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. It is therefore the main UN agency concerned with issues of housing, urban development and the challenge of slums.
Homeless International and many of our partner organisations attended UN-Habitat's third World Urban Forum (WUF), held in Vancouver, Canada in June 2006. Homeless International previously participated in the first World Urban Forum (in 2002) and the second one in 2004. As at the second World Urban Forum, we hosted networking events sharing lessons from our experiences in developing and implementing the Community Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF), and work carried out through ComHabitat. Posters with more details about these events can be downloaded below. We also participated in other networking sessions, meetings and events.
The CLIFF networking event was held at 8.30am on Friday 23rd June in Room MR17 in the Exhibition Centre. Jean-Pierre Elong Mbassi chaired a debate on "This house believes that the urban poor cannot afford to work in partnership with the state and with the private sector".
The ComHabitat networking event was at 2pm on Monday 19th June, in Room MR15, where the motion "This House believes that urban development strategies are not relevant to national poverty reduction strategies" was debated. Discussion was chaired by Caren Levy (Director, Development Planning Unit, University College of London).
We also launched our new book entitled "Bridging the finance gap in Housing and Infrastructure" which documents lessons and experiences from our work in supporting international partners and community-based housing and infrastructure solutions, developing the Guarantee Fund, CLIFF and other innovations in development finance.
For more information about WUF3, see UN-Habitat's website or the Canadian WUF website.
