CHILDREN, MIGRANTS DESERVE SPECIAL ATTENTION IN `HABITAT AGENDA' `CITY SUMMIT' TOLD, IN FIFTH DAY OF DISCUSSION
Press Release
HAB/127
CHILDREN, MIGRANTS DESERVE SPECIAL ATTENTION IN `HABITAT AGENDA' `CITY SUMMIT' TOLD, IN FIFTH DAY OF DISCUSSION
19960607 (Received from a UN Information Officer.)ISTANBUL, 7 June -- The draft Habitat Agenda must pay special attention to the plight of children and migrants in its search for solutions to the problems of human settlements, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) was told this morning as it entered its fifth day of a general exchange of views, including strategies for their improvement.
The urban crisis can be seen as a children's crisis, and it was stressed that if current trends continue, six out of 10 children in the developing world will be born in cities by the year 2025. Children suffer from exploitation, poverty, violence, child prostitution and pornography and homelessness. An estimated 100 million children in the developing world face malnutrition and sexually transmitted diseases.
The draft Agenda for international cooperation must also give as much attention and understanding to the positive as well as the negative impacts of migration, conference participants were told. The growing relevance of migration is reflected in its increasingly prominent position on the international agenda. However, it is mainly presented as a problem for governments and for the concerned individuals.
Statements were made by the Minister for Housing of Syria; the Minister for Public Works and Housing of Kenya; and the Minister for Housing and Engineering Affairs of Sudan.
The Conference also heard from the Secretary for Technical Planning in the Office of the President of Paraguay and the Secretary in the Ministry for Urban Affairs and Employment of India.
The representatives of New Zealand, Greece and Viet Nam also spoke.
The Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); the Director of External Relations of the International Organization for Migration (IOM); the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO); and the Rector of the United Nations University (UNU), also addressed the Conference.
Representatives of the following non-governmental organizations made statements: the Women's Homes and Community Super Coalition; the International Cooperative Alliance; the Commission on Global Governance; and the Earth Pledge Foundation.
General Exchange of Views
NILDA JIMENEZ DE LA SOBERA, Member of the National Committee, Secretary for Technical Planning in the Presidency of Paraguay: The growth of urban centres has been to the detriment of the rural areas. Therefore, greater attention should be paid to the rural settlements in order to check the migration of villagers to the urban centres. Such migrations compound the problems of the cities. Several projects have been undertaken to plan the dwellings of the country and improve living conditions there. The advanced countries and the international organizations should assist developing nations in making technological progress into the next millennium. The "City Summit" should produce viable results to respond to the needs of all for adequate shelter.
K.S. SHARMA of the Department of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation of India: In India, the urban population of 250 million is likely to rise above the 300 million mark by the end of the century. Housing forms an important part of the strategy for the eradication of poverty and employment generation and is an integral part of economic development. The long-term goal of the National Housing Policy is to eradicate homelessness, to improve the housing conditions of the inadequately housed and to provide a minimum level of basic services and amenities to all. Special attention has been given to children, who constitute 40 per cent of the urban poor, by the adoption of a comprehensive national action plan for children in 1992. Other critical inputs to the housing policy are land, finance and gender equity.
The National Action Plan for human settlements development includes infrastructural planning and development, an extension of the financial system, and transfer of technology to provide affordable solutions. Local governments will play an effective role in its implementation.
PRISCILLA WILLIAMS (New Zealand): Local governments have crucial roles to play in fulfilling the Habitat Plan of Action. New Zealand strongly supports the concept of partnership expressed at this Conference. It is essential for central and local governments to recognize and work together with all parties, including vulnerable groups, women, indigenous people, new
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migrants, youth and the disabled, to develop healthy, safe and peaceful cities. The Conference must work to create cities as areas of peace, not as flash points of confrontation and aggression. The proposal to include local authorities as a special area of United Nations activities deserves examination. There is a need to consider ideas to involve other groups in a more formalized structure.
New Zealand is ready to work with its bilateral partners to achieve Habitat II objectives. It recently announced a significant financial contribution to a development partnership scheme, which will combine the resources of central and local governments with those of the private sector to renew and rebuild urban environments.
