UNITED  NATIONS	HS
	Commission on  Human Settlements	Distr.  GENERAL  HS/C/17/6  1 December 1998  ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

    In order to prepare this report, UNCHS (Habitat) asked all countries and a selected list of multilateral organizations, international associations of local authorities and international non-governmental organizations to provide updated information on the theme on the basis of a questionnaire. This contribution can be seen as a first step in the process to be carried out by the General Assembly for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of Habitat II, which will take place in the year 2001.

    The introduction to this report recalls the main elements of the Habitat Agenda regarding international cooperation, particularly the sections on "International cooperation and coordination" and "Implementation and follow-up of the Habitat Agenda". The first part of this report focuses on international cooperation to implement the Habitat Agenda at the national and local levels through the strengthening or development of plans of action. In part II, the focus turns to international cooperation in monitoring the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. Part III examines international cooperation for strengthening participation by partner groups in the implementation of the Agenda, including local authorities, parliamentarians, non-governmental and community-based organizations and the private sector. Part IV is devoted to activities by the United Nations system and other development agencies which support the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. The final part of this report contains a set of issues for discussion.

The Commission is invited to deliberate on future actions to be taken at the international level and by the international community. These actions should promote the implementation of the Habitat Agenda at national and local levels through international cooperation.

INTRODUCTION

1. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO IMPLEMENT THE HABITAT AGENDA AT THE NATIONAL AND LOCAL LEVELS
2. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR MONITORING PROGRESS IN IMPLEMENTING THE HABITAT AGENDA
3. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR STRENGTHENING KEY STAKEHOLDERS' PARTICIPATION IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HABITAT AGENDA
4. ACTIVITIES BY THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM AND OTHER DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
5. POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION

1. This report is submitted in pursuance of Commission decision 16/31 to include in the agenda of its seventeenth session the theme "International cooperation for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda". In order to prepare this report, Habitat asked all countries and a number of multilateral organizations, international associations of local authorities and non-governmental organizations to provide updated information on the theme through a questionnaire. This contribution can be seen as a first step in the process to be carried out by the General Assembly in 2001 for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of Habitat II.

2. Fulfilment of the goals of the Habitat Agenda is primarily the responsibility of each country at all levels, but the overall decline in development assistance is a serious cause of concern in developing countries facing continued deterioration (Habitat Agenda, para. 195). All multilateral and bilateral development agencies were invited in Istanbul to establish and/or strengthen mechanisms to integrate commitments and actions concerning adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements development into their policies (para. 211 (a)).

3. Recent globalization trends challenge the existing processes and structures of international cooperation and underline the need to evolve new and innovative forms of cooperation (para. 197). This implies strengthening complementary forms of decentralized cooperation to improve civil society organizations and relations between and among local authorities, and enhancing their participation in international cooperation (para. 198). The Habitat Agenda invites international development institutions to support countries in their efforts to set up enabling strategies and frameworks through which all stakeholders can form partnerships (para. 204 (f)), and to establish and strengthen direct partnerships with international associations of local authorities, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations.

4. Mechanisms and instruments should be set up to promote the ability of local authorities and the private and community sectors to access financial markets (para. 202 (d)). The Agenda also reiterated a recommendation that developed and developing country partners should allocate 20 per cent of official development assistance and 20 per cent of the national budget, respectively, to basic social programmes (para. 204 (y) and (dd)).

5. International organizations have an important role to play in disseminating and facilitating access to information on technologies, knowledge and experience on institutional, legal and regulatory frameworks and disseminating best practices (paras. 205 and 206 (c)).

6. The principal guides for implementing the Habitat Agenda are the national plans of action which were prepared by 127 countries for the Habitat II Conference. Most of these five-year plans of action were developed through broad-based consultative processes involving various stakeholders. The Habitat Agenda calls for the mobilization of donor support for the implementation of national and local plans of action in developing countries, especially African and least developed countries. Although the Habitat Agenda monitoring process is still in its initial stages, there are signs of commitments and assistance from the international community to support the implementation of the Agenda at the national and local levels.

