Cities Alliance Annual Meetings in Manila, Philippines, 5-9 November 2007

The Cities Alliance is pleased to announce that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will host a dinner at the Malacaňang Palace to open the Cities Alliance annual meetings in Manila on 5 November 2007. The president’s speech will open the Public Policy Forum, a three-day event that precedes the two-day Consultative Group meetings of Alliance members. High-level delegates to the meetings include Philippine Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council Chairman, Noli de Castro, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Khun Paiboon Wattanasiritham, Philippine government officials, and senior representatives of Cities Alliance members and its Policy Advisory Board.

The Public Policy Forum 2007, “Leveraging Resources for Liveable Cities,” focuses on local government resources. PPF activities include site visits to Philippine cities involved in city development strategy programmes and presentations by notable speakers. Forums on housing, urban development, and financing issues will bring together a range of experts and include presentations by the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, and representatives of the Philippines government, the Metro Manila Urban Services Programme, the City of Yangzhou in China, the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa, and Cities Alliance members. This event is open to the public, though advance registration is required.

The Consultative Group meetings will include the 23 Cities Alliance members, and three associate members. The Alliance is especially pleased to welcome its new members, Chile, Ethiopia, the Philippines, and the European Union. Attending as associate members are the African Development Bank, International Labour Organization, and Slum Dwellers International. The main topic of discussion at the meetings will be the medium-term strategy of the Cities Alliance that will set the direction of the Alliance for the next three years.

The Cities Alliance annual meetings are being organised by the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council of the Philippines, the League of Cities of the Philippines, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and UN-HABITAT.

More information and registration:
• Public Policy Forum 2007
• http://manila2007.citiesalliance.org/news.html

• Cities Alliance Website
• http://www.citiesalliance.org/publications/homepage-features/sept-7/ppf-07-invitation.html.

Shack/Slum Dwellers International to join Cities Alliance

In an historic step, Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a network of federations of the urban poor, have indicated their intention to join the Cities Alliance. Pending formal membership, SDI will attend the Alliance’s annual meetings in Manila as observers. Writing to Cities Alliance Manager William Cobbett, the SDI Co-ordinator indicated that SDI had canvassed possible support for membership amongst a number of Cities Alliance members, including Brazil, South Africa, the UK Department for International Development, the United States Agency for International Development, and Norway, all of whom have reportedly responded positively. This also follows upon Cobbett’s meeting with the SDI’s Council of Federations in Stellenbosch (Cape Town, South Africa) on 31 August 2007.

SDI currently has affiliates in more than twenty countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. SDI President, Jockin Arputham, will lead the SDI delegation to Manila, where he was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding in 2000.

More information:
• http://www.sdinet.org/
• http://www.homeless-international.org/standard_1.aspx?id=0:275&id=0:262

Metropolis Board of Directors Meetings, 17-19 September 2007

Cities Alliance Manager William Cobbett attended the Metropolis Board of Directors meeting in Antananarivo, Madagascar. The meetings also coincided with those of the Standing Commissions on the Financing of Urban Services and Infrastructure, Comprehensive Neighbourhood Regeneration and Metropolitan Performance Measurement. More than 20 metropolitan governments and 140 participants attended the event, hosted by Acting Mayor Hery Rafalimanana.

The Board meeting, chaired by Jean-Paul Huchon (President of the Ile-de-France region), approved the Experts Report on the Bank of Cities. The Board announced the start-up of three pilot projects for this new finance tool aimed at cities in developing countries. The Bank of Cities project is expected to be endorsed and launched at the October 2008 Metropolis World Congress to be held in Sydney.

More information:

http://www.metropolis.org/index.php?action=detalle&modul=noticias&id_noticia=132&id_seccion=76.

