically with such social and economic problems is to give them a name and open the discussion as widely as possible.

47. This points to the need for policies that support the gathering, analysis and dissemination of comparative information on urban conditions and trends – disaggregated by gender, age and urban areas. Without a common base of accessible and verifiable information, participatory debate risks losing its cooperative civility and, therefore, its usefulness. Even the enabling approach needs the power of agreed-upon facts to help mediate among interest groups.

48. One of the most effective sets of policies in the current evolution of governance systems is the enabling approach, adopted in the Habitat Agenda as a normative paradigm for urban governance. Effective enabling policies are, by definition, inclusive, cooperative and people-centred. They also create feedback loops among all key actors – Government and civil society alike – that can facilitate the testing of various decision options. The best practices presented below are success stories of various components of the enabling approach at work. Predating the Habitat Agenda, collectively they affirm the enabling strategy as the governance model with the greatest promise for sustainable urban development at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

49. The Habitat Agenda recognizes and promotes six strategic principles that are keys to the implementation of enabling policies for sustainable urban development: decentralization, partnership, popular participation, capacity-building, networking and the use of information and communication technology. Although the terminology is different, there is considerable congruence between this set of principles and the policy objectives listed in paragraph 44 above.

50. In the past four years, over 700 good and best practices from over 100 countries have been documented by UNCHS (Habitat). These provide a unique data set on how enabling principles are being implemented at the local level. 2/

51. The vast majority of these initiatives involve local authorities as major partners. Furthermore, a regional analysis indicates that innovative practices and policy responses are most prevalent in those sectors where the transition from the direct to the enabling approach is most recent and where globalization is having the strongest impact on people and their communities. Thus, for example, in Africa, there is a major focus on housing and basic services; in Latin America and the Caribbean, social justice, community mobilization and the integration of informal settlements emerge as the principle areas of concern; in Europe and North America, the environment and social inclusion predominate; and in Asia, the major thrust appears to be on infrastructure development and the reform of local government.

52. Decentralization, or devolution of authority and responsibility, is recognized in the Habitat Agenda as a key strategic objective for improving the quality of urban life. Local control of resources creates the opportunity for local authorities and their partners to devise novel approaches to old problems, as well as the emerging challenges of globalization. In almost all instances, decentralization has enabled local authorities to establish new working relations with central Government and civil society.

53. Sometimes, it is the local authority itself that must decentralize its power to be more effective. In Poland, the responsibility for housing was devolved to the local level in 1992. Local authorities, however, were not able to meet the demand. A national network of 32 non-governmental organizations has since been established and has been working with local governments to help develop new housing delivery strategies, broker partnerships with the private sector, facilitate financing and provide technical support to small cooperatives.

54. Leveraging community contributions with city and national funds and private-sector expertise has proved effective in addressing the shortage of paved roads in poor urban areas. Some cities have shown the advantages of a specific local resource to facilitate partnerships. Often, however, the specific local resource is the people. There are convincing examples of how citizens, by contributing financially and in-kind to the creation and the maintenance of trunk infrastructure, have convinced local authorities of the need to improve the standard of infrastructure provided.

55. Some cities, where gaps in existing social services are putting people at risk, are working closely with local non-governmental organizations to provide counselling and other social services to those urban poor facing eviction. The success of such initiatives has reduced the number of evictions by as much as one third. Partnerships have also played a crucial role in the reintegration of marginalized people, notably informal sector garbage collectors or scavengers. In Cairo, Egypt, partners from the private and non-profit sectors are working with the scavengers to collect and recycle a substantial portion of household solid waste, to set up a modern recycling plant that will provide formal sector employment, and at the same time ensure that the beneficiaries' views are integrated into urban policy-making.

56. The lessons learned from decentralization suggest that partnership can provide a practical alternative to situations in which traditional actors are not able to respond effectively to current needs. It also creates new opportunities for mobilizing resources, associating the informal sector with the formal economy, and for providing solutions to long-standing issues such as unemployment, waste management, infrastructure provision and maintenance.

57. In Chile, for example, an initiative known as the "Participatory Paving Programme" leverages community contributions with city and national funds and, making use of private-sector expertise, has proved effective in addressing the shortage of paved roads in poor urban areas. Some cities, such as Tagaytay, Philippines, are able to take advantage of a specific local resource to facilitate partnerships. Contributing city-owned real estate to partnerships with the private sector, Tagaytay is providing infrastructure and recreation facilities for its citizens.

58. Often, however, the specific local resource is the people. Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, is working with community-based organizations to meet growing demands for roads, water and sewerage. Citizens, by contributing financially and in-kind to the creation and the maintenance of trunk infrastructure, have convinced both the local authority and the World Bank to improve the standard of infrastructure provided. In other cities, like Vienna, Austria, where gaps in existing social services are putting people at risk, local authorities are working closely with non-governmental organizations to provide counselling and other social services to those urban poor facing eviction. The success of the Vienna initiative has reduced the number of evictions by one third.