7. Despite insufficient funds to undertake specific missions and actions to support the implementation of the Habitat Agenda at the national and local levels, most Habitat missions related to technical cooperation in developing countries include reviews of progress made in the implementation of national plans of action. In this respect, Habitat has issued guidelines for the United Nations Resident Coordinator System on the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. All Habitat programmes and projects are now being designed in keeping with the goals and principles of the Habitat Agenda.

8. In the spirit of the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative for Africa, Habitat has prepared the Habitat Special Programme for Africa (HSPA), which has been extensively discussed with African Governments and other partners. Most development agencies have not yet been able to support the HSPA financially. Habitat and UNEP have also launched a joint initiative entitled "Managing water for African cities" as a follow-up to the Cape Town Declaration adopted in 1997 by African Ministers responsible for water affairs.

9. In Latin America, Colombia reports international cooperation activities with various organizations, including Habitat. In Asia, India is closely working with Habitat and other partners to implement the Habitat Agenda, in particular with new forms of cooperation involving various actors. India looks forward to further cooperation. India also proposes various advisory inputs to developing countries, including training activities. The Philippines has instituted implementing mechanisms for the National Plan of Action and seeks the support of the international community in key priority areas, calling for strengthening of the monitoring role of Habitat in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. In Africa, Benin and the United Republic of Tanzania report various activities in the field of international cooperation and are looking forward to additional support. South Africa is setting up a format for international reporting on the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

10. Despite commitments made in Istanbul and promising activities, the interest of the international community in supporting the implementation of the Habitat Agenda at the national and local levels in developing countries remains low. The inability of many developing countries to present coordinated commitments, strategies and updated action plans could explain such poor interest, as well as the lack of active and efficient institutional arrangements at the national level to monitor implementation and progress made. Few countries have maintained such machinery since Habitat II, despite the General Assembly's appeal in resolution 51/177 of 16 December 1996, which has been relayed by Habitat to all Governments. Among developing countries, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda in Africa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Peru in Latin America, and India, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Philippines in Asia have reported on such institutional arrangements.

11. As instructed by the Commission on Human Settlements, Habitat has established a Global Urban Observatory in charge of coordinating the global monitoring and assessment of progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda. The Global Urban Observatory brings together the Best Practices and Urban Indicators Programmes and is dedicated to involving all partners in promoting more effective policies and strategies through better-informed decision-making processes. Guides on best practices and urban indicators have also been issued, as well as an overview paper on "Monitoring progress in implementing the Habitat Agenda". A State of the World's Cities report is also available; a summary is being presented to the Commission on Human Settlements.

12. According to a survey conducted by the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) on the follow-up to the Habitat II Conference, one of the priorities identified by countries in transition is regional integration through the systematic sharing of experience. Notwithstanding this demand, most member countries do not yet generally study or systematically document best practices, although the usefulness of positive case examples provided with relevant background data is generally recognized. Spain has supported the translation of the Best Practices International Database into Spanish. International meetings in this area included the Ibero-American and Caribbean Forum on Best Practices and the 1998 Dubai International Award for Best Practices. The use of best practices should be further developed to bring the best cases more frequently into the public debate with timely reviews and documentation, and a workable arrangement should be devised among international institutions preparing other databases.

13. While all countries agree that indicators are a useful instrument for monitoring human settlements and housing development, one of the main challenges is to coordinate the many efforts in this field at the national, regional and worldwide levels. Several countries have not been able to use Habitat indicators fully because they do not have the corresponding data as a result of a lack of resources and expertise.

