UNITED  NATIONS	HS
	Commission on  Human Settlements	Distr.  GENERAL  HS/C/17/10  25 January 1999 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

The present report is a joint progress report of the Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) (Habitat) and the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), prepared in accordance with General Assembly resolution 40/199 of 17 December 1985, on cooperation between the Centre and UNEP, and as requested in Commission resolution 10/3 of 16 April 1987 and UNEP Governing Council decision 14/3 of 18 June 1987 on the same subject. The report highlights the cooperation between UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP in the four previously established subject areas (chapter I) and within the system-wide efforts of the United Nations (chapter II), and then outlines the future prospects for cooperation (chapter III).

1. By paragraph 1 of section IV of its resolution 32/162 of 19 December 1977, concerning institutional arrangements for international cooperation in the field of human settlements, the General Assembly urged that the Executive Director of UNCHS (Habitat) and the bureau of the Commission on Human Settlements should meet biannually with the Executive Director of UNEP and the bureau of its Governing Council "to review together their respective priorities and programmes for improving human settlements and to strengthen and extend cooperation between the two organizations". By its resolution 35/77B of 5 December 1980, the General Assembly decided that the joint bureaux meetings should be held once a year rather than on a biannual basis. On 17 December 1985, the General Assembly adopted resolution 40/199, in which it decided to discontinue the joint meetings of the bureaux altogether.

2. The decision of the General Assembly to discontinue the joint meetings was taken on the joint recommendation of the Commission on Human Settlements and the Governing Council of UNEP. The recommendation was based on Commission resolution 8/14 of 8 May 1985 and UNEP Governing Council decision 13/12 of 23 May 1985, in which both governing bodies furthermore expressed satisfaction at the continuing cooperation between the secretariats of UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP, and urged intensification of that cooperation; and decided to include in the agenda of their future sessions an item on cooperation between UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP and to discuss the item on the basis of a common progress report of the two Executive Directors.

3. The present report on cooperation between UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP has been prepared jointly by the secretariats of the two organizations pursuant to General Assembly resolution 40/199 and as requested in Commission resolution 8/14 and UNEP Governing Council decision 13/12.

4. The present chapter contains information on the joint activities of UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP under the four subject areas established by the joint bureaux meeting at its seventh session.

5. The joint UNEP/UNCHS (Habitat) Sustainable Cities Programme has supported the development of so-called "environmental profiles" in cities preparing to become participants in the Programme. Profiles involve a broad range of local stakeholders and provide information not only on the state of the physical environment, but also on its implications for social and economic development and on existing environmental management arrangements. Most recently, such environmental assessments have been concluded in Moscow (Russian Federation), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Zanzibar and Moshi (United Republic of Tanzania), while others have been updated. These include Shenyang and Wuhan (China) and Chennai (India). Environmental profiles are currently also being prepared for three cities in the Philippines and, as part of the national Sustainable Cities Programme replication processes and with only limited support from the Programme's core team, in many secondary cities of Egypt, Nigeria and the United Republic of Tanzania. A preparatory assistance project, prepared for environmental planning and management support to Gaza municipality, has been submitted to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for funding. One of the main activities of the project is to prepare a Gaza city environmental profile.

6. The UNEP Global Resource Information Database (GRID) in Arendal, Norway, is cooperating with the Sustainable Cities Programme in the project to place cities' state-of-the-environment reports on the internet, a project that was launched in 1996 through a jointly organized and funded workshop in Arendal. Initial joint feasibility studies for city environmental assessments were undertaken in Durban, South Africa, and Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania. The internet project was introduced to the Urban Environment Forum at its meeting in 1997 in Shanghai, China. In 1998, the project agreement on the joint Sustainable Moscow Project included preparation of the state-of-the-environment report for Moscow on the internet. A first version of this interactive electronic report was officially launched in Moscow during the European Urban Environment Forum meeting in June 1998.

7. As a follow-up to the Strategic Action Plan for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, developed under the auspices of the joint UNEP/UNCHS (Habitat) Task Force on the Continuum from Relief to Development, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP participated in the meeting of the Rehabilitation and Development Committee for the Great Lakes Region, organized by UNDP to support coordination among agency activities.