59. Partnerships have also played a crucial role in the reintegration of the "zaballeen" (informal sector garbage collectors, or scavengers) in Cairo. Four partners from the private and non-profit sectors are working with the zaballeen to collect and recycle a substantial portion of Cairo's household solid waste, to set up a modern recycling and sorting plant that will provide formal sector employment, and at the same time ensure that the views are integrated into urban policy-making. Similarly, in the Bronx borough of New York, United States of America, the Banana Kelly Community Development Association, which started as a community-based organization involved in inner-city slum rehabilitation, has embarked upon a $500 million paper recycling scheme in partnership with the private sector.

60. The Habitat Agenda calls for the establishment and strengthening of mechanisms that allow all voices to be heard in decision-making. Cities such as Manchester, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Chattanooga, United States of America, are using elaborate community visioning exercises to help define their action plans for achieving sustainable urban development. In some cases, popular participation can prove to be a real challenge. Thus, Mafikeng, South Africa, has had to cope with not only very different administrative systems (tribal authorities, city council, government departments, the informal sector and local business representatives), but also the legacy of distrust fostered by apartheid, in working on the elaboration of an integrated development plan.

61. Participatory planning can be creative. In Porto Alegre, Brazil, a participatory budgeting process has been in place for over ten years. Between 15 and 25 per cent of the annual budget is allocated according to priorities identified through a series of community meetings. Naga City, Philippines, has gone so far as to create a mechanism whereby residents are charged with the responsibility to design, implement and evaluate the city's development agenda. In Bangalore, India, participation in city policy-making is being facilitated by a non-governmental organization that produces "report cards" on municipal service delivery, publishes them in the media and then works with the city to improve priority areas determined by the citizens.

62. The Habitat Agenda recommends that partnerships be strengthened and participation made more effective through capacity-building. A local non-governmental organization in Trenton, New Jersey, United States of America, is helping train municipal leaders, environmental experts, lawyers and local residents to work in partnership to clean up toxic industrial sites. Internationally, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is pairing cities such as Guelph, Canada, and Jinga, Uganda, to improve local governance in both cities.

63. Often, capacity-building plays a crucial role in integrating otherwise marginalized groups. Thus, in Metro Manila, Philippines, the urban elderly poor are basic medical training and tools to provide health care to their community. In Germany, mother centres operating in several cities are providing women with the basic means to participate effectively in local decision-making, with a view to addressing unmet needs and eliminating physical barriers as well as gaps in social services that alienate women and children. In Thies, Senegal, a waste management initiative has focused on strengthening the management capacities of women, and their enhanced role has proved vital to improving health and sanitary conditions.

64. The Habitat Agenda recommends networking as the foundation for capacity-building and institutional development. In Atteridgeville, South Africa, community information centres provide residents with details on jobs, housing, health services, often saving them costly and time-consuming trips to government offices. The city of Bologna, Italy, is using email and the Internet to ensure that its citizens are better informed of their rights and the services that are available and to improve their participation in municipal decision-making. In Qatar, the first nation-wide geographic information system facilitates policy-making and more responsive local service delivery.

65. Elsewhere, in such cities as Hamilton-Wentworth, Canada, Jacksonville, United States of America, Barcelona, Spain, and Sydney, Australia, indicators are being used to assess city progress in achieving its sustainable development objectives. In a different vein, the city of Chula Vista, United States of America, has created neighbourhood "telecentres" equipped with the essential equipment and services of a downtown office. Telecentres have become an alternative to commuting and a means of improving air quality.

66. The Habitat Agenda recommends that all partners should regularly monitor and evaluate their own performances in implementing the Habitat Agenda through comparable indicators and best practices. The guidelines for Habitat II preparations, developed in 1995 by UNCHS (Habitat), further recommended that national committees should organize broad-based and participatory competitions, exhibitions, seminars and conferences to help mainstream lessons learned from best practices.

67. Leading up to Habitat II, several Governments engaged in innovative undertakings to that end. In China, the written press, television and radio were all mobilized and provided with support to report on best practices and elevate public awareness. The Governments of India and Spain organized nation-wide competitions on best practices, followed by publications, exhibitions and seminars to initiate policy dialogue based on lessons learned. The Government of Kenya recently organized its second exhibition on best practices, an award ceremony and a press conference highlighting the achievements of both city and non-governmental initiatives. In Austria, the city of Vienna took it upon itself to organize the identification and dissemination of best practices in Austria, as well as in neighbouring countries. In Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Portugal and Senegal, umbrella non-governmental organizations, including training institutions, have taken the initiative to organize the broad-based dissemination of information on best practices and major events in their respective countries.

