Revitalizing HABITAT.

Guiding principles and recommendations to focus the work of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) and improve its efficiency were set out by the Commission on Human Settlements at its sixteenth session in a resolution on revitalizing the Centre. Recommendations concerned general and administrative management, finance, stay/policies and programme management. The United Nations was asked to provide Habitat with specialists in finance and management in order to support this expanding role.

Habitat's revitalization was one of the most contentious issues during the latest session, held in Nairobi from 28 April to 7 May. The General Assembly at the end of last year had designated the Centre as a focal point for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda--the Global Plan of Action that came out of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) (Istanbul, June 1996). It had also called for a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of the Centre with a view to its revitalization.

On 5 May, Habitat Executive Director Wally N'Dow released a 23-point Revitalization Action Plan for the Centre, prepared partly in response to recent criticism of its administrative and financial performance. The Plan reflected not only recommendations of United Nations oversight bodies, but also views expressed at the latest session of the Commission. It is aimed at restructuring the Centre along the lines defined by the Habitat Agenda, as well as at improving operational links between Habitat headquarters and the field, and streamlining information flows within the organization. In reference to the Plan, Commission Vice-Chairman Jonathan K. Ng'eno of Kenya said that some of the difficulties of the Centre had been of a long-standing nature and were not insurmountable. "We are happy to know that the secretariat is taking measures to be accountable and transparent."

In all, 27 resolutions geared to preparing Habitat for a major role in the Agenda's implementation were adopted at the session. At a press conference on 7 May at the Centre headquarters in Nairobi, Commission Chairman Afsarul Qader of Bangladesh said the session had spelled out "clear and focused directions" for Habitat, particularly concerning the Agenda's implementation. Dr. N'Dow told the closing meeting that the session had "been a time to agree on fundamentals and on charting the course that will take us over new waters, and this required discussion among all concerned and the tabling of possible solutions". He stressed that this was "to be expected, given the fact that we are on the threshold of a new era and, therefore, at a pivotal moment in the institutional history of both the Commission and the Centre".

Established in 1977 and made up of 58 members elected to four-year terms, the Commission's main task is to set and promote policies, priorities and guidelines regarding existing and planned work in the field of human settlements. It has been given a central role in promoting, reviewing, monitoring and assessing the implementation of the Habitat Agenda at the local, national, regional and global levels.

In other action, the Commission also decided that, as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, it would assist it in monitoring, reviewing and assessing progress made the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, and its next two sessions would focus on this aspect.

On Habitat's activities towards the realization of the human right to housing, the Commission also decided that a joint programme be established between Habitat and the Centre for Human Rights, in order to assist Member States with the implementation of their commitments in the Habitat Agenda to ensure the full and progressive realization of that right.

In another text, the Commission decided that at future sessions it would provide opportunities for partners to engage in a dialogue among themselves and with Governments. The dialogues would serve as an input to the deliberations of the Commission. The action followed on the heels of a request by the General Assembly at its fifty-first session that the Commission review its working methods in order to involve in its activities relevant actors of civil society--"partners", or local authorities, the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Although there was consensus in the latest session of the Commission that the involvement of members of civil society was vital to Habitat's work and for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, several delegations felt that expanding the Commission's membership to include partners from civil society was not "legally tenable". All delegations, however, were of the opinion that there was a need to involve members of civil society in an ongoing process of consultation and in implementing projects m member countries. The Commission's current rules of procedure do not yet allow full involvement by such partners in its work.

Habitat has also been preparing, in collaboration with its partners, a set of general guidelines for tracking progress in the implementation of the Agenda and of the Habitat II National Plans of Action, using housing and urban indicators and through the establishment of a Global Urban Observatory. To strengthen partner cooperation in the post-Istanbul era, Partner Working Groups have been set up within the Centre.

RELATED ARTICLE: Changing Consumption Patterns in Human Settlements

At a press conference at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Raquel Alfaro, spokesman of the Expert Group on Changing Consumption Patterns for Human Settlements, said it had identified six priority areas where Habitat could give leadership at the international level. The first involved promoting inter-sectoral action, as the experts felt much of the potential for promoting sustainable consumption was currently being lost due to traditional systems of decision-making at the local level.

The Group also recommended linking technical support with legal and institutional frameworks, as such support for changing production or consumption patterns still occurred within a legal and institutional vacuum, ignoring the driving forces that encouraged resource depletion and waste, she said. In addition, the Group felt community partnerships should be mobilized, as communities often lacked the capacity to mobilize their full potential for promoting sustainable consumption, while local authorities lacked the skills or incentives to promote local partnerships. The other three principles involved using local economic instruments, sharing "best practices" experiences, and developing indicators for changing consumption.

RELATED ARTICLE: Half of World Population Expected to Live in Cities by 2006

Some 46 per cent of the world's people are now urban dwellers, a figure expected to rise to half the population by the year 2006, according to the recently released 1996 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects. The United Nations study, which incorporates newly available information from the 1990 round of censuses, reveals a slower pace of urbanization than previously envisioned. According to the report, over three fifths of the world population will be urban by 2030, five years later than had been anticipated. The Revision updates estimates and projections of urban, rural and city populations. These figures, which are the standard and consistent set used by the United Nations system and the international community, are updated every two years by the Population Division.

As of mid-1996, 75 per cent of the population in the more developed regions lived in urban areas, while only 38 per cent in the less developed regions were urban dwellers. In 1996, 2.6 billion persons lived in urban areas, including 1.8 billion in the less developed regions. The world urban population grew at a rate of 2.4 per cent per annum between 1990 and 1995, more than three times that of rural populations (0.7 per cent per annum). As a result, urban areas absorbed 59 million additional persons each year, compared with 22 million for the rural areas.

The figures show that world urbanizations is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity. The urban growth rate in the less developed regions reached 3.4 per cent per annum during 1990-1995, compared with only 0.7 per cent in the more developed regions. While almost 3 of every 4 persons were urban dwellers in Europe, North America and Latin America and the Caribbean in 1996, only about 1 in 3 lived in urban areas in Africa and Asia, respectively. In Oceania, 7 of every 10 people lived in cities in 1996.

Projections also show that by 2030, more than 80 per cent of Latin Americans, Europeans and North Americans, and 75 per cent of Oceanians will be urban dwellers. At the same time, only 57 per cent of the population in the less developed regions and less than half of the population in the least developed countries will be urban dwellers. Just over 1 of every 2 Africans or 2 Asians will live in cities.