14. Ten distinct groups of partners made commitments to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda in Istanbul : local authorities, non-governmental and community-based organizations, the private sector, women, youth, trade unions, foundations, national academies of science and engineering, professionals and parliamentarians. Working closely with the rest of the United Nations system and partners in civil society, Habitat has issued a series of guides for implementing the Habitat Agenda addressed to such groups as National Committees, civil society organizations, local authorities, the private sector and parliamentarians. 1/

15. Many international development programmes addressing human settlements issues contain strong components involving the building of partnerships at the local level and capacity-building activities tailored to local partners, in particular for local authorities and non-governmental and community-based organizations. These principles are implemented in all major global and interregional Habitat programmes, as well as in operational activities run with funding partners in various developing countries. Habitat has performed its role of catalyst/facilitator in the continuous involvement of partners in the Habitat Agenda implementation process by supporting specific follow-up activities and enlisting new partners. Examples are given below.

16. Decentralization appears as a strong trend in post-Habitat II work. Local authorities have institutionalized their consultative mechanisms into a coordinating body, the World Associations of Cities and Local Authorities Coordination (WACLAC). WACLAC and Habitat have signed a memorandum of understanding on urban indicators, best practices and the preparation of a World Charter of Local Self-Government. This last initiative was launched in April 1998 under the leadership of the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), with a proposed draft of basic principles and an institutional/legal framework for local government systems. This draft, which is being discussed through extensive consultations among associations of local authorities and with national governments and other interested partner groups, will be available for consideration at the seventeenth session of the Commission. IULA has undertaken various initiatives under the umbrella of its Task Force on Women in Local Government and the Platform for Capacity and Institution Building. Germany will host the "Urban 21" world cities congress in the year 2000 in Berlin. The city of Turin, in partnership with Habitat, organized an international conference entitled "New partnership for action" focused on local plans of action based on the partnership concept.

17. The Global Parliamentarians on Habitat held a series of post-Habitat II regional meetings and a global forum in Cancún, Mexico, in 1998. They have committed themselves to efforts to analyse national legislation and public policy related to human settlements development, to highlight effective policies, and to encourage policy and legislative reforms that conform to the Habitat Agenda.

18. A memorandum of understanding has been signed and a three-year work proposal agreed upon between Habitat and a coalition of women's organization dealing with women and human settlements issues. The African NGO Habitat II Caucus (Africaucus) is engaged in various activities to ensure a large commitment to the implementation of national plans of action in African countries, to reinforce participation of civil society organizations in national and local post-Habitat II processes, to build more extensive collaboration with African networks of researchers and to reinforce networking and advocacy activities.

19. Through Habitat, the Ford Foundation supports research activities and consultations in East Africa addressing poverty reduction and the management of municipal services. The non-governmental organization Forum of Researchers on Human Settlements has also been active, with an international conference held in July 1998 in Geneva at which a global agenda for policy-oriented research was adopted to help implement the Habitat Agenda. The International Federation of Surveyors and Habitat have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a partnership for implementing the land-related and construction-related recommendations contained in the Habitat Agenda. The International Construction Institute, an international organization dedicated to assisting construction workers, is mobilizing funding for a project that pursues several Habitat Agenda objectives, including the involvement of trade unions in the Habitat II follow-up process.

20. Privatization of urban services represents a strong opportunity to mobilize funds for urban development and to improve access to basic services. Privatization strategies should be adequately combined with (a) extended programmes to reinforce the capacities of local authorities in negotiating partnerships and managing contracts and (b) transparent subsidies, if necessary, and partnerships with the community sector to ensure affordable access for the poor. Several programmes conducted by Habitat and partners at the city level include such integrated strategies. The private sector also plays a key role in the provision of housing, in particular in urban areas. In many countries, legal, financial and regulatory frameworks still hamper the investment of private funds in the housing sector. These questions are regularly raised by local stakeholders during city consultations but are often difficult to address at the local level. The United Nations system should address these issues more systematically at the national level.