68. An unexpected outcome of the process for identifying, analysing and disseminating best practices is the scale and pace of transfers. An analysis of direct unassisted and donor-facilitated transfers of best practices confirms the appropriateness of South-South and city-to-city cooperation. Examples include peer exchanges and transfers of experience between the cities of Fortaleza (Brazil), Dunkerque (France), Johannesburg (South Africa), as well as many others. A systematic transfer using best practices identified in 1996 involved a three-way collaboration between United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), CityNet and UNCHS (Habitat), where demand for expertise was matched with supply of lessons learned, derived from best practices. This experience proved to be highly cost-effective and further demonstrated that cities and non-governmental organization have much to learn from one another.

69. In the shift towards the enabling approach and the implementation of the strategies recommended by the Habitat Agenda, cities and their civil society partners are assuming new roles and unprecedented responsibilities. This is particularly apparent where partnerships are actively developed in areas which had been assumed to be the purview of higher-level authorities. Examples include the design and delivery of social services, the creation of jobs and of income-generating activities, disaster mitigation and risk management, housing, infrastructure and basic services, and information and communication technology.

70. The types of policy responses which are emerging as a result of the enabling approach appear to be much more holistic, as called for by the Habitat Agenda. This can be attributed to the participation of social organizations and the private sector that demand effective solutions to what they perceive as convergent rather than sectoral issues. In forging solutions, they play an active role in promoting dialogue, in formulating socially oriented projects, in mobilizing and leveraging public, private and community resources, and in implementation. As a result, they not only influence policy but also create sustainable and replicable processes.

71. In most cases, however, major gaps still exist between the lessons learned on the ground and policy-making at the national level. Much more needs to be done to incorporate and integrate successful experience into national policy and international co-operation. The potential for such forms of capacity-building remains a largely untapped resource.

72. The lack of access to information and communication technology remains a principal barrier to the effective sharing of knowledge and expertise. The period 1996-1998 witnessed a substantial increase in the use of modern telecommunication technology by Governments and non-governmental organizations. Many cities, however, especially in developing countries, seem to be lagging behind in this process.

73. Another gap is in the systematic assessment of relevant experiences other than so-called "best" practices. There is a need for a renewed commitment by all actors objectively to monitor and evaluate outcomes of their actions and to prepare new learning tools from those results.

74. While best practices provide policy options for problem solving, indicators provide a point of common departure for dialogue on local conditions and trends. They offer a quantification of overall conditions; they help in the objective identification of policy issues; they are used to monitor the implementation of policies, programmes and plans of action; and they assist in making comparisons over time and between locations. The two instruments, best practices and indicators, work together and both are named as principal mechanisms for monitoring progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda.

75. Established prior to Habitat II to address the urgent need to help all countries and cities identify, collect, analyse and apply policy-oriented data, the Urban Indicators Programme of UNCHS (Habitat) presents urban indicators as a tool for key stakeholders (e.g., community groups, non-governmental organizations, finance institutions, business firms, local Governments and central governments) to identify policy imperatives and address the most pressing urban problems. By encouraging broad-based participation in the identification and collection of local indicators and the widespread dissemination of the results of their analysis, urban indicators are integral to the enabling approach.

76. The basic methodology is a general process whereby indicators can be established for virtually any broad policy area on any geographical scale. It can be summarized by asking the question, "What would a well-functioning sector look like, from the point of view of each of the key stakeholders or players in the arena?" The answers to this question form a set of the qualitative norms for a well-functioning policy sector. From these norms, a set of policy goals or objectives may be derived which will enable the norms to be met. A set of indicators is then established which will permit quantitative evaluation of policies designed to meet the objectives. 3/

77. Leading up to the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, the Urban Indicators Programme helped to collect city data in 237 cities of 110 countries. The programme has helped to raise the awareness of countries to the vital role of urban indicators in policy development and has engendered a greater familiarity with information systems.

78. The results of indicators collection were compiled as a global urban indicators database, which provides a picture of urban conditions around the world and which permits a comparison of indicators for a particular city with others in its region. 4/

79. The global urban indicators database includes a wealth of information which provides valuable insights into the conduct of city policy. Following is a comparative analysis of cities, both at the regional level and according to the national level of human development, 5/ presenting each of the main indicator modules in turn. 6/

80. Each of the following tables has two parts: the first is a comparison of variables for cities in each of the world's major regions; the second is a comparison of variables for cities in countries classified by their human development index (HDI) ranking. In examining the second part of each table, the reader's attention will be drawn to the high correlation between positive values of most urban indicators and a high national HDI. With further analysis it may be revealed that, in fact, urban development is a driving force for national human development. In any case, it is logical to conclude that neglect of a nation's cities will not result in high levels of human development, if for no other reason than the growing mass of urban populations.

