Another conference, another plus five: Together We Can Make a Difference.

In 1996, when the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) was held in Istanbul, the world was suffering from conference fatigue. Everyone wondered whether another UN conference was really necessary. The success of the Istanbul conference, dubbed the City Summit, proved the sceptics wrong. At Habitat II, 171 Governments unanimously adopted the Habitat Agenda and the Istanbul Declaration, which has among its many commitments the goals of achieving adequate shelter for all and enabling sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world.

For a week, the world's attention was focussed on the prospects and problems of urbanization. The event was a celebration of cities and human settlements as centres of economic growth and cultural excellence. Even more important, Istanbul went down in history as a partners' conference. The participation of local authorities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society partners not only enlivened the event but, more significantly, their submissions in the official proceedings helped endorse the principle of partnership. The result is that the Habitat Agenda and the Istanbul Declaration fully acknowledge the important role to be played by all partners in improving the urban environment.

Five years later, in June 2001, at the special session of the United Nations General Assembly to review and appraise the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, commonly known as Istanbul+5 these same Governments and other Agenda partners will come together to review the progress made so far and commit themselves to further action.

However, once more people seem to be suffering from fatigue: not another meeting, not another plus five. For many, Istanbul+5 and the process of review and appraisal of conference commitments may seem a tedious exercise. But the issues will not go away simply because we have heard them before. The problems discussed at Habitat II remain as relevant now as they were five years ago.

In the new urban millennium, when more than half of humanity will live in urban areas, the problems of urbanization are more critical than ever. In 1950, New York was the only city with a population of over 10 million; today there are 19 such cities. During the same half-century, the number of cities with more than 1 million inhabitants has increased fivefold, from 80 to 402. One of the results of this process of urbanization is that poverty is increasingly found in cities. It is estimated that of the 1.2 billion people living without adequate shelter and basic services, most of them can be found in favelas and squatter settlements. At the same time, urban poverty is increasingly feminized; women constitute over 70 per cent of those living in absolute poverty. This is the global reality the world is facing today.

At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders recommitted themselves to giving priority to the needs of the urban poor. Among its many targets, the Millennium Declaration sets out to halve the number of poor people living under extreme poverty by the year 2015 and to upgrade the living conditions of over 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Meeting the targets set by the Declaration and the Habitat Agenda will not be possible without the coordination and cooperation of Governments, local authorities, NGOs, the private sector and all other civil society partners. In other words, the importance of partnership to overcoming the problems in our human settlements cannot be stressed enough.

This global partnership is well exemplified by this special supplement of the UN Chronicle. The range of articles presented here tell the story of urban development and renewal, of housing rights in post-conflict zones and squatter settlements, of decentralization and participation through the words of mayors, representatives of local authorities, key figures from NGOs, as well as UN agencies and slum dwellers themselves. Indeed, what these articles make clear is that over the last five years it has been possible to change the living conditions in our cities and human settlements. Progress can be measured by the number of successful partnerships and best practices.

This, more than anything else, is what Istanbul+5 is about. In order to ensure the full participation of Habitat Agenda partners, the General Assembly adopted resolutions 55/194 and 55/195, allowing them to make presentations during the plenary sessions.

During the preparatory process, representatives of local authorities and NGOs were also invited to contribute to the draft "Report on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Habitat Agenda" and the draft "Declaration on cities and other human settlements in the new millennium", both of which are to be discussed during the proceedings of the special session.

The Assembly resolutions also established a Thematic Committee whose purpose is to provide a venue for presentations and dialogues about experiences and lessons learned in human settlements development during the five years since Habitat II. With the stated goal of guiding "the quest for solutions and progress that will benefit all of the world's citizens", the Committee will meet five times during the special session.

Istanbul+5 is a critical time for the future of cities, towns and villages. This is the occasion for world leaders, their Governments and the international community to recommit themselves to improving the state of our human settlements. It is time to endorse the right of the poor to adequate shelter; it is also time to ensure that we make our human settlements sustainable. And, as with Habitat II, Istanbul+5 will show the world that the only way to implement the Habitat Agenda is through global partnership. Together we can make a difference.

Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka has been Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) since July 2000. Before joining Habitat, she was the Special Coordinator for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked and Small Island Developing Countries at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Dedicated to the role of women in development, Ms. Tibaijuka, a Tanzanian national, holds a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. From 1993 to 1998, she was Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Dar es Salaam.