In many developing countries young people constitute over 70 per cent of the urban population and studies have confirmed that the urban youth is disproportionately affected by major urban problems such as crime, insecurity and drug abuse, both as victims and perpetrators.
The UN-Habitat Water and Sanitation Trust Fund (WSTF) was created as a pilot testing and demonstration programme identifying innovations in the water and sanitation sector, testing and demonstrating their viability in real life situations, and disseminating models with potentials for broader replication.
The Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF) was established in 2004 by UN-Habitat, with the purpose of developing innovative approaches to help mobilize financing for the urban poor. This was in accordance with UN-Habitat resolution 19/11 of 2003, which requested UN-Habitat to field test approaches through pilot projects to increase the supply of affordable credit for slum upgrading and other pro-poor human settlements development.
The Sustainable Neighborhood Programme (SNP) was designed as a 27 month experimental, community-driven slum resettlement project, focusing on improving livelihoods of people living in 26 slum settlements in Mavoko Municipality. It was joint effort of the Government of Kenya—under the auspices of the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP), the Government of Finland, and United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
The Rafik Hariri UN-Habitat Memorial Award, hereafter the “Award”, was inaugurated at the Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum held in 2010 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a joint initiative between the Rafik Hariri Foundation (hereafter the “Foundation”), and UN-Habitat.
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) was launched in June 2006 with the goal of contributing to poverty alleviation and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through land reform, improved land management and security of tenure.
In 1991, UN-Habitat established the Women and Habitat Programme. Since then, UN-Habitat has been implementing programmes directly linked to women’s participation in human settlements development and management with the ultimate goal of ensuring women’s rights through empowerment.
The Experimental Reimbursable Seeding Operations (ERSO) Programme was designed and implemented in response to UN-Habitat Governing Council resolution 21/10 of April 2007 in order to increase sustainable financing for affordable and social housing and infrastructure for the urban poor. It was to run as a pilot and testing phase for four years from 2007 to 2011. The programme compliments UN-Habitat’s Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF) Programme and other innovative financing mechanisms such as the Water and Sanitation Trust Fund. What distinguishes ERSO is that it is a loan programme whereas other innovative financing arrangements are grants.
A year after the United Nations World Summit in 2005 on progress in the implementation of the Millennium Goals (MDGs), the United Nations High- Level Panel on System-wide Coherence, recommended to the Secretary-General a ‘Delivering as One’ approach to strengthen delivery of key United Nations mandates of development, humanitarian assistance and environment. It aims at making United Nations bodies working around the world deliver as one United Nations. The approach also built on the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, which had called for greater harmonization and simplification of development aid and increased effectiveness in its delivery.
Evaluation of the UN-Habitat Youth Programme and Urban Youth Fund