8. Cooperation between UNEP and UNCHS (Habitat) in environmental aspects of policies, planning and management of human settlements entered a new era in 1996 when the two agencies formally established a full partnership in the Sustainable Cities Programme, as recommended by Governing Council decision 18/15, of 26 May 1995, and resolution 15/8 of the Commission on Human Settlements, of 1 May 1995.

9. From its initial function to package and apply the specialized know-how available from UNEP and UNCHS (Habitat), the Sustainable Cities Programme has evolved into the primary tool of UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP for supporting Agenda 21 at the city level and for implementing the environment dimension of the Habitat Agenda. The Programme, working with more than 20 agency partners worldwide, is an important tool for promoting system-wide collaboration in urban environmental management at city, country, regional and global levels. It continued to gain momentum during 1997 and 1998 and is supporting city demonstrations in an increasing number of countries. Support to these city demonstrations has improved dramatically since UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP agreed to share equally the cost of an expanded Sustainable Cities Programme core team.

10. The overall volume of Sustainable Cities Programme activities doubled during the biennium, with major gains especially in Asia. Global and regional activities undertaken during the biennium include annual meetings of all Sustainable Cities Programme and associated cities (Shenyang in 1997 and Moscow in 1998), a package of communication and awareness-building activities and the preparation of environmental planning and management tools, as well as global and regional meetings of the Urban Environment Forum (Shanghai in 1997, Moscow in 1998 and Ismailia in 1998).

11. The increase in Sustainable Cities Programme activities has provided more opportunities for the two organizations to work together and to realize the valuable complementarities of their scientific, technical and financial resources. Such cooperation has taken place in the areas of environmentally sustainable technologies, water and coastal management, environmental health, geographic information systems (GIS) and the management of industrial risk. The UNEP Regional Office for Europe in Geneva and the UNEP Information and Public Affairs Branch worked closely with the Sustainable Cities Programme in Moscow. Training workshops and consultative services have been supported by the Industry and Environment Office in Paris through its awareness and preparedness for emergencies at the local level (APELL) programme and by the International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) in Osaka, Japan.

12. A conference on managing water resources for large cities and towns, organized by UNCHS (Habitat) with the support of UNEP and other organizations, was held in Beijing in March 1996. In 1997, Habitat organised in Cape Town an international consultation on partnership in the water sector for cities in Africa, resulting in the Cape Town Declaration, which is a plan of action by African countries to provide adequate access to drinking water and sanitation to populations living in poverty within the region. With a view to operationalizing the Cape Town Declaration, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP have now embarked on a joint regional initiative within the framework of the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative for Africa. The initiative, which has been funded by the United Nations Fund for International Partnership (UNFIP) since the end of 1998, seeks to strengthen the capacity of African countries for integrated urban water management at city and river-basin level.

13. IETC continued to cooperate with the Sustainable Cities Programme by supporting capacity-building activities, particularly in the area of transfer of environmentally sound technologies, environmental risk assessment and environmental technology assessment. IETC organized two workshops on environmental technology assessment in Wuhan, China, and on environmental risk assessment in Shenyang, China, which were held back-to-back in May and June 1997.

14. The joint Sustainable Cities Programme continued its work on several programme-level support activities for the Sustainable Cities Programme city network. All these activities respond to priority needs identified at the city level and make use of lessons learnt from operational experience.

15. There are three streams of products which, upon completion, are being put to immediate use in the cities. The first stream addresses the city demonstration process. Based on a synthesis of global experiences, guidance for each step is provided in a volume of the Sustainable Cities Programme sourcebook series, covering such steps in the process as city profile, city consultation, working groups, strategy negotiation and institutionalization. The second stream addresses specific themes, such as remote sensing and GIS, air quality management, risk assessment, environmental health, information sharing on the internet, indicators to measure progress, and gender-responsive environmental management. The third stream addresses training requirements for strengthening city officials and stakeholders in their respective roles. Training modules are being built using the products of the first two streams. This will leverage the expertise and know-how available, reduce the need for backstopping and apply the lessons of operational experience to build capacities at the local level. In addition, through the Sustainable Cities Programme, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP are providing an information service which systematically collates and disseminates urban environmental management know-how through publications, videos, exhibitions and web-sites.