81. The urban indicators system includes a background data module which has provided important information on the demographic and economic characteristics of each participating city. Preliminary results for some of the main demographic aggregates are displayed in table 2. The table shows that the cities for which indicators have been collected are well-distributed by size and average about 1.5 million inhabitants, except in Africa where they are somewhat smaller.

82. Population growth rates and household formation rates in the cities are considerably higher in the poorer regions, which have an annual urban population growth of over 5 per cent, compared with about 0.7 per cent in the developed countries. Urban residential densities are highest in Asia, averaging 247 persons per hectare, and density decreases to about 82 persons per hectare in industrialized countries. The presence of squatter housing, which is usually much more densely packed than formal housing, also results in an increase in average density. Household size also diminishes from about 6 persons per household in cities of the least developed countries down to an average of 2.4 in cities of the highly industrialized countries. Household sizes are actually increasing in the cities of a number of poor countries, particularly those in Africa where real incomes have been decreasing.

83. The great income disparities which exist in cities within and between regions are shown in table 3. The city product per person of cities in the lower HDI group of countries is nearly forty times less than in the cities of developed countries, while the household income is about a fifteenth. The lowest income quantile in cities of the developed countries receives one and one-half times the income of the highest quantile in cities of the low developed countries.

    a/ Ratio of top 20% households (Q5) to bottom 20% (Q1), average for cities in region.

84. Incomes are most unequal, on average, in cities in the Arab States, Africa and the highly industrialized countries.

85. The reduction of poverty is a major aim of most Governments and poverty impacts heavily on urban conditions. Urban poverty is often manifested most severely in cities where the poor are compelled to live together in squatter areas or informal settlements and where the option to fall back on own production of food is limited or impossible. The key indicators of urban poverty measures the numbers of households in poverty, based on the locally defined poverty line, as well as woman-headed households in poverty. Two thirds of cities provided information on numbers of households in poverty and about half of these also had information on woman-headed households in poverty, signifying that a greater effort must be made to collect both poverty and gender-disaggregated data.

86. Table 4 shows households in poverty for cities in different regions and different levels of human development. Clearly, locally defined poverty decreases as the level of development increases; from over 36 per cent of households in cities in the group of low developed countries to 16 per cent in cities of the developed countries. In lower income countries, about 36 per cent of all urban households and 41 per cent of the woman-headed households are below the locally defined poverty line.

87. The percentage of woman-headed urban households in poverty differs greatly between regions, however, reflecting different social structures. In the cities of developed countries and countries with economies in transition, female-headed households have over twice the incidence of poverty. In almost every city, there is a considerably higher proportion of woman-headed households in poverty, since these are often single-parent households on welfare. Conversely, in Asia and the Arab States, in almost every city there is a lesser proportion of poor woman-headed households, presumably since in the prevailing cultures of these regions social structures retain women in extended households, unless they have substantial resources. In other regions, cities are almost equally divided between those where woman-headed households are less poor and those in which they are poorer, although on average women-headed households are poorer.

a/ As a percentage of all households.
b/ As a percentage of woman-headed households.

88. Social development or investment in human capital is a major concern of all Governments, and the investment in fundamental health care, education, and social integration may contribute more to the quality of life in a city than a simple increase in income, as the UNDP HDI rankings attempt to show.

89. Typical indicators of social conditions and social outcomes in cities include child mortality and crime rates. As table 5 shows, in the cities of the poorest countries, around 11 per cent of urban children die before their fifth birthday. Children in low HDI countries are 10 times more likely to die than those in the cities of the developed world. The incidence of crime, however, is not related to the level of human development, but more to social conditions and controls, institutional responses and to the perceived efficiency of crime-prevention strategies. Cities in the Arab world have a murder rate twenty time less than the world average. Reported urban theft rates are much higher in cities of developed countries, more than double the world average.

91. The provision of infrastructure services (water supply, sanitation, electricity and telephone), along with solid waste and waste water disposal, are among the areas of greatest concern in human settlements. Failure to provide these services adequately results in many of the well-known costs of rapid urbanization: threats to health, urban productivity and environmental quality. Lack of adequate infrastructure services results in a critical equity problem, in that many of the resulting costs impact most heavily on the urban poor in terms of poor health, low productivity, reduced income and poorer quality of life. Deficiencies in infrastructure services manifest themselves most obviously in the form of pollution, disease and economic stagnation. The most common benefits arising from improvements in infrastructure provision are better health, improved quality of life and time savings (e.g., reduction in the time spent on hauling water), which can be reallocated to other activities; reduced production costs by firms; and other benefits of improved urban operation.

92. Connection rates to all utilities increase substantially with increasing levels of human development, as table 7 shows. In the cities of low developed countries, water is connected to about 37 per cent of urban households, 14 per cent have sewerage facilities, 50 per cent have electricity and 13 per cent have telephones; these are very close to the proportions in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. In the developed countries, however, on average 78 per cent of urban households are connected to telephones and almost all households to other services. This difference reflects the availability of funds: cities in developed countries have 32 times as much money per person to spend on infrastructure as do cities in least developed countries.

