Monitoring implementation of the habitat agenda: The Global Urban Observatory.

Monitoring progress in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda entails developing new and enhanced instruments to measure change. Following the Habitat II Conference, held in Istanbul in 1996, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) developed a global monitoring system called the Global Urban Observatory (GUO)-a network of regional, national and local urban observatories. Since 1998, when the GUO became operational, many cities have joined the network and actively participated in the collection of urban indicators. At present, there are 20 national and some 80 local urban observatories around the world.

The development of the GUO has been guided by the Urban Indicator Programme (UIP), which supports the Observatory through its intensive data collection in 200 cities and its focus on policy-relevant indicators. Starting in 1994, the UIP has produced a Global Urban Indicators Database which provides a city-oriented indicators collection approach particularly designed for policy analysis.

Similarly, the UNCHS Statistics Programme, with its comprehensive and regular data collection from national statistical offices in all Member States, concentrating on the four largest cities of each country is a strategic component in monitoring the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. In particular, the regularly published Campendium of Human Settlements Statistics, with its wide country and city coverage, serves as a comprehensive monitoring instrument.

Monitoring change not only encompasses data collection and dissemination; it also includes introducing more city-oriented statistical concepts. The Best Practices Programme is a global network, which identifies, analyzes and disseminates lessons learned from successful urban solutions--initiatives that have made a lasting contribution to the sustainability of cities and to improving the quality of life within communities. Initiatives meeting the Best Practices criteria are included in the database of the Programme. Selected best practices are analyzed in case studies; lessons learned from these best practices can guide community initiatives in other countries and cities. The Programme has been growing considerably over the past five years and enjoys a strong interest from around the world.

During its first phase, most GUO activities were concentrated on the collection and compilation of indicators. The actual use of the indicators for policy formulation and analysis remained to be documented. This is unfortunate, since the whole idea of the UIP and the GUO was to use quantitative information for policy formulation. This implementation gap could be bridged by forming partnerships in the area of certain indicators with UNCHS programmes directly involved in policy formulation and implementation: the Urban Management Programme, co-sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme; and the Cities Alliance, co-sponsored by the World Bank.

Over the past two years, the GUO Observatory has been carrying out intensive capacity-building activities in all developing regions. It plans to increase efforts to build on existing resources in developing countries by embedding existing statistical capacities at both the city and national levels in new urban observatory formation and existing urban observatory operation. This seems the most promising way to raise data-quality standards and to institutionalize and snstain the GUO. This shift in the capacity-building approach is also necessary because future training resources are very limited.

Instruction courses for national trainers are focused on methodology, data collection, compilation and, to a certain extent, analysis of data. However, as revealed by the coverage and quality of urban indicators submitted for the Global Urban Indicators Database 2001, the quality of urban indicators data varied considerably. While quite a number of urban observatories produced useful data, some of the submissions had to be rejected. This showed that the quality of training for data collection varied across and within the regions. In future, the GUO will organize annual training activities at UNCHS Headquarters in Nairobi.

The Global Urban Observatory is a vibrant young programme of UNCHS (Habitat), and Member States have clearly understood its unique role in the monitoring of the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. In preparation for Istanbul+5 almost all delegations reported about their GUO activities or inquired about how to become a member of the GUO.

Guenter Karl is Coordinator of the Global Urban Observatory and Statistics Section, Urban Secretariat of UNCHS (Habitat).

RELATED ARTICLE: The UNCHS (Habitat) Monitoring System

* The urban Indicators Programme regularly collects indicators from more than 200 cities.

* The Statistics Programme regularly gathers data from 130 countries and 400 cities.

* The Best Practices Programme has compiled records of over 1,100 cases in 600 cities.