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UN-HABITAT: The Agency for Cities and Shelter
(French; Arabic)
Towns and cities are growing today at unprecedented rates setting the social, political, cultural and environmental trends of the world, both good and bad. Sustainable urbanization is one of the most pressing challenges facing the global community in the 21st century.
In 1950, one-third of the world’s people lived in cities. Just 50 years later, this rose to one-half and will continue to grow to two-thirds, or 6 billion people, by 2050. Cities are now home to half of humankind. They are the hubs of much national production and consumption – economic and social processes that generate wealth and opportunity. But they also create disease, crime, pollution, poverty and social unrest. In many cities, especially in developing countries, slum dwellers number more than 50 per cent of the population and have little or no access to shelter, water, and sanitation, education or health services.
As the world becomes increasingly urban, it is essential that policymakers understand the power of the city as a catalyst for national development. UN-HABITAT’s newly integrated programmes are designed to help policy-makers and local communities get to grips with the urbanization challenges and find workable, lasting solutions. Actually UN-Habitat believes that urbanization has also to be grasped as an opportunity, a plus-value to humankind.
UN-HABITAT MISSION AND MANDATE
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.
The United Nations Millennium Declaration recognizes the dire circumstances of the world’s urban poor. It articulates the commitment of member States to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020 – a commitment directly relevant to UN-HABITAT’s mandate (Target 11, Millennium Development Goal No. 7). As large as 100 million may seem, however, it is only 10 per cent of the present worldwide slum population, which, left unchecked will multiply threefold to 3 billion by the year 2050. Target 10 calls for the reduction by half of the number without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
The work of UN-HABITAT, as the focal point for implementation of the Habitat Agenda, the Declaration on Cities and other Human Settlements in the New Millennium and the Millennium Development Goal 7, targets 10 and 11, drawn the agency and its partners in government, regional and local authorities, and civil society increasingly closer to the lives of the urban poor.
UN-HABITAT’s strategic vision is thus anchored in a four-pillar strategy aimed at attaining the goal of Cities without Slums. This strategy consists of advocacy of global norms, analysis of information, field-testing of solutions and financing. These fall under the four core functions assigned to the agency by world governments – monitoring and research, policy development, capacity building and financing for housing and urban development.
UN-HABITAT GLOBAL OPERATION
1. Shelter and Sustainable Human Settlements Development
This Division runs two major worldwide campaigns, the Global Campaign on Urban Governance and Global Campaign for Secure Tenure. It has four main branches covering worldwide programmes for shelter, water and sanitation, training and capacity building, and urban development.
Other strategic advocacy includes a joint UN-HABITAT/World Bank slum upgrading initiative called the Cities Alliance. It promotes effective housing development policies and helps develop and campaign for housing rights, promoting sustainable cities and urban environmental planning and management, post-conflict land management and reconstruction in countries devastated by war or natural disasters.
2. Water, Sanitation and Infrastructure
Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), world leaders committed themselves to halving by the 2015 the number of people without adequate water and sanitation, (Target 10, MDG No. 7). In our rapidly urbanising world, water scarcity is a potential source of social and political conflict. Rapid population growth in urban areas has created environmental degradation. UN-HABITAT is tasked with helping redress this situation.
UN-HABITAT’s Water, Sanitation and Infrastructure branch works with governments, local authorities and other partners to build capacity for effective and efficient provision and delivery of water, sanitation and infrastructure. It runs two major regional programmes, Water for African Cities, and Water for Asian Cities.
3. Urban Development
UN-HABITAT’s Urban Development Branch runs a series of strategic programmes designed to help make our cities safer, to bring relief in countries suffering the aftermath of war or natural disasters, promote sustainable cities, good governance and support a group priority towns. Its experts work with governments, local authorities, civil society organisations and the poorest of the urban poor themselves.
4. Training and Capacity Building
The demand placed upon communities and their local governments to manage their growth sustainably has never been greater. Yet, many communities cannot meet the myriad of economic, environmental, social and structural challenges. Developing the managerial, and technical and policy-making capacity of local leaders, employees, non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations is essential to tackling seemingly endemic urban problems such as, environmental degradation, poverty, homelessness, informal settlements, and under-performing municipal services.