STEPHEN LEWIS, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF): The urban crisis is a children's crisis and if current trends continue, six out of 10 children in the developing world will be born in cities by the year 2025. Children suffer from exploitation, poverty, violence, child prostitution and pornography and homelessness. An estimated 100 million children in the developing world face malnutrition and sexually-transmitted diseases. The UNICEF will put children's concerns on the Habitat II agenda. The Convention of the Rights of the Child provides for the right of the child to adequate shelter. To qualify that right -- to attempt to establish it as a lesser right as compared to "full rights" -- would undermine the Convention. It would suggest that it is somehow acceptable for some children to be homeless or stay without shelter. A gradation of rights should not be constructed. To do so would cast a shadow over the Conference and limit the collective efforts to implement the Plan of Action.
HUSAM SAFADI, Minister for Housing of Syria: Syria has a balance between the number of families and housing units. Housing is being built largely by the private, public and cooperative sectors. The State plans cities, regulates land use and provides water and other amenities. There are problems though, such as citizens who lack the income to buy houses, illegal buildings and rural-urban migration. The Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan has forced thousands of villagers from their dwellings and Syria is being deprived of the natural resources of the Golan, frustrating efforts to solve problems.
Syria wants to develop and expand infrastructure and services, develop them in urban and rural areas and improve residential areas in towns according to modern practices. That will create decent conditions by providing sanitation, water and telecommunications. It is also renovating old buildings and renewing water and communications facilities. The country will endeavour to apply the recommendations of the Conference. The Israeli occupation of the Golan should end on the basis of land for peace. All international standards on water quality and its distribution should be observed.
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PETER SCHATZER, Director of External Relations of the International Organization for Migration (IOM): International migration has increased by more than 50 per cent during the past 25 years, and accounts for over one-fourth of all the population growth of many countries. More and more cities, towns and countries are being directly affected as senders, receivers or transit points. The growing relevance of migration is reflected in its increasingly prominent position on the international agenda. IOM strongly supports the thrust of the call in the draft Habitat Agenda for international cooperation to address the negative impact of international migration. Its positive effects need as much attention and understanding. IOM will assist local and national governments as well as individuals in coping with migration challenges.
JONATHAN NG'ENO, Minister for Public Works and Housing of Kenya: The implementation and follow-up of the Habitat Agenda is the most critical phase of the whole process of finding solutions to the problems of human settlements. Governments, as the central partners, and their broad-based partners should commit themselves to implementing national action plans and reviewing human settlements policies and strategies. These should be achieved through economic development, improving the capacity to mobilize resources and making partnerships between the public and private sectors more effective. The international community should make new commitments to provide new and additional resources to developing countries to supplement their national efforts for implementing plans of action.
The General Assembly, through the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Settlements, should be the main actor at the global level in the coordination and follow-up of the Habitat global plan of action. The Commission's mandate should be enhanced and expanded. The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) should be strengthened .
HIROSHI NAKAJIMA, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO): As a rule, health-care facilities and services are concentrated in the cities, but their quality and accessibility are very uneven. The WHO's main concern is to ensure access to reliable health care and services of good quality for all, particularly for the most deprived. To achieve that goal, the WHO will focus on creating a healthy environment by the provision of safe water supplies and improved sewage systems and by responding to specific health emergencies and reducing the spread of epidemics. It will also meet the needs of specific population groups by providing reproductive health services, controlling sexually-transmitted diseases and promoting healthy lifestyles.
Governments should ensure that the health, sector is given priority at every stage of urban planning and implementation. Health interventions must be used as an opportunity for promoting a culture of health based on community participation.
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GEORGIOS PAPAIOANNOU (Greece): The Greek position on the key issues of policy and principles on the Habitat Agenda is that put forward by Italy, on behalf of the European Union. Greek cities, towns and smaller communities have changed in the 20 years since the l976 Habitat Conference in Vancouver. The Greek National Action Plan specifies priorities for improving and solving the urban problems. It seeks to improve and modernize social and technical infrastructure of settlements, ensure effective and sustainable management of urban and rural environments and to improve the environmental quality of life in large urban agglomerations. The Plan will develop cities in a balance with the network of rural area, through integrated regional planning. Greece supports the right to adequate housing and will cooperate with local authorities in implementing the Habitat Agenda at local levels.
SHARAF ELDIN BANNAGA, Minister for Housing and Engineering Affairs of Sudan: Sudan has grouped together persons displaced by its conflicts in order to provide them with such amenities as water and health care. While it does not have the funds to provide shelter for all, it has provided land to its citizens to enable them to build houses. The private and other sectors have been encouraged to provide shelter. Sudan is cutting bureaucracy to allow effective citizen participation in efforts to provide and improve settlements.
