Vancouver, Canada, 19 June 2006. Vancouver hosted, from 19 to 23 June 2006, the third World Urban Forum. The World Urban Forum is an initiative of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). Held every two years, the World Urban Forum invites governments, local authorities, non-governmental organizations and other experts on urban issues from around the world to discuss the challenges of urbanization.
UNITAR and UN-HABITAT took the opportunity of this conference to organize the second session of the Steering Committee in charge of following the implementation of Resolution 20/5, adopted by the UN-HABITAT Governing Council in April 2005.
The purpose of the meeting was to present and discuss the compilation of best practices as well as the draft report containing options on the way forward which has to be submitted to the Committee of Permanent Representatives to UN-HABITAT. The Committee provided interesting comments on these two documents. The Secretariat of the Committee will improve and edit these above-mentioned documents in the next coming weeks.
The discussions of the Committee were also dedicated to substantive discussion on the possible way forward. Thus, Options 1 and 2 were reformulated as follows:
“The Governing Council may:
1. Request the UN-HABITAT Executive Director to develop appropriate recommendations that could be used by interested Governments to improve related legislation;
2. Recommend that members States negotiate a text on non binding guidelines based on consultation of interested stakeholders;
3. Recommend that Governments negotiate a binding document (i.e. an international convention or code)”
The members of the committee believe that option 2 would provide a useful framework to implement international support for improving access to basic services.
For more information please contact Mr. Philippe ATHANASSIOU at the following email address: dcp< at >unitar.org
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