93. Water, one of the great necessities of human life, is taken for granted in the developed world. A supply of clean water is vital to life and health, yet many people of the world do not have access to clean water or can only obtain it at high prices. Many cities do not have a constant, potable water supply. Even in cities which are supplied with clean water, households in some informal areas which are not connected to the network can only buy water from vendors at up to 200 times the tap price, so that much of family income is spent on water.

a/ Note that in some countries such as India, all piped water is regarded as clean, whether or not it may be safely drunk.

b/ These results must be treated with caution, as some countries have included both industrial and domestic water.

95. The price of water varies a great deal: in Chad, during the dry season, water costs about $17 per cubic metre. The same amount of water supplied at full user-pays rates in urban France and Germany costs $1.20-$3.60. Water in cities of the Arab States costs $0.53 per cubic metre, while cities of some European transitional countries have very low subsidized rates of $0.001 per cubic metre.

96. Rapid urbanization and industrial development create a variety of problems for the atmosphere, in the hydrological cycle, in land degradation and resource depletion, for waste disposal, and in the vulnerability of the population to disasters. Water resources, both surface and ground, are depleted, costs of new more remote sources and downstream treatment increase rapidly and other costs begin to emerge, such as subsidence, falling ground water levels, salination and flooding risk. Uncontrolled disposal of waste water can cause contamination to adjoining ground, freshwater and seawater resources with health, economic activity and amenity costs. Rapid urbanization also creates a variety of problems of land degradation, e.g., loss of forests, agricultural, wetland, wilderness and other land resources, occupation of hazard-prone lands, etc. Solid waste disposal becomes an increasing problem as less suitable or more remote sites must be found for landfill. All cities must face these problems, and some have been more successful than others.

97. As with networked infrastructure, the effectiveness of environmental management increases rapidly with the level of development, as table 9 shows, with only 14 per cent of urban wastewater treated and only 40 per cent of urban households receiving regular rubbish collection in cities of the group of low HDI countries. In cities of a number of countries there is no wastewater treatment, little regular collection of garbage, and the garbage which is collected is discarded in open dumps around the city. By contrast, in cities of developed countries (which produce twice as much waste per person as least developed countries), 57 per cent of waste is disposed in sanitary landfills, 28 per cent is incinerated and 15 per cent recycled. Cities in a few least developed countries use formal incineration and a number of them recycle significant proportions of urban waste both formally and informally. In Latin America, three quarters of city waste goes to landfills and the rest goes to open dumps, with very little formal recycling.

98. Transportation can play a key role in efficient city development, where the interactions of traffic generation and land-use are carefully integrated. The impact of poor transport planning often leads to some of the most obvious signs of urban dysfunction, such as severe traffic congestion with uncontrolled mixes of traffic types, long journey-to-work times, poorly operating public transport networks, lack of local traffic management, accidents, air and noise pollution, and high costs for the internal movement of goods.

99. The ownership and usage of private vehicles is closely correlated with income, as table 10 shows, with car ownership in cities of developed countries almost 9 times as high as that in cities of the group of low HDI countries, while car usage for the trip to work is more than four times as frequent. Car usage for work, however, also depends on other factors, including the availability of public transport, urban density, the road network, the price of fuel, social customs and employment rewards, etc. The highest rates of use of private vehicles to work are in Des Moines (90 per cent), and in Brest (France), Brunei, Melbourne and Auckland (around 80 per cent), while the lowest are in smaller cities of India and Nepal (less than 2 per cent).

100. In cities of developing countries, buses have become the dominant form of transport, taking 35 per cent of work trips. In Latin America, buses carry 55 per cent of urban workers (compared with 15 per cent in the developed countries). Countries with economies in transition have tended to concentrate on commuter train travel (27 per cent of trips, compared with an 8 per cent average in cities of the developed world), as indeed have many cities with well-developed commuter systems. The highest use of train travel is in Budapest, Tbilisi, Belgrade, Moscow and Bombay (over 60 per cent of trips to work), compared with 39 per cent travelling to work by train in New York and 33 per cent in Paris, the highest train usage of cities in highly industrialized countries in the sample.

101. Local government is a prime focus for urban indicators because:

    (a) Most local governments are multi-purpose units that deliver multiple services, highlighting the need to examine the whole activity of local governments in an enabling framework;

    (b) Sectoral development efforts often fail because of institutional shortcomings, rather than technical problems, and these can be measured by indicators;

    (c) Current trends towards the decentralization of service delivery from central Governments are increasing the need for improved governance at the local level.

102.  Most of the indicators which have been developed thus far for local government focus on financial management, as table 11 shows.

