| Sponsors
UN-HABITAT
The Together Foundation
The Kellogg Foundation
UNESCO
UN-HABITAT
In 1978, when Habitat was established, after a meeting in Vancouver
known as Habitat I, urbanisation and its impacts were less significant
on the agenda of United Nations that had been created over three
decades earlier, when two-thirds of humanity was still rural. From
1978 to 1997, with meagre support and an unfocused mandate, Habitat
struggled almost alone among multi-lateral organizations to prevent
and ameliorate problems stemming from massive urban growth, especially
among cities of the developing world. From 1997 to 2002, by which
time half the world had become urban, UN-HABITAT – guided
by the Habitat Agenda and the Millennium Declaration – underwent
a major revitalisation, using its experience to identify emerging
priorities for sustainable urban development and to make needed
course corrections.
In 1996, the United Nations held a second conference on cities,
Habitat II, in Istanbul, Turkey to assess two decades of progress
since Vancouver and set fresh goals for the new millennium. Adopted
by 171 countries, the political document that came out of this “City
Summit” is known as the Habitat Agenda and contains over 100
commitments and 600 recommendations.
On 1 January 2002, the agency’s mandate was strengthened
and its status elevated to that of a fully fledged programme of
the UN system in UN General Assembly Resolution A/56/206. Key recommendations
and fine tuning of the agenda are now underway as strategy clusters
for achieving the urban development and shelter goals and targets
of the Millennium Declaration - the United Nations’ development
agenda for the next 15 to 20 years. The revitalisation has placed
UN-HABITAT squarely in the mainstream of the UN’s development
agenda for poverty reduction with a more streamlined and effective
structure and staff, and more relevant and focused set of programmes
and priorities.
It is through this agenda that UN-HABITAT contributes to the overall
objective of the United Nations system to reduce poverty and promote
sustainable development. Its partners range from governments and
local authorities to a wide international cross-section of Non-Governmental
Organisations and civil society groups.
For more information about UN-HABITAT, send an e-mail to infohabitat@unhabitat.org.
The Together Foundation
The Together Foundation promotes partnerships among governments,
NGOs, and the private sector in efforts to deal with the world's
social problems.
The Together Foundation also facilitates non-profit management
through its computer, information and networking services. The Foundation
makes information and communication functions and linkages more
universally accessible to non-profit organizations.
As an official NGO of the United Nations through its affiliation
with the UN's Department of Public Information, the Together Foundation
also repackages and distributes UN information to UN constituents
around the world.
We invite you to learn more about The Together Foundation at our
web
site.
The Kellogg Foundation
The Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to "help people
help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and
resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations."
As a private grantmaking organization, it provides seed money to
nonprofit organizations and institutions that have identified problems
and designed constructive action programs aimed at solutions.
The Best Practices for Human Settlements is such a program of urban
self help through the practical application of knowledge and resources.
For more information, write to:
W. K. Kellogg Foundation
One Michigan Avenue
Battle Creek, Michigan 49017-4058
UNESCO
The MOST Program is an international social-science research programme
that is administered in the social-science sector of UNESCO. It
supports policy-relevant research that is interdisciplinary and
usually comparative between countries and has a Scientific Committee
composed of international scholars and an Intergovernmental Council
formed of representatives of 35 Member States. The program is particularly
concerned with population policies, urbanization, multiculturalism,
social aspects of development and economic-reform packages and facets
of globalization and their local impact.
For more information about UNESCO - MOST
e-mail: ssmost@unesco.org
MOST Secretariat: UNESCO, 1 rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France
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