Consensus eludes U.N. meet on shelter

By Kalpana Sharma

NEW YORK, JUNE 9. A meeting on issues dealing with shelter and urban problems should not stumble on politics. But it has. Istanbul Plus Five, the special session of the U.N. General Assembly, which had conducted its proceeding in relative harmony over three days, came to a dead halt on the last day.

The stumbling block is a paragraph in the Declaration on Cities which the General Assembly is expected to adopt. Most of this document, which has been negotiated by member states over the course of this year in committees, reiterates much of what was agreed upon in Istanbul, at the Habitat II meeting in 1996. It notes the extent of urban poverty, it emphasises the inter- dependence of rural and urban areas even as it acknowledges that cities and town are engines of growth.

While assessing the progress made since 1996 in implementing the Habitat Agenda, the declaration renews and reaffirms its commitment to these promises concerning adequate shelter for all, sustainable human settlements, enablement and participation, gender equality, financing shelter and human settlements. All of this is beyond controversy.

Yet, the General Assembly could not conclude its business because international politics came in the way. At the last moment, there was a proposal to include a paragraph on occupied territories. The countries pushing this argued that the shelter problems in these areas are special and need to be acknowledged. Those opposing held that this was an extraneous issue. And there was a deadlock.

At the same time, groups wanting a stronger statement on the right to adequate shelter are also not satisfied with the wording of the declaration. But such groups operate from outside the official negotiating committees. Thus, they can only hope that some government, or governments, will respond to their cause and insist on the changes.

At the time of writing this report, the weary delegates to the three-day meeting had dispersed without coming to an agreement. But they are due to continue and as is the norm in most such U.N. conferences, there will ultimately be a compromise.

Dancing around language

But to the non-governmental organisations and even representatives of local governments, much of this dancing around the language of a document appears to make little sense. In fact, the distinctive feature of this meeting was the fact that while government representatives sat locked in closed room negotiating the declaration, mayors and representatives of local governments, as well as non-governmental organisations from around the world, exchanged concrete experiences of dealing with the problems of cities.

The most substantive part of Istanbul Plus Five was the innovative idea of holding thematic sessions. At each of these sessions, people from different countries, sometimes local officials, sometimes NGOs, presented evidence of how urban problems could be tackled. These sessions resulted in detailed exchanges.

For instance, the presentation from India by Ms. Sheela Patel, director of Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), on the project her organisation has taken on to build toilets in Mumbai's slums, drew considerable interest from local officials of other developing countries.

Similarly the Mayor of Santo Andre in Brazil spoke of ending social exclusion in his city through a programme that benefitted 16,000 slum dwellers. The programme had given these people secure tenure, better basic services and also arranged for credit and vocational training.

As tired and often bored government representatives continued to sit in the General Assembly, the people actually implementing the Habitat Agenda - the mayors and the representatives of different organisations - packed their bags and left. For them, the meeting was about exchanging experiences and not the words in a document that will soon be forgotten.

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Section  : International
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