PRESS CONFERENCE BY HABITAT
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE BY HABITAT
19970418
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
At a Headquarters press conference Wednesday afternoon, correspondents were told that more than 1,800 local governments in 64 countries had established local Agenda 21 planning processes in the follow-up to the Earth Summit. Speaking at the Conference co-sponsored, among others, by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the Secretary-General of ICLEI, Jeb Brugmann, said a report entitled "Local Government Implementation of Agenda 21" would be released on Wednesday.
Also present at the Conference were local government leaders from three countries: Peter Souslby, Leader of the Leicester City Council of the United Kingdom; Adnane Ben Abdellah, Mayor of Marakesh, Morocco; and Luis Vegara, Vice-Mayor of Barcelona, Spain.
Introducing the local government leaders, the Director, Office of Programme Coordination of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, Mark Hildebrand, said ICLEI and Habitat had worked together with the World Assembly of Cities and local authorities in organizing the local authority dialogue session. The whole series of dialogue sessions had come out of the Habitat II Conference where for the first time local authorities, non- governmental organizations and other parts of civil society had participated in the City Summit in the negotiation of the Habitat Agenda.
He said the bureau of the Commission on Sustainable Development had sought to bring that innovation into the Commission and had set up a series of dialogues with the local authorities, which had been held today. Clearly the Habitat Agenda was a framework for implementing Agenda 21 at the local level. In fact, the story of local efforts was one of the greatest success stories in connection with its implementation. That was no accident, for mayors, unlike the ministers, were at the front line. They were more accountable to the population and they had to deal with their complaints every day.
Local authority dialogue today represented an ongoing and growing engagement of the local government community with the United Nations processes, Mr. Brugmann said. It was a role that had been established in the early stages of preparation for the Earth Summit in 1992, which had expanded through the establishment of the World Assembly of Cities and Local Authorities coordination at the Habitat II Conference.
At today's session, the focus had been not so much on whether local authorities were relevant players, but more on the nature of the working partnership that was required between the national and local governments in
Habitat Press Conference - 2 - 18 April 1997
successfully implementing Agenda 21. One of the mandates that had been given to local governments at the Earth Summit was that a majority of them, by 1996, were supposed to have established a local Agenda 21 planning process. "We cannot report today that a majority of local governments have done that", he said. "But we can report that more than 1,800 local governments in 64 countries have established local Agenda 21 planning processes." That probably represented the most widespread follow-up activity to the Earth Summit, particularly by any sector outside of the national government sectors.
Peter Souslby, Leader of the Leicester City Council of the United Kingdom, said a local government working in partnership with its local community had many success stories to tell. However, in telling those stories attention had also been drawn to how much more there was to do and how much the Commission and national authorities could assist local governments. The message that had been given very clearly this morning was that, nationally and internationally, much more could be done to build on the considerable success already achieved. Most particularly, in the report, attention had been drawn for strengthening of support for local Agenda 21 movements within particular countries.
Attention had also been drawn to the harmonization of public sector policies and the need for increasing local government financial capacities to deal with the responsibilities given under the local Agenda 21, he said. The establishment of flexible regulatory frameworks for all areas of Agenda 21 and for increasing private sector accountability to local agendas were also important. Commenting further on the lack of harmonization in public sector policy and approaches, Mr. Souslby said in the United Kingdom there was a total lack of an integrated transport policy. No matter how hard the local authorities tried to implement an effective local Agenda 21, the lack of a nationally established integrated transport policy and the lack of power for local authority to oversee such policy could undo much of the good work that the local authority might wish to do.
Speaking on the same issue, Mr. Brugmann said in the five years since the Earth Summit national governments had deregulated and often times environmental laws had been weakened as much as they had been strengthened. Local authorities had undertaken the mandate to implement Agenda 21 in a context where there was decreasing governmental power to enforce environmental standards. In the United States, for instance, since 1992 more than $200 million had been invested in energy efficiency measures which could help the country meet its Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, the consumer demand for such recreational vehicles as small trucks and jeeps had obliterated the net benefits of energy efficiency investment. The unwillingness of the Government to set fuel efficiency standards had resulted in an environment where, no matter how much investment was made locally, the fuel efficiency of vehicles put on the market by the private sector could not be controlled.
Habitat Press Conference - 3 - 18 April 1997
The same was true for the developing countries, he continued. For instance, in Kampala, Uganda, the municipality had invested resources to clean out the drains and sewer systems, so that flooding in low-income communities would stop. However, those investments had been offset by the introduction to the market of plastic shopping bags. Therefore, the lack of regulation obliterated the efforts at the local level to achieve sustainable development. The ways in which national policies and subsidies undermined the good efforts at the local level must be examined, he said.
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