103. Like most financial variables, the absolute quantity of local government income and expenditure varies greatly, with total local government income per person in developed countries being nearly 200 times that of the poorest countries and capital expenditure being 232 times higher. Capital expenditure differs even more: from $4 per person per year in the low HDI countries to $928 in the high HDI countries. The outcomes in terms of quality of service provision are obvious.

104. The actual use and source of local government income does not differ a great deal between income groups or regions. Asian and transitional countries make less use of transfers from higher government levels, depending more on various local taxes. Local governments in countries with economies in transmission and in Africa do very little borrowing, as financial and legal institutions are not well developed and, in any case, they may not be allowed to do so. Local governments in those countries are relatively small with few employees, while local governments are largest in the high income countries.

105. Housing markets have been extensively studied as part of the original UNCHS/World Bank Housing Indicators Programme (1991-1993) which collected indicators in 53 cities, 30 of which are in the present sample. The results of this stage confirm the basic conclusions of the Housing Indicators Programme, namely, that housing and land affordability and supply are affected enormously by the conduct of housing policy, and that those countries which adopt enabling strategies will have much more affordable and larger housing dwellings than countries at a similar development stage or income level which apply heavy restrictions to markets.

106. City averages for the 10 key housing indicators are shown for regions and human development levels in tables 12 and 13. The indicators fall into two groups: those that increase with development and those that do not. Floor area per person, like other forms of consumption, increases rapidly with development, from about 8 sq m per person to an average 28 sq m in the high HDI countries. Housing in compliance with regulations and permanent housing also increases from 48 per cent and 61 per cent respectively in cities of low HDI countries to 96 and 95 per cent in the developed countries (over a third of the world's urban population lives in informal housing, and about a sixth in housing made of temporary materials). Access to mortgages also increases rapidly, from 5 per cent of total debt in cities of the poorest countries to 25 per cent in the cities of developed countries.

107. Other indicators relating to production and affordability of housing are largely independent of development level. It is well-known, for example, that the house price-to-income ratio and the land development multiplier are dependent on restrictions on land and housing markets, taking high values in places where land-use is restricted or markets undeveloped.

108. The transitional countries represent a special case, as urban rents are very low while house prices are very high. Housing to buy is 12 times the average annual household income (almost 30 times in some countries), but rents are less than 5 per cent of income, mainly as a result of policies to protect people for whom housing is a benefit of collective employment from escalating rental prices. Since entering the transitional phase, the production of housing has fallen to much lower levels in most countries with economies in transition, and special measures may be required to deal with this problem, once the effects of restitution policies have diminished.

109. For the UNCHS (Habitat) Urban Indicators Programme, urban indicators data are collected under approximately uniform definitions around the world. It is therefore possible to use a range of statistical techniques to determine correlations between variables, to separate cities into groups or clusters based on region or development level, to investigate hypotheses regarding urban conditions, and to calculate independent factors which may underlie urban outcomes.

110. With further analysis of the global urban indicators database during the 1999–2000 biennium, several indices will be created that will allow ranking of cities' investment potentials, economic viability, social cohesion or exclusion, environmental sustainability and governance. It is envisaged that these indices will then be combined to create a single quality of urban life index.

111. In a globalizing and urbanizing world, it is crucial to invest in the collection of at least a minimum set of urban indicators. With the UNCHS (Habitat) Urban Indicators Programme, cities everywhere are requested to collect universal key urban indicators, some of which may be combined, statistically, into indices. But it is equally necessary to move in the other direction, selecting local contextual urban indicators to ensure that participants in decision-making processes are better informed of issues at the scale of the community. A major objective of the Urban Indicators Programme is, therefore, to build capacity at the local level for this purpose.

112. Urban indicators have a major role to play in the enabling approach and in capacity-building within countries. The outcomes of the Urban Indicators Programme support the UNDP conclusion that, while national wealth will affect the availability of a great number of consumption items, investment in social and physical capital have significant effects on well-being. They also show that differing urban policies have significant effects on housing affordability, transport and urban services. They clearly indicate that "policy matters".

113. Now that most countries have gained familiarity with the system, indicators should be extended as a monitoring and assessment tool to be used in the implementation of national and local action plans, including local Agenda 21s. The Urban Indicators Programme has recently initiated capacity-building activities in which urban indicators form the basis of national monitoring programmes. These activities are designed for the training of officials at national and local levels and to focus attention on important urban issues and the policies which may improve urban conditions. This effort is funded by the World Bank and is supported by the Government of the United Kingdom.

114. The urban indicators system is a cost-effective capacity-building tool with which local authorities and their partners in civil society can assess their performance and develop their urban policies. It also provides valuable baseline data on a range of urban issues which have never before been available, and which are vital for assessing progress on a global scale towards meeting the aims of the Habitat Agenda.

115. Best practices have demonstrated their value on several levels: as a means of building awareness of effective policies and strategies; as a capacity-building and technical cooperation tool; and as models for implementing the recommendations of the Habitat Agenda.