5. Monitoring and Research
UN-HABITAT’s Monitoring and Research Division helps cities learn, know and understand their own needs. From finding out how many people in a given street may have access to water and sanitation, to what local nongovernmental and civil society organisations might think about a city, or how women’s views should be taken into account, and helping exchange information and best practice ideas world-wide, this division provides the facts and figures and studies that can help urban decision makers and residents make optimum decisions.
The Monitoring Systems Branch runs a Best Practices Section that enables exchange of experience between different cities and also manages the Global Urban Observatory (GUO) that helps cities get a bird’s eye view of their situation and their needs. In addition, the branch publishes the agency’s flagship State of the World’s Cities report every two years.
6. Regional and Technical Cooperation
The Regional and Technical Cooperation Division oversees the work of the Regional Office for African Arab States (ROAAS) based in Nairobi, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) based in Fukuoka, Japan, and the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC) based in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. The Habitat Programme Managers, located in UNDP country offices to ensure that the concerns and priorities of the human settlements sector are better mainstreamed in national policies and programmes come under this division. UN-HABITAT plans to increase the cover over 50 countries
The operational activities focus on helping governments devise policies and strategies for self-reliant management capacity the national and local level. Technical and managerial expertise is provided for the assessment of human settlements constraints and opportunities, the identification and analysis of policy options, the design and implementation of housing and urban development projects, and the mobilization of national resources as well as external support for improving the condition of human settlements.
7. Financing Human Settlements
A major component of UN-HABITAT’s strategic vision is the mobilization of domestic investment resources for the financing of cities and shelter. The Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF) is a new global facility and is designed to lead and coordinate technical cooperation and seed capital initiatives established to develop bankable projects that promote affordable housing for low-income households, the upgrading of slums, and the provision of urban infrastructure in settlements in cities of the developing world.
A central objective of SUF is to mobilize domestic capital for upgrading activities by facilitating links among these local actors and by packaging the financial, technical and political elements of development projects. A second objective is to prepare local projects for potential investment by international donor facilities, international financial institutions and, potentially, investors in the global capital markets - with the specific intent of leveraging further, domestic capital for slum upgrading.
UN-HABITAT IN LEBANON
The UN-HABITAT presence in Lebanon dates back to the nineties of the past century when it was involved in the implementation of a housing reconstruction project. The agency resumed its country operation in November 2006. A Habitat Program Manager (HPM) was deployed to function as an agency-wide resource to promote both its normative and operational mandate.
The Habitat Country Program Document (HCPD) for Lebanon was developed covering the period 2008-2009. The HCPD outlines the main objectives and priorities for UN-HABITAT in Lebanon and aims to promote the Habitat Agenda in collaboration with the Lebanese Government and other UN Agencies.
UN-HABITAT in Lebanon plays an active role in mainstreaming various urban issues within local and national programmes. Through an analysis of key urban sectors including Governance, Land and Housing, Shelter and Basic Services, Urban Planning and Management, the Environment and Capacity Development, the Lebanon HCPD provides an overview of the national policy context and the intervention areas to address urban development challenges.
The main objective of the UN-HABITAT Country Program for Lebanon is to focus on long term development strategies. Collaborating with the Government in coordination with other UN agencies operating in the country, UN-HABITAT expects to consolidate a comprehensive program to address governance and reform issues.
Based on the above strategy, the Country Program encompasses the following four components:
- Sustainable rehabilitation of human settlements.
- Participatory urban planning.
- Urban Governance.
- Housing reforms.
UN-HABITAT on-going projects in Lebanon are detailed as follows:
1. Good Governance for Enhanced Post-War Reconstruction
UN-HABITAT’s key priorities in post-crisis environs primarily focus on strengthening capacities and working closely with communities, national and local authorities to meet their needs for shelter and settlements recovery, restoration of livelihoods and sustainable settlements planning, while simultaneously addressing the longer-term development needs and ensuring a more effective transition from relief to development.
