Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960203101734.26331A@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 10:23:50 -0600 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.KSU.EDU> Subject: Habitat II To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
PrepCon 3 takes place Feb 5- 16.Some background and bits of the US Draft submission (I'm a trifle conerned by the elision not only from "Habitat" to "City Summit," but also from urban habitation to urban economics. Are these really synonyms?):
kerry mailto:astingsh@ksu.ksu.edu
========= Alliances Against Hunger Building Partnerships For Development
Hunger lives abroad and at our own doorstep. Although progress has been made in the past decades, too many still suffer from extreme poverty and hunger. In addition, resources devoted to fighting poverty and hunger continue to shrink and we are faced with having to do more with less. How can we rise to this challenge?
The theme of the Ninth Annual Hunger Briefing and Exchange suggests that efforts to fight hunger may be more effective if they are achieved by building stronger, more equitable partnerships within the development community. Partnerships can occur at the most micro-level among individuals in a community or at the most macro-level between international organizations. They may occur between North and South, physical scientists and social scientists, action groups and research groups, governments, NGOs and enterprises. How do we build partnerships among actors that have very different objectives, resources, and powers?
--- Session 8: Reconciling Divergent Priorities: Developing the Mekong BasinPlans to develop the Mekong River Basin are regarded by many as essential for fueling continued economic growth in the region. However, serious questions remain as to whether the costs and benefits of hydro-electric power and new transportation systems have been adequately weighed. Populations who will bear the brunt of the environmental consequences have had little to say in the policy deliberations This panel looks at how plans for the Mekong Basin have evolved, how decisions are currently made, and how NGOs and communities may enter the policy debate.
Peter Uvin Joukowsky Family Assistant Professor World Hunger Program Brown University Box 1831 Providence, RI 02912
Tel. 401 863 2748 ========== gopher://huduser.aspensys.com:73/00/habitat/about/hab2.txt WHAT IS HABITAT II?
In response to the rapid urbanization taking place across the globe, the United Nations (UN) will convene Habitat II --a Global Conference of Cities--in Istanbul, Turkey, in June 1996. The UN has invited all member governments to help develop new approaches to the financing and management of housing and urban growth.
Habitat II comes 20 years after the first Habitat conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976. The Vancouver conference focused on a wide range of problems for both urban and rural human settlements. Habitat II, also known as the City Summit, will confront the critical urban situation and initiate worldwide action to improve shelter and living environments.
The Habitat II Web site is http://www.undp.org/un/habitat
The Central European Environmental Data Request Facility (CEDAR) also has a World Wide Web site at http://pan.cedar.univie.ac.at/habitat/habitat.html
CEDAR maintains a listserver for a discussion group on Habitat II. This list has been established by the Habitat II Secretariat and it is moderated. To subscribe to this list, send an e-mail message to < mailto:listproc@cedar.univie.ac.at> with the one line message "subscribe Habitat2 your_name".
======= Draft of the U.S. National Report URL: gopher://huduser.aspensys.com:73/00/habitat/about/report.txt
... Today, eight out of ten Americans live in one of 330 metropolitan areas, and more than half live in the 39 metropolitan areas with populations of one million or more. At the core of these metropolitan regions are America's cities, which serve as the lifeline of our society.
...Cities are the great democratizers of American society, where people of different cultures and languages meet, mix, and work together. America's great cities harbor and nurture our innovative genius. Science and technology, art and fashion, entertainment, research and higher education -- all of these activities flourish in the creative ferment of urban America.
The cities at the core of America's urban regions have long been the primary source of the nation's economic wealth and progress. Cities are headquarters for the factories and offices that form the foundation of our economy. Moreover, they are centers of banking and commerce that generate investment for the future. With more than 30 percent of the nation's people and more than 40 percent of its jobs, central cities are the economic leaders of America's metropolitan regions. Because of the inextricable link between central cities and suburban labor, housing, and goods markets, economically healthy cities drive economically healthy metropolitan areas.
... Despite their greatness, cities face enormous challenges. While virtually all communities face problems related to crime, poverty alleviation, economic development, job training, public health, affordable housing development, fiscal health, and the environment, America's cities face them on a more intensive level than their suburban or rural counterparts because of the high concentrations of poor, largely minority, households in urban
... Because very low-income poor people have become concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods where job opportunities are virtually non-existent, stark contrasts in income now exist between the central cities and their surrounding suburbs. In 1990, the overall poverty rate in America's suburbs was slightly more than 8 percent, compared to 18 percent in our urban areas. Moreover, 26 percent of all urban children live in poverty, compared to 11 percent of suburban children....
======