116. By analysing urban indicators data in cities that have demonstrated best practices in implementing the Habitat Agenda, the indicators and best practices systems work together as a potentially effective tool, called benchmarking, for charting a course toward sustainable urban development.

117. From best practices, indicators and the extensive analysis of global trends, impacts and policies, it is possible to construct a list of principal issues about the future of cities by putting together several elements which have emerged thus far. The purpose of such a list is not to convey an impression of omniscience in all matters urban, but to issue a preliminary agenda, or simply a starting point, for consultative dialogue – especially at the national level – leading to plans of action for implementing the Habitat Agenda. The contents of the list may be augmented, revised or otherwise adjusted on the basis of experience, socio-economic context, new research or any other consideration introduced by stakeholders in sustainable urban development.

118. The first issue, namely, how to manage population concentration in cities, remains unresolved. City size will undoubtedly continue to increase in the developing world, and in an unbalanced way, at least until the process of demographic transition facilitated by urbanization reaches equilibrium. The questions which this phenomenon raises are manifold. Which strategies will remedy the lack of affordable and adequate housing and optimize investment in infrastructure? Which instruments will monitor and manage urban growth, acting preventatively and intervening quickly in emergency situations? How will deficits in social services be reduced in the context of decreased public intervention? What are the different models for service provision and for the financing of local government?

119. A second group of issues will derive from the growth of the economic, political and cultural autonomy of cities. The questions that this process raises are various. What needs to be done, in terms of institutional arrangements and legal systems, to enable local authorities to assume increased administrative, economic, fiscal and environmental responsibilities? What modalities of interaction and of alliance should be established at the citizen level between the public sector, private sector and the non-profit sector? How are the financial, legal and constitutional questions surrounding intergovernmental relations to be addressed? How can the effects of a growing inequality between cities be managed, as they compete for transnational financial and economic resources? How can benefit be derived from the cultural and historical patrimony of the city without damaging that patrimony?

120. A third group of issues pertain to the instruments of city governance. The development of enabling approaches to governance has already begun, but only in the medium and long term will it be possible to establish mature and sophisticated forms of participatory governance. Moreover, there are numerous factors that obstruct this evolution: corruption; bureaucratic inertia; lack of strategic vision; lack of political will to manage wasteful production and consumption patterns; inability to plan and manage the urban region; scarcity of instruments to monitor and evaluate public and private service providers; and the lack of capacity of social organizations to take active roles in the management of public affairs.

121. The fourth issue concern new institutions with which cities must be endowed in the future, in order to manage their external relationships. Urban networks, "world cities", and regional cities will be increasingly common in the future. To a growing degree, cities will have a "foreign policy", will be involved in activities of horizontal cooperation and of decentralized co-operation and will establish alliances to avoid finding themselves at the margins of the processes of globalization. Only a few cities seem prepared from the political and institutional point of view to deal adequately with processes of this kind.

122. A fifth group of issues concerns social and economic diversification. Sections of the city assume an individual character, as decentralized forms of government and of delivery of services are being strengthened. Differentiated cultural and ethnic districts are forming. Differences in income and living conditions between social groups are increasing. Here too, a number of questions need to be addressed. Which types of organizations, for example, are the key to activating effective networking? Which processes of negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution are to be put into effect? Which instruments are to be used, in order to obtain information useful for identifying and monitoring potential crisis situations? How can the social and cultural differentiation within the cities contribute to better management of social risk?

123. A sixth issue relates to the evolving relationship between cities and their hinterland. Until recently, cities relied heavily on their rural surroundings, particularly in terms of food supply. With the expansion of the global economy, cities depend more and more on other cities and less and less on their immediate hinterland. The tendency is for a kind of urban archipelago to emerge, whereby most economic flows reflect international and inter-city relations, rather than rural-urban linkages. This new paradigm challenges traditional regional planning approaches. The city of the future will have to maintain positive interactions both with its hinterland, for instance, in terms of water supply and environmental protection, and with distant territories and cities which will be essential to its economic efficiency.

124. The monitoring and assessment of conditions and trends must become a prominent feature of the new landscape of municipal governance. Internally, urban indicators should be employed to gauge conditions of urban life, their relative magnitude and the speed with which they are changing. Best practices and good policies should be identified and more widely disseminated and applied. It is important that cities tap into knowledge networks, in order to become learning organizations, capable of adapting to changing global conditions. Keeping an eye open for success stories is integral to the learning process, as these represent real policy responses to real problems and opportunities. By combining indicators with success stories, municipal governance can be dramatically improved.

