Habitat
A Global Meeting of Cities and International Programmes
Istanbul, 1 June 1996
Executive Head of UNCHS (Habitat)
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Istanbul, to the City Summit, and to this special meeting on “Implementing the Urban Environment Agenda”. You have set yourself an important and challenging task:
On the long road to Istanbul many different groups of actors, each from its own perspective, have reviewed the many opportunities and problems faced by our cities. We have discussed cities and have collected examples of best practice with governments, the business community, the NGOs, and the international development community. What is special about this meeting is the fact that you, representatives from all these diverse groups, have gathered around one special issue of common concern - the urban environment.
I see in this room representatives from an extraordinary range of cities from around the world: from Africa, Asia, The Middle East, North America, South America, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and Australia. Coming from such different backgrounds - economic, physical, demographic, social, and political - these cities face vastly different problems of urban environmental planning and management. Nonetheless, the cities are united, not only by their shared commitment to deal with these problems, but also by the common approaches which they are evolving. The cities of the world are discovering for themselves, through the hard lessons of experience, more effective approaches for dealing with the problems of urban development and environment. In the process, a number of important insights are emerging, increasing our understanding of how better to achieve the aims of Sustainable Development in the urban habitat.
I also see representatives from a wide range of international support programmes: from United Nations agencies, other multilateral development organisations, bilateral development agencies, international NGOs, and associations of local governments. Coming from many different geographic, institutional, and political backgrounds, these various programmes have different mandates, scope of work, and orientation. Nonetheless, the programmes are united, not only by their shared commitment to deal with the concerns of urban environment, each in its own way, but also by the complementarities and mutually supportive roles they are evolving in their work with cities around the world. I understand that the various international support programmes will identify the areas of their special expertise and capabilities, within a coherent framework which relates different support activities to the common agenda of the cities. In this way, the valuable complementaries of the different international programmes can be reviewed, while recognizing existing institutional strengths.
If you succeed to synthesize your experiences - and seeing the excellent preparatory work, I have no doubt you will - then you will be in a unique position to offer a powerful reminder to the participants in the City Summit: a reminder of the impressive range of initiatives and accomplishments in urban environmental management world-wide, and of resources and expertise, local and international, which have already been mobilized and effectively applied. Being based firmly on what cities and their partners are already doing and achieving and learning, the Meeting’s review will produce a very useful input to the City Summit and especially to the formulation and negotiation of implementation modalities for the Global Plan of Action, the Habitat Agenda.
I am therefore particularly pleased to be with you today and to give recognition to your efforts, both city and international programme representatives, for committing your time and resources to join together and to review city environment agendas and international cooperation response. I am looking forward to the results of your meeting and the Manifesto you plan to issue at the end of this day.
Ladies and Gentlemen, every effort was made to involve the full range of stakeholders during preparations for this City Summit and I am certain that most, if not all of you have been touched by these efforts over the past two years. But we should also recognise that the two weeks ahead of us are specifically there to finalise negotiations of the Habitat Agenda. In this regard I should note that there are still good opportunities to bring your deliberations here today to the forefront of those negotiations. In particular, as I feel Implementation of the Urban Environment Agenda to be of such crucial importance to the future sustainability of our cities and to the role of the international development community, I would welcome you as National Delegates, as wellp as members of the various municipal, NGO, and professional fora to carry your message, through your Manifesto to the negotiating committees of this Summit.
Last, but far from least, in recognition of the tremendous impact that an effective exchange of cities and international support programmes can have in guiding the future management of our cities, I encourage you, as the Secretary General of the City Summit, to consider how your Meeting could become the beginning of a continuing process rather than just the conclusion of a valuable but one-off effort. In this regard, as the Executive Head of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, I warmly offer the services of the Centre as a secretariat to the exchange and networking arrangements that you may wish to recommend through your deliberations.
A wealth of operational experience has been brought together in this room, a fountain of knowledge and experiences to share with each other and with the world gathering here in Istanbul for the next two weeks. I challenge you to make good use of this extra-ordinary opportunity for the benefit of the Summit and, ultimately, the cities of our world.
I wish you all the best for your deliberations.
I declare this meeting formally opened.