The fundamental solution to urban and rural problems is the development of the country as a whole. Despite the fact that solidarity and cooperation is needed to ensure the improvement of the environment, Sudan has not been receiving increased help from the international community and organizations, which should apply the same standard to all countries and peoples. Sudan will rebuild areas destroyed by war to check migration to urban centres, build urban centres to maintain a balance in their populations, and renovate settlements. Networks of various sectors of society will be strengthened and investors encouraged by amending relevant regulations.
NGUYEN MANH KIEM, Deputy Minister of Construction of Viet Nam: Viet Nam occupies an area of 331,000 square kilometres, with a population of 72 million. The urban population is about 15 million. Since 1986, the country has been developing a State-managed, market-oriented economy. The annual growth rate in recent years has been over 8 per cent. Housing subsidies have been abandoned and an enabling policy, encouraging the participation of people in housing development, is being pursued. Urban management is improving, especially investment in infrastructure construction. Plans up to the year 2010 have been prepared for the cities.
However, weaknesses in urban management and development still exist and urban planning is weak. Most of the housing stock in the cities is degrading and squatter-housing construction is popular. Since 80 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, priority is given to the remote areas -- mountainous regions and the densely-populated deltas. The Government hopes to
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receive international support and cooperation for housing development from potential organizations and countries.
SUSANNA EVENING of the Women's Homes and Community Super Coalition: As a non-governmental, grass-roots, women's organization, the coalition incorporates a number of women's groups. It also works in partnership with a range of relevant United Nations bodies. Women's participation in the development of communities improves the entire process. They have made an invaluable input into Habitat II. The coalition's role is to highlight women's role in building communities and to discuss action strategies and assert their priorities in Habitat II and beyond. It's goal is to promote sustainable settlements and community building.
Women's contribution to a range of developing processes, such as enablement and the redistribution of resources, are invaluable. Ignoring women or excluding them from the planning of housing wastes their potential contribution to solving increasing problems. People's participation empowers them to remove obstacles to their progress. Trust in the role of those at the grass-root level can eliminate mistakes of the past.
ROLPH TRODIN, Chairman, International Cooperative Alliance: In realizing the agenda of Habitat II, national governments are more likely to find inspiration in the cooperative housing model than in any other option. The Alliance has achieved most of the agenda's goals at the micro-level. At the international level, the cooperative movement has an ongoing history of bringing together Northern and Southern cooperatives for their mutual benefit. "Co-op housing" will answer many of mankind's deepest needs: for shelter, for community, for control and for values. The leaders at the Conference should work with the cooperative housing movement to develop partnerships to solve shelter problems by giving citizens access to a form of housing that offers more than just a place to live.
SIR SHRIDATH RAMPHAL, Co-Chairman of the Commission on Global Governance: What should the assurance of change in human settlements imply? That the international community must prepare human habitation for the contingencies of change. The central challenge rests not with computer profiles of a crowded planet but with a view of how to end the self-delusion that the ultimate variable is the planet, not human beings. The response must not be limited to improving the development and management of human settlements; it must encompass a culture of dwelling on the planet in harmony with sustainable living. What does it avail us to urge the proper management of sprawling cities without addressing the root causes of urban sprawl? The issues that bear on human survival are inseparable. "We know what to do; most of all we know what others must do. We have not summoned up the will to do it all together. It is too late in the century for cosmetics; it is too late in history for hesitating."
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HEITOR GURGULINO DE SOUZA, Rector, United Nations University (UNU): The University's publications document the growth of new urban center "hubs" that have become key players in the increasingly borderless global economy and its research examines the impact of globalization on them. It hopes that Habitat II will trigger energy for the consideration of a wide range of multisectoral issues arising from urban explosion. Concerted research and collaborative efforts, in other words, the partnerships that have been established in the process leading to Habitat II, should be strengthened. The UNU will intensify its research on Habitat II concerns. For example, its Zero Emissions Research Initiative involves the study of methods and new technologies which can recover all wastes economically and convert industrial processes and wastes into zero-emission activities.
HOGEN FUKUNAGA of the Earth Pledge Foundation: Habitat II is the best place to develop solutions to improve living conditions, protect the environment and move towards peace. The search for solutions must avoid those that are short-sighted or based on obsessive or reactive patterns. The Conference must understand that new directions must be compatible with advances in infrastructure and technology, focus on all human beings and uncover broad and practical solutions.
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