21. The Habitat II Conference represented a milestone in the partnership process to address human settlements issues. This achievement resulted from a large international impulse and follow-up from various international partners, including the secretariat of the Conference. Since that time, no systematic strategies have been developed to support further development of this partnership process, in particular in developing countries, despite some interesting but limited actions most of which address the global or regional levels. Apart from supporting operational programmes with limited impact, international cooperation functions on a very small scale to promote a national and local partnership approach to address the needs of urban citizens in developing countries, in particular those of the urban poor. Again, this could be improved by establishing or strengthening, as appropriate, participatory mechanisms for the implementation, assessment and review of and follow-up to the Habitat Agenda and national plans of action, as requested by the General Assembly in resolution 51/177. Habitat, owing to a lack of resources, has been unable to stimulate, catalyse and monitor this process at the same level as was successfully done during the preparatory phase of Habitat II.

22. Commitments to implement the Habitat Agenda have been made by many organizations of the United Nations system and a large number of financial institutions and cooperation agencies. Various activities in this area have been brought to the attention of the secretariat. 2/

United Nations system

23. In its Urban Development Cooperation programme the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) focuses on urban poverty, urban environment, urban governance and capacity-building in municipal administrations. Five per cent of all UNDP projects are related to urban development and specifically address the particularities of the urban world. UNDP funds and monitors a series of programmes and projects executed by Habitat at the global, regional, national and local levels. In 1997, approximately 350 United Nations Volunteers supported community targeting programmes in human settlements. More than two thirds (68 per cent) of United Nations Volunteers are nationals of developing countries.

24. The main achievements of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) include activities addressing the debt issue and private sector development, the promotion of civil society, the advancement of women, best practices and indicators on sustainable development. In addition to the important survey mentioned above, ECE has developed activities focusing on priority issues for countries in transition, including privatization, housing reform, land administration, urban renewal and sustainable human settlements development. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has been active in strengthening management capacities of local governments, supporting various expert and high-level meetings on housing and urban development. ECLAC plans to initiate a regional project on urban management in cities of medium size.

25. The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, launched the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative before Istanbul and a basic focus is now to integrate post-Habitat II tools and documents into the mainstream of UNICEF's work. In addition to cooperation activities in over 160 countries, UNICEF achievements related to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda include publications, research and international workshops. Programmes that UNICEF supports are being documented to share this experience more extensively and build on the broad level of experience over the past 30 years.

26. The World Health Organization, WHO, conducts the Healthy Cities Programme with over 1,000 cities participating around the world. City health plans are developed as a framework for establishing a linkage between living conditions and health, and include integrated environmental management and community-based partnerships. Partnerships are built with various multilateral and bilateral development agencies, including Habitat. Extended networking activities take place at the global, regional, national and local level.

27. In order to reinforce and consolidate technical cooperation activities, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is currently developing a global "Urban Employment Programme: Better jobs for the informal economy". The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, is developing various research projects related to the follow-up to Habitat II, including capacity-building and training projects addressing the needs of national and local authorities. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is working on the legal status of housing rights with a view to defining the obligations of the State and the international community. Preventing forced evictions, eliminating gender discrimination in housing and developing indicators and benchmarks are at the top of OHCHR's agenda. The priorities of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) relating to human settlements concentrate on waste treatment and management, efficient energy development and water treatment, and information resources on environmental parameters. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expresses its concern regarding access to land and the balanced development of settlements in rural areas. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs undertakes technical cooperation in the areas of freshwater, energy and transport, and sustainable development strategies. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports on activities of its Regional Office for Europe (ROE) related to environmentally sound urban technologies and local implementation of Agenda 21.

