HIC`s-pectations of Habitat III

 In the run-up to the next all-UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in 2016, concerned civil society organization and, especially Members of HIC, and are reflecting on how civil society has contributed to the current Habitat Agenda process and content. In considering the process since the first Habitat Conference at Vancouver in 1976 through promising Habitat II at Istanbul in 1996, has the dynamic of civic engagement advanced or regressed, how does concerned civil society perceive this dynamic unfolding toward 2016? On matters of substance and content of the new Habitat Agenda, what does civil society hope to contribute to, and take from Habitat III in 2016?

These were the questions on the table during the recent World Urban Forum 7 (WUF) in Medellín, Colombia, where HIC-HLRN organized a networking event under the forward-looking title “Habitat III Expectations.” The purpose of this event was precisely to review the past processes and content of the past Habitat Agendas over the past 40 years, and to collect civil society perspectives on type of engagement and content issues they seek in the months leading to Habitat III.

The event, moderated by HIC-HLRN coordinator Joseph Schechla, began with three presentations: Enrique Ortiz, president emeritus of HIC, who reflected on the evolving political dynamics and struggles over content since 1976; Majed Thabet, Youth Development Organziation (Yemen), added a vision of what to expect from his region and generation’s perspective. Matthew Boms, Communitas Coalition, informed the 50 participants of the current dynamics and issues involved in determining the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, which will precede and link to the more specific outcomes of Habitat III.

This consultative session on the last day of WUF echoed the opening-day presentation of HIC President Lorena Zárate in emphasizing three basic prerequisites for the Habitat II process:

1. Addressing habitat in its integrity, not fragmenting habitat or focusing exclusively on cities, but respecting the rural-urban continuum;
2. Ensuring that human rights and corresponding obligations remain at the core of the new agenda, recognizing the right to the city and ensuring accountability to human rights norms in habitat development; and
3. Providing for the widest and most-substantive civil society participation possible in preparation and implementation of the new Habitat Agenda.

That message formed a common ground for expectations that Habitat III learn from the past and usher in socially equitable and environmentally sound habitat policy at the global level for the coming decades. In order to ensure that optimal outcome of the deliberative process and ultimate outcomes document, participants in the networking event proffered an inventory of values and issues that they considered to be indispensable.

Expectations of Habitat III Content

Cities for all  

Several speakers variously emphasized that the Habitat III process promote and enshrine the principle that cities and built environments should spaces of inclusion. Thus, they argued, the social function of habitat and the city must be emphasized, and be a core component to urban assessments and future planning projects. The new Habitat Agenda should call for adequate space to be allocated for social use, including ample green space, and space for arts, culture and self-expression, open to all inhabitants. More specifically, Habitat III and the new Habitat Agenda should explicitly acknowledge and remedy material discrimination and set out affirmative action for marginalized groups to ensure their equal enjoyment of urban spaces and services.

Meaningful Sustainability

In the Habitat III discourse, some urged that the concept and term “sustainability” not be a guise for the continuation of current practices, especially the further commodification of the commons. In this connection, speakers noted the lesson learned from the distortion of the “green economy” narrative via Rio +20, which pursued “converting nature into capital.” Habitat sustainability should be oriented toward improving living conditions through responsible production and consumption that protect the environment and advance social justice. Sustainability, in any case, must include discussion of both urban and rural needs and how they affect and relate to each other. In this respect, the Habitat III Agenda should emphasize the norm that both central and local governments’ primary duties and functions are to serve and protect people and communities, along with maintaining safe and healthy environment for them.

Urban-rural continuum

Through this event it is clear that we can no longer discuss “urban” issues in isolation from rural areas, or in hierarchical terms. Speakers considered that the trend to “deproblematize” urbanization has exceeded its usefulness, given way to promotional language that has become divisive. Instead participants pointed to the dominant reality of the “rural-urban continuum” to ensure that Habitat III and the new Agenda that it produces reflect this reality and habitat diversity.  For that, it is imperative that the Habitat III process and content address “habitat” in a holistic sense.

Human Rights

Prominent was the view that the Habitat III summit and preparatory processes must have human rights norms and corresponding obligations “at the center” or “comprise the normative framework.” This includes process human rights participation and full exercise of citizenship within the built environments, right to freedom of movement, right to resources (energy, water, etc.), among others. Habitat III deliberations and outcomes should embody the understanding that those human rights enable the realization of other human rights such as the human right to adequate housing, water and sanitation, etc.

For those advocating the “right to the city,” it was important that Habitat III recognize their claim, as such, but also as expressed in constituent right-to-the-city terms: social function of the city, social function of property, participation and full exercise of citizenship within the built environment. For those advocates invoking the World Charter on the Right to the City, this means rights not yet codified in international law:

o   Right to land and its social function

o   Right to freedom of movement (interpreted as transport)

o   Right to energy (as element of housing, food, health)

A core component to rights in the content of Habitat III is the issue of housing and land tenure, recognizing the rights to land and property within their social function. Upholding the human right to housing, as in the Habitat II Agenda, now should also uphold the ban on forced evictions.

The human rights framework for Habitat III debates would mean the application of new guidelines norms, such the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests, and the outgoing Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik’s study on tenure, provide groundwork and clarification of standards for a dialogue on tenure in both urban and rural areas. This raises the expectation that the new Habitat Agenda recognize of the full range of tenure options, explicitly including the social production of habitat. Incorporating and integrating these normative developments were seen as crucial in light of mounting violations such as forced evictions and land confiscations, especially in informal areas and slums.

In the review of states’ implementation of Habitat II, some participants found these norms to be crucial as a Habitat III reporting criterion. That emerged as especially necessary in light of the fact that such structural, process and outcome indicators were missed in the foregoing Habitat II and Millennium Development Goal processes.

Diagnosing and Solving Problems

Respondents expressed the position that Habitat III should not be another lost opportunity to address causes of hazards, problems and violations under economic systems and development models. In so doing