16. UNCHS (Habitat) also contributed to the UNEP global training programme in environmental law and policy, held in Nairobi in October 1997, including through the following inputs: first, addresses during the opening and closing of the Programme; second, presentations on the Sustainable Cities Programme, urban planning and urban reform, legal issues in housing and the Global Forum of Parliamentarians; third, a survey on land issues; and, fourth, support to a field trip that explored human settlement and environmental issues. The level of UNEP-UNCHS (Habitat) cooperation during this programme was much higher than in similar programmes held in 1993 and 1995, and this both benefited the participants and established an even stronger basis for future collaboration of a similar nature.

17. This chapter contains information on cooperation between UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP in a number of United Nations system-wide efforts directly relevant to the work and activities of both organizations. This information is given for reference purposes only. Details on the actual state and implications in any of these system-wide efforts for future cooperation between UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP may be found elsewhere in the documentation for the Commission on Human Settlements and the Governing Council of UNEP.

18. UNEP and UNCHS are collaborating in the framework of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) Subcommittee on Water Resources, particularly with regard to the comprehensive United Nations interagency assessment of the state of global freshwater resources, requested by the Commission on Sustainable Development.

19. Another notable example of UNEP and UNCHS (Habitat) cooperation is the Urban Environment Forum, with its secretariat in the joint Sustainable Cities Programme. Establishment of the Forum followed on the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Committee on Sustainable Development (IACSD) at its third session in March 1994, which was later endorsed by the Commission on Sustainable Development as a mechanism for cross-sectoral collaborative programming in sustainable urban development.

20. The Urban Environment Forum is a global network which joins cities, and their partners in international support programmes in their common commitment to improving social and economic conditions in cities through better urban environmental planning and management. From the special meeting held in association with Habitat II in 1996 came the Istanbul Manifesto, which established the Urban Environment Forum. A large and successful meeting was held in the following year in Shanghai, mandating a variety of regional follow-up meetings which were held in 1998. These include the European Urban Environment Forum meeting in Moscow in 1998, attended by some 500 European and other delegates and dealing with issues of improving environmental information, broadening the decision-making process, using legal instruments, involving the private sector, promoting transparency and supporting change through information campaigns. A regional Urban Environment Forum meeting for the Arab States was also held in Ismailia in May 1998. In 1999, a second large-scale, global meeting will be convened.

21. Between the meetings, the secretariat of the Urban Environment Forum maintains communication, as well as linking and supporting other activities of the Forum's members, including the steady accumulation of case-study information, which is being used in updating the Environmental Planning and Management Source Book. Volume 3 of the sourcebook contains a directory of Forum members as of early 1997, although the membership has since expanded significantly, to include some 300 cities and 50 international support programmes originating from multilateral and bilateral organizations, international non-governmental organizations and associations of local governments.

22. The positive experience of UNEP-UNCHS (Habitat) collaboration in the Sustainable Cities Programme has demonstrated the important complementarities between the specialized scientific expertise of UNEP and the technical cooperation experience of UNCHS (Habitat) in support of local sustainable development. In the future, UNEP, as a specialized organization, and UNCHS (Habitat), as an implementing agency, can be expected to take even further advantage of their complementarities. They might expand their cooperation to issues beyond the urban environment, addressing broader environmental topics, such as watershed management with related development concerns for water resources, forestry and flooding (e.g., the planned joint UNEP-UNCHS (Habitat) task force on flood response).

23. Thanks to the catalytic potential of the joint UNCHS (Habitat)/UNEP Sustainable Cities Programme to bring together other urban programmes of international organizations and cities in implementing the urban environment agenda, a major breakthrough has been achieved in ensuring the more effective integration and coordination of the activities of the United Nations system with those of local communities and local authorities. At the current time, through their cooperation in the Sustainable Cities Programme and the Urban Environment Forum, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP are jointly managing global networks which link not only cities and international programmes, but also other networks from local to global levels and across geographical regions. Through this joint work, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP exemplify a new United Nations development cooperation paradigm, that emphasizes the advancement of collective know-how rather than the provision of ready solutions. It is in such efforts that the United Nations excels, and where UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP have a unique comparative advantage for linking local operational experiences with global normative work.

24. Representing an important landmark in progress towards global partnership in urban environmental management, the Urban Environment Forum is an initiative in which UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP play a facilitating and catalytic role in mobilizing an ever-widening range of actors and participants, helping to focus collective energy and know-how with a view to ensuring tangible improvements in the living environment. In the years to come, UNCHS (Habitat) and UNEP will expand their joint efforts in this endeavour.