Advocacy through international meetings and events
ComHabitat and its partners attend key international meetings and events, concerned with human settlements and wider development issues. The main focus of ComHabitat's advocacy has been the World Urban Forum and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. In addition, CCGHS usually meets in the wings of UN-Habitat meetings, providing a forum for Ministerial discussion of the wider meeting agenda.
In 2005, ComHabitat focused its advocacy on four further events. Water, sanitation and human settlements were the theme of the April 2005 UN Commission on Sustainable Development. At an earlier meeting, the CCGHS considered a paper on effective partnerships in water, sanitation, human settlements and waste management and decided to make a statement to the Commission. The statement, delivered by the outgoing CCGHS chair, emphasised the need for an integrated debate on water, sanitation and waste management, that puts human settlements at the heart of the development agenda; and the need for increased finance to support the implementation of international goals. Both the statement and the paper can be read or downloaded opposite.
ComHabitat produced a paper for the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Meeting, held in Barbados in September 2005, reviewing the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of seven Commonwealth countries. The conclusion was that there was general lack of focus on urban poverty issues, which prevents governments and donors being able to take advantage of the opportunities within urban areas to address poverty and meet the MDGs.
ComHabitat also contributed to the Commonwealth's messages on two international days. On World Environment Day, 5th June 2005, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon, issued a message focussing on the challenges of urbanisation. The Deputy Secretary General's World Habitat Day message, which stated that slum upgrading and strategic urban planning are central to reaching the Millennium Development Goals, was featured on the Commonwealth website's homepage. The statements can be downloaded opposite.
The series of papers produced by ComHabitat and CCGHS to advocate their concerns at international meetings can be downloaded here.