UNITED NATIONS	HS
	Commission on Human Settlements	Distr. LIMITED HS/C/17/L.22 13 May 1999 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

The Commission on Human Settlements,

Recalling the commitment by member States to implement the Habitat Agenda 1/ through local, national, subregional and regional plans of action and/or other policies and programmes drafted and executed in cooperation with interested parties at all levels;

Recalling also the recommendations from the "City Summit" in Istanbul 2/ that all partners of the Habitat Agenda, including local authorities, the private sector and communities, should regularly monitor and evaluate their own performances in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda through comparable human settlements and shelter indicators and documented best practices;

Recalling further that such indicators and information on best practices, which should be available and accessible to all, will be provided to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), taking into account the need for reporting procedures to reflect diversity in regional, national, subnational and local characteristics and priorities;

Recognizing that the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) is responsible for establishing an appropriate global process for analysing and monitoring major trends in urbanization and the impact of policies on urban and rural settlements, for tracking progress in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and for continuing its publications programme, including, inter alia, publication of the Global Report on Human Settlements;

Appreciating that, in pursuit of Commission resolutions, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) has established a Global Urban Observatory that will permit comparative international evaluation and implementation of a global programme for the collection, analysis and dissemination of universal key urban indicators and best practices,

Supporting the Global Urban Observatory strategy of networking with urban observatories at all levels to facilitate information dissemination and policy-making functions,

Convinced of the need to take full advantage of modern information and communication technology for building capacity to monitor and evaluate urban development in a globalizing world,

1. Calls upon the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) to continue, in cooperation with capacity-building partners, the implementation of an Internet-based urban information and knowledge system to strengthen the ability of Governments, local authorities and key partners to gain access to and make use of information to monitor and assess urban conditions and trends and to formulate effective urban policies;

2. Requests the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) to synthesize information and knowledge from this global urban information and knowledge system in a summary report called The State of the World's Cities prior to each of the Commission's biennial sessions and to produce, in cooperation with key stakeholders, a comprehensive report on the state of the world's cities, accompanied by appropriate policy recommendations, for the year 2001 review, by the United Nations General Assembly, of progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda;

3 . Also requests the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) to facilitate a global consultative process, in coordination with appropriate United Nations agencies, representatives of key stakeholders in sustainable urban development and technical experts, in order to establish universal urban information standards and protocols and to produce an urban classification system, incorporating key words and concepts from the Habitat Agenda and from other recent United Nations global plans and platforms of action;

4. Invites the Executive Director, in view of the special session of the General Assembly on the review and appraisal of the Habitat Agenda, to consider the consolidation of the report: The State of the World's Cities:  2001 with the third edition of the Global Report on Human Settlements;

5. Also invites the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), through appropriate consultative processes: to improve the list of universal urban indicators by adding appropriate key indicators on poverty, environment, gender equality and governance and, where necessary, minimum sets of region-specific indicators; to test and disseminate tools and methods for the local selection and analysis of indicators and other relevant information; and to develop a set of comparable urban indices;

6. Further invites the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) to expand the identification, analysis and dissemination of best practices to include, specifically, urban policies, plans of action and legislation and environmental best practices (the latter in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme and its partner groups);

7. Urges Governments to support, as appropriate, regional, national and local urban observatories, networks and capacity-building institutions.

2/    Report of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat), Istanbul, 3-14 June 1996, (A/CONF.165/14).
 
 

-----