Based on this mandate, the project aims at responding to the immediate assistance for shelter recovery and reconstruction in Southern Lebanon while laying the foundation for the long-term sustainable development. This would be achieved through:
- Strengthening the capacities of local authorities and Union of Municipalities to plan, guide, monitor and control the design and physical reconstruction of totally destroyed houses in the villages.
- Developing the capacities of affected communities to manage the reconstruction process of their totally destroyed houses.
- Enhancing the role of municipalities as a main agent to promote local development planning in concerned villages and towns.
Project activities include the following:
- Providing, through the set up of three Regional Technical Offices, engineering assistance to around 4,000 affected families whose houses were totally destroyed during the July 2006 War.
- Establishing three Local Urban Observatories as a planning tool to promote human settlements development.
- Supporting technically and financially 21 municipalities in executing quick impact projects.
- Assisting Unions of Municipalities in preparing necessary technical studies that respond to urgent development need in concerned regions.
- Build the capacity of the three Unions of Municipalities to improve service delivery.
2. Integrated support to the rehabilitation of NBC Adjacent Area
This Joint Project with UNDP, UN-HABITAT, ILO, UNRWA and UNICEF aims to provide the necessary assistance and relief to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and the most vulnerable Lebanese affected by the conflict in the Nahr el Bared refugee camp and its repercussions. It would assist Palestinian refugees and the most vulnerable Lebanese affected by the conflict in the Nahr el Bared refugee camp through an improved coordination of the integrated relief and recovery efforts, including the provision of livelihoods, basic social services and rehabilitation of infrastructure.
Under this project, UN-HABITAT would focus on improving the response of stakeholders through active participation of Municipality services and adherence to standards and best practices in order to guarantee sustainability of interventions. This would be achieved through:
- Establishment of six joint municipal committees (involving both Lebanese and Palestinian communities) to assess and identify urgent recovery interventions.
- Implementing quick impact projects addressing the recovery needs of Palestinian and Lebanese communities.
- Improving municipal services to enhance the engagement of the Municipality in recovery efforts.
3. Al Fayhaa Sustainable Development Strategy (AFSDS)
Through the engagement of a pool of partners (World Bank, UN-HABITAT, UNEP, Agence Française de Développement, Medcities Network and the Municipalities of Barcelona and Marseilles), the project aims to support the Al Fayhaa Union of Municipalities (UoM) with their long-term local economic growth by supporting the formulation of City Development Strategies (CDS).
As part of this project, UN-HABITAT’s role is to strengthen the role of the UoM and local stakeholders in order to take part actively in the several stages of CDS process.
4. Building Capacity of Local Elected Leaders: Enhancing Recovery of Nahr El Bared Surrounding Municipalities
UN-HABITAT experience in post-conflict states indicates that local government has primary role to play in improving the lives and conditions of the poor. Capacities must be built to support decentralised and inclusive decision-making processes, in which citizens, business and civil society at the local level are directly involved from the outset, can significantly improve the sustainability of urban development. Local authorities in a participatory environment can better play their enabling role and focus on the delivery of basic services.
In this context, the project, which is implemented in partnership with UNDP, seeks to enhance the capacity of urban governance actors to play a significant role in promoting sustainable recovery and development through poverty reduction, participatory decision making, conflict resolution, institutional strengthening and impact monitoring. A comprehensive capacity building program would be implemented targeting six municipalities and corresponding civil society organizations and community representatives. The program would cover the following topics:
- Key competencies for local elected leaders, including communication, decision making, policy making, enabling and institution building.
- Local Government finances.
- Building Bridges, including strategic planning & conflict management.
Habitat Country Program Document 2008-2009
For more information about UN-HABITAT programme:
UN-HABITAT Lebanon
UNESCO Regional Offices, Jnah, Beirut
Tel: +961-1-850013 (ext: 111)
Fax: +961-1-824854
Email: dania.rifai@undp-lebprojects.org
UN-HABITAT Headquarters
P.O.Box: 30030, 0100 Nairobi, KENYA
Tel: +254-20-623221
Fax: +254-20623904
Email: UN-HABITAT@unhabitat.org / Alain.grimard@unhabitat.org
Website: www.unhabitat.org
Updated in March 2009
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