Financial institutions

28. Major World Bank achievements from 1996 to date in the urban sector lie in four areas : first, delivery of sustainable services to the urban poor, with the setting up of the Thematic Group on Services Delivery to the Urban Poor, operational projects, workshops and conferences, partnerships and initiatives, including a joint three-year programme with Habitat to scale up urban upgrading projects to a national level and draw up city development strategies; second, urban environmental sustainability; third, private involvement in the financing of urban services; and fourth, an urban strategy, developed in 1998, which emphasizes the need to apply to urban economies and local governments the same analysis, advice and strategies it applies to national economies and central governments. The World Bank's Urban Partnership Group was created in 1997 to work with public and private sector actors to define the urban agenda and address critical urban problems. Its major initiative focuses on building internal and external partnerships, including the above-mentioned joint World Bank/Habitat initiative which directly links the two principal goals of the Habitat Agenda with the Bank's new urban strategy. The Urban Partnership Programme will propose a series of multisectoral city analyses, while the Urban Management Programme executed by Habitat has been invited to discuss the possibility of combining its city consultation approach with that proposed by the World Bank in selected cities, with an initial emphasis on African cities. Another important World Bank initiative is the global campaign to ensure that 100 million of the world's poorest families, and especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the year 2005. Successful microcredit programmes still mainly concern rural areas, and an effort should be made to further integrate the concept into urban programmes. Other relevant World Bank initiatives include development of social funds, social safety nets and decentralization.

Bilateral cooperation agencies

29. Denmark is committed to allocate 1 per cent of GNP to international development co-operation, with an extra half a per cent earmarked for emergency and environmental assistance. Sixty per cent of Danish bilateral development assistance is intended to be directed to African countries and a minimum of 20 per cent to basic social programmes. Promotion of the private sector, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations, mobilization of national and local resources for the poor and environmentally sound technologies are among Danish priorities.

30. Recent evaluations and a desire to comply with the Habitat Agenda have led to a reform of France's urban development aid policy and institutional arrangements to foster partnership links with recipient countries and promote the involvement of various actors, including local authorities and non-governmental organizations. Poverty reduction and social aspects of development, promotion of the private sector, urban services, decentralization policies, local management capacities, building local partnerships and mobilization of domestic resources are among French priorities. France also assists selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean in implementing recommendations of the Habitat II Conference at the local level in medium-sized cities.

31. About 6 per cent of German bilateral official development assistance is allocated to human-settlements-related issues, within three main areas: poverty alleviation, protection of natural resources, and education and training. Japan's official development assistance places importance on preserving the urban environment through waste treatment and sanitation projects, formulation of countermeasures against water and air pollution, and developing road and rail solutions to traffic problems. In the United Kingdom, the Department for International Development has analysed its urban development cooperation activities in a report entitled "Practical measures for implementing the Habitat Agenda in the twenty-first century". The United Kingdom also contributes to the Urban Indicators Programme by collecting locally specific indicators, including through the use of local and community-based methods. The ECE survey reveals that a number of countries including Canada, Finland, Spain and Switzerland emphasize their efforts to introduce human settlements concerns more strongly into their international development assistance priorities. Major contributions from other countries to local and national implementation of the Habitat Agenda are made bilaterally and through Habitat programmes, in particular by Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.

32. Many development organizations wish to assist local governments and local partners directly, but major obstacles remain as international cooperation and relationships fall under national governments' prerogatives. Innovative procedures have been elaborated in many countries, jointly by donors and recipients, to channel development assistance directly through civil society organizations and local governments. Such initiatives should be encouraged, taking into account national situations and specificities, as well as the need to strengthen national institutional capacities required for coordinating development policies.

33. Cooperation and coordination activities among bilateral and multilateral development organizations on human settlements issues are mainly initiated and developed at the global or regional levels. Often based on a top-down approach starting with protocols concluded between headquarters, they rarely irrigate local practices. Unless such coordination or cooperation agreements are imposed and organized by recipient countries and cities, the impact of global and regional protocols on field strategies, approaches and programmes remains low, and finally hardly benefits the poor, who should be the ultimate target of international cooperation. The capacities and resources of recipient countries and cities to coordinate international development assistance for human settlements issues should be strengthened. A coordinated demonstration approach in the field could be initiated in selected developing countries and cities where strong political will exists and where human settlements field programmes from different partners are already ongoing or being negotiated. This would require an extended evaluation of the complementarities of the programmes and capacities of cooperation agencies, the strengthening of the resources and capacities of the national or local coordinating bodies and strong support from the headquarters of the partners involved.