MINURVI Meeting in Chile, 10-17 October 2007

At the annual MINURVI meeting of Housing and Urban Development Ministers hosted in Santiago de Chile 10-17 October 2007, delegates assessed their collective progress in social housing programmes and urban upgrading initiatives, while grappling with the region’s backlog of social housing. Cities Alliance staff William Cobbett and Pelle Persson attended the meetings. MINURVI was created in 1992 as a permanent forum for consultation and coordination among the region's ministers and officials responsible for housing and urban development. In 1995, member states adopted the Regional Plan of Action for Latin America and the Caribbean on Human Settlements, which has formed the basis of diverse regional accords in five priority areas: achieving social equity and combating poverty; increasing productivity in human settlements; improving the urban environment; fostering governance; participation, and efficiency in policy-making. The third day of the assembly focused on developing and agreeing on a Santiago declaration to be used by national governments to define an agenda on inclusiveness, the theme for the next meeting for the heads of state to be held in Santiago in November. The declaration avers that ‘the right to the city’ should be a basic feature in designing urban policies, especially related to secure access to land, adequate housing, infrastructure and social amenities for the urban poor.

Patricia Poblete, Chile's Minister of Housing and Urban Development, and William Cobbett, Cities Alliance Manager

More information:
• Declaración de Santiago, Santiago de Chile, 9 de Octubre de 2007 (in Spanish - 5 pages, 44 KB PDF)
• Protocolo de Santiago, Santiago de Chile, 10 de Octubre de 2007 (in Spanish - 6 pages, 263 KB PDF)

• Interview with William Cobbett published in El Mercurio newspaper, 25 October 2007 (in Spanish

• - 1 page,  308 KB PDF)
• MINURVI Website: http://www.minurvi.org/.

SDI Donor Meeting, London, 12 October 2007

On 12 October, representatives from the Cities Alliance, Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Norway, United States Agency for International Development, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) met in London. The purpose of the meeting, which was coordinated by the Cities Alliance Secretariat and hosted by DFID, was to share detailed information on individual programmes of support to Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), and discuss ways in which the organisations represented could better collaborate to improve the quality of support to SDI.

More information:
• http://www.homeless-international.org/standard_1.aspx?id=0:275&id=0:262
• http://www.sdinet.org/.

World Bank Appoints New Urban Sector Manager

The World Bank announced the appointment of Abha Joshi-Ghani as Urban Sector Manager for the Finance, Economics, and Urban Department (FEU) in the Sustainable Development Network Vice Presidency. In her new position, Ms. Joshi-Ghani's three top priorities will be to: (i) lead the update of the World Bank's Urban Development Strategy and ensure its alignment with the country assistance strategies for key countries; (ii) manage the work of the Urban unit in FEU, in close cooperation with other units in the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network, and exploit the synergies between the urban, sub-national, spatial, environment, infrastructure, and social development agendas; and (iii) guide and oversee the work of thematic groups under the World Bank’s Urban Sector Board.

Government of Thailand and UN-HABITAT celebrate the Baan Mankong Upgrading Programme

The Government of Thailand celebrated the 80th birthday of the Thai king and World Habitat Day, 1 October 2007, by reviewing progress with Baan Mankong, a nationwide upgrading programme with a fiscal 2008 budget of $50 million. Baan Mankong was launched by the Thai government in 2003 to address housing problems confronting the country’s poorest citizens. Through the programme, government funds in the form of infrastructure subsidies, and soft housing and land loans are channelled to communities who then budget for and carry out improvements in housing, basic services, and the local environment. The programme uses a community-based approach that brings together poor communities, local government, professionals, universities, and nongovernmental organisations. The Community Organizations Development Institute implements the programme.

Through September 2007, 495 projects affecting 957 communities in 226 cities had been approved. Some 53,000 families have participated in the programme. The government emphasises that the Baan Mankong programme can provide flexible financing and a menu of upgrading options for participants. Upgrading can include upgrading homes and facilities in situ, reblocking an existing community to make service provision possible, land sharing with a land owner to ensure both benefit, reconstruction of a community on the same land, and relocation. Programme highlights detail that 78 percent of households have been upgraded in situ or close to the original residential location, and 82 percent have obtained long-term land tenure security as a result of programme activities.

The Government of Thailand and UN-HABITAT organised World Habitat Week from 1 to 7 October 2007. Events were held in several cities to celebrate the signing of contracts for housing development; inaugurate new housing and upgrading programmes; and discuss slums, housing, and secure tenure.

More Information:

• Community Organizations Development Institute

• http://www.codi.or.th/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=9&Itemid=52

• Asian Coalition for Housing Rights

• http://www.achr.net/bann_mankong.htm

• Article: 80 Community Upgrading Projects (6 pages, 191 KB PDF)