Practical steps to implement shelter strategy taken by Human Settlements Commission.

Practical steps to implement Shelter Strategy taken by Human Settlements Commission

The first practical steps to implement the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000, the United Nations blueprint to help solve the alarming world-wide housing crisis, were taken at the twelfth session of the Commission on Human Settlements (24 April-3 May).

Some 350 delegates from 85 countries, meeting in the Colombian seaside town of Cartagena de Indias, agreed on ways to promote and monitor the Strategy, which aims to improve the deteriorating shelter situation throughout the world by the end of this century.

Unanimously adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1988, the document strongly advocates a wide-ranging social mobilization, rather than exclusive Government intervention, to solve the global housing crisis. It focuses on the disadvantaged and the poor, and stresses the full participation of women.

Arcot Ramachandran, Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), predicted that the problems of deteriorating human shelter conditions, fueled by years of neglect, could reach "the boiling point" in the 1990s. Living in cities and towns, he said, stimulated political awareness. That translated into greater impatience and expectations on the part of an urban poor majority. As more developing countries become urbanized over the next decade, "the voice of the urban poor will become decisive", he said.

In an opening address, Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas said that in the poorest communities the majority of households were headed by women who had a double responsibility as mothers and workers. Women had to participate in decision-making concerning the construction and improvement of settlements, he stressed.

A home. . .the most

important factor

In approving 24 texts, the Commission often cited the Global Strategy as the key document to guide action to improve housing in various ways, particularly in the context of a medium-term UN plan (1992-1997) for human settlements and a biennial work programme (1990-1991) for HABITAT, which was established following the first world-wide UN conference on human settlements, held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976.

A "home for the human being", the Commission stated, is "the most important factor of social, cultural and economic production". The 58-member body stressed the role of human settlements development as a means of revitalizing the economies of developing countries, particularly in investment in the construction sector, and recommended that it be accorded priority in formulation of the fourth international development strategy. The needs and requirements of low-income groups, in particular, were cited.

It urged the international community to establish conditions favouring the generation of investments essential to the economic growth of developing nations, stating that "shelter as an investment is a social asset ... uniquely vital to production and an incentive to development".

The Commission also stated its conviction that national shelter strategies could be a "crucial instrument of enablement" leading to full mobilization of all types of resources on a sustainable basis and thereby facilitating adequate shelter for all by the year 2000. It commended Governments which were revising and implementing these strategies.

Partnership between Governments and the private and community sectors, at both the national and the local levels, would be a central element in the success of the Strategy, the Commission stated.

Governments were urged to initiate development of public, private and community-based partnerships in maintenance and conservation programmes, because a balance between new construction and maintenance, reconstruction and modernization programmes was essential.

The Commission asked that Governments set up national monitoring systems regarding the goals of the Strategy, based on HABITAT guidelines, and submit progress reports to the Centre annually. The first reports are to be reviewed by the Commission in 1991, at its thirteenth session, likely to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Housing and environment

The 1991 session, the Commission stated, should be a forum for an exchange of ideas regarding innovative national developments, and for encouraging them. The two themes of that session, it decided, would be: human settlements in relation to the concept of "sustainable development", and the use of new and renewable energy sources in human settlements and for the construction and production of building materials.

The Commission stressed that integrated planning and management of human settlements could be "a most powerful instrument" in achieving sustainable development through improving the quality of life; preventing environmental degradation; and relieving pressure on threatened environmental resources.

It urged increased attention be given to such issues as recycling of building materials, sanitation and sewage facilities, and avoidance of production and use of hazardous and unhealthy building materials.

The Commission also underscored its interest in contributing to the proposed UN conference on environment and development, scheduled for 1992, as well as to the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in the 1990s.

Other texts

In other action, HABITAT was asked to prepare a short-term shelter strategy for the resettlement of returning Namibian refugees, and to continue its intensive construction skills training programme for Namibians.

The Commission asked Israeli authorities to stop destroying Palestinian homes and civilian structures, calling for an international fund to rebuild them. It also wanted a national housing development strategy to the year 2000 for the Palestinian people.

HABITAT was asked to study how land needed for future human settlements projects can be acquired ahead of time, particularly when it is privately owned and the owner is reluctant to release or sell it, or will only do so at a high price.

Inner cities and zones of historical interest, in particular, should be rehabilitated. Both donors and recipients of international aid should avoid using materials and technologies that cannot be locally maintained, without dependence on the donor.

Parallel to the Commission's session, the third meeting of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat was held in Cartagena, from 25 to 28 April. A national group of parliamentarians will be set up in each country to promote the Global Strategy and an international conference open to all parliamentarians is planned for 1990 in Japan.

The Commission also decided to establish a Latin American and Caribbean Centre for the Exchange and Promotion of Human Settlements Technologies, to be based in Colombia.