34. After the boost resulting from the Habitat II Conference and its preparatory activities in 1995-1996, very limited resources were mobilized to promote the human settlements issue and stimulate and monitor international cooperation initiatives for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, with the result that this issue slipped backwards on the international cooperation agenda. A sign of this regression is the limited number of replies received to the questionnaire drawn up to help in preparation of the present document, in particular from developing countries. ECE also experienced difficulties in getting replies from member States for its above-mentioned survey. As a result, the share of human-settlements-related programmes and projects is not progressing and rarely exceeds 5 per cent of official development assistance to developing countries and countries in transition, despite the major influence of urban areas on national development and the rapid growth of urban poverty. The so-called 20/20 rule remains an objective rarely achieved at the international, national and local levels. The Commission may wish to consider reviving Habitat's monitoring mandate in order to follow up on the evolution of international assistance to the human settlements sector.

35. In particular, the Commission may wish to recommend to Governments and development agencies, including those within the United Nations system, that they should mobilize adequate resources for promoting and stimulating the establishment and reinforcement, where appropriate, of participatory mechanisms, at national and local levels, for the implementation, assessment, review, operationalization and follow-up of the Habitat Agenda and national plans of action. Guidelines issued on the implementation of the Habitat Agenda should be complemented by dynamic advocacy activities. The success of the preparatory phase of the Conference required limited but key resources to energize and encourage local and national initiatives. These institutional mechanisms will also strongly contribute to placing the Habitat Agenda on the priority agenda of national and local governments and civil society organizations, bringing human settlements issues to the attention of international cooperation providers and coordinating international cooperation at operational levels.

36. In this respect, the Commission may also wish to appeal for the extensive mobilization of partners in supporting the global campaigns for secure tenure and urban governance that Habitat is launching. These campaigns will help to raise Habitat's profile as the global agency for cities and consolidate the reorientation of its focus in line with a strategic vision addressing the quality of life, improvements in the manner and style of urban governance and the reduction of urban poverty at the local level.

37. In the same spirit, the Commission may wish to reaffirm the important role of Habitat in implementing operational activities and recommend the development of systematic coordinated approaches for operational activities of international agencies at the national and local levels, to be tested in selected countries, including assessment of complementarities and capacities, reinforcement of coordinating capacities and strategic commitments from headquarters. This should aim at developing integrated approaches to implement urban poverty reduction strategies at the local and national levels.

38. The usefulness of regional meetings involving different stakeholders in raising interest in human settlements issues during the Habitat II preparatory process has been recognized. The Commission may wish to recommend a new series of regional and subregional forums to exchange experience on implementing mechanisms and progress related to the Habitat Agenda, to raise the awareness of national governments and all stakeholders and to discuss regional cooperation strategies. In developing regions, assistance from the international community will be necessary to create these regional consultative mechanisms by adding the human settlement issue to the agenda of existing forums or enlarging specialized existing ones, such as Conferences of Ministers, to other stakeholders. In this respect, the Commission may wish to appeal for international support to the Habitat Special Programme for Africa, which represents an integrated regional approach for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

39. There is still a need for increased international cooperation in human settlements, which account for a very small share of official development assistance. The adoption of the Habitat Agenda in June 1996 has not been followed by the expected increase in international assistance to urban development. The Commission may wish to define an agenda for a comprehensive discussion of this issue at the special session which the General Assembly will hold in the year 2001 to conduct an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of Habitat II.

    2/    In view of its coordinating role in the implementation of the Habitat Aganda and in catalysing international cooperation, the activities, programmes and strategies of Habitat are mentioned throughout the document and ot under this particular chapter.