125. The role of cities in sustainable development needs to be formally recognized in policy-making and legislation. National sectoral policies can no longer be formulated and adopted as if cities did not exist. The urban twenty-first century will in fact offer a new range of opportunities to address the major social, economic and environmental issues facing humanity. There is an urgent need to reorient international cooperation and investment, to nurture the city as the primary locus of development, as well as the most capable custodian of the environment. The macroscopic dimension of cities requires a general updating of knowledge and a new and useful characterization of urbanization. On the basis of a shared assumption of responsibility, a new wisdom should emerge, where cities everywhere are recognized as vehicles for the betterment of all humanity and are accorded proper respect and concern.

126. Considering the need for systematic monitoring, evaluation and reporting on global urban conditions and trends for the General Assembly special session for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of Habitat II in 2001, the following recommendations are presented to the Commission on Human Settlements for its consideration.

127. First, the Commission on Human Settlements is invited to endorse The State of the World's Cities urban knowledge system, as a mechanism for global reporting on urban conditions and trends and on progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda. The State of the World's Cities: 2001 would become an object of review by the General Assembly in its assessment of the follow-up to Habitat II in the year 2001.

128. Local and national progress reports (state-of-the-city reports) should be designed, produced and disseminated to inform the public and policy makers of urban conditions and trends, of emergent issues and of progress in implementing local and national plans of action, including local and national Agenda 21s. Information from local and national reports should be synthesized at the regional and global levels as the basis for a wider dialogue on social, economic and environmental policies.

129. Second, the Commission on Human Settlements is invited to promote a common vocabulary and classification system for the essential components of sustainable urban development, based on relevant subject headings in recent United Nations global plans of action.

130. Through a consultative process facilitated by UNCHS (Habitat), a standard urban thesaurus, translated into all official United Nations languages, could be established as the mechanism for integrating United Nations conference documents on the subject of urban development, for providing a framework for local and national plans of action and for reporting on progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda.

131. Third, the Commission on Human Settlements is invited to endorse modifications to the urban indicators system, to include methods for the local selection of indicators and the calculation of a minimum set of universal urban indices.

132. Supported by UNCHS (Habitat), the urban indicators system should include the following components: first, approximately 50 universal key indicators (existing), to be collected in all cities; second, a minimum set of urban indices, calculated from the universal indicators, that measure the city's economic vitality, social cohesion, environmental quality, governance and overall quality of life; third, additional indicators selected through consultative processes at the local level. By mid-2000, data for at least the 50 universal key indicators should be collected and adjusted to 1997. UNCHS (Habitat) should make available an array of special tools for this task, matching them to the capacity of each city. All relevant indicators data should be disaggregated by gender.

133. Fourth, the Commission on Human Settlements is invited to support the process of building the capacity of local and national urban observatories, by encouraging Member States to provide resources and support, especially for the operation of regional urban observatories.

134. Linked networks of franchised local, national and regional urban observatories and capacity-building agents will facilitate the learning process and help strengthen monitoring, assessment and urban policy-making functions at all levels. Urban observatories will assist all stakeholders in understanding urban conditions and trends at critical points in the process of formulating policies and programmes of action.
 

2/    Best practices were collected in the course of the best practices initiative for Habitat II in 1996 and, in 1998, in the course of the Dubai International Award for Best Practices.  Most, if not all, were ititiated prior to the adoption of the Habitat Agenda.  The complete database of best practices is available on the internet at http://www.bestpractices.org and on CD-ROM.

3/    A total of 46 indicators in eight modules were adopted in 1995 by the Commission on Human Settlements during the Habitat II preparatory process.  Each module covers major aspects of human settlements activity and contains a core set of key indicators, along with more extensive indicators, which are intended to permit a comprehensive evaluation of particular sectors.  Two related modules have now been combined into one housing module and six indicators have been added, for a total of 51, which now makes it possible to calculate the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) at the city level.  UNCHS (Habitat) is currently working with partners around the world to refine indicators modules on poverty, governance and gender.

4/    Definitions for all indicators may be found in the Urban Indicators Collection Tool on the Global Urban Observatory website: http://www.UrbanObservatory.org; also available on diskette or hardcopy from UNCHS (Habitat) in Nairobi.

5/    As defined by the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) in five groupings of countries.  Different countries have translated their economic capacity into well-being (as expressed by the HDI, which has been constructed as a composite of life expectancy, education and income) in different ways; some with better results than others.  In general, indicators such as access to various forms of social and physical infrastructure and the provision of social services correlate much better to the HDI than they do to income, showing that greater concentration on the provision of infrastructure can have a marked impact on life outcomes.  Grouping for these indicators is done on the basis of the HDI.  Indicators relating directly to consumption or income correlate more highly with gross domestic product (GDP), however, and for those indicators, countries are grouped by GDP.

6/    There is usually a two-three year lag in the delivery of urban data by any central source.  Thus, 1993 was the date selected for adjusting indicators data for Habitat II in 1996; the global urban indicators database is currently being updated with 1996 data.  One of the objectives of building capacity at the local level is to accelerate this turn-around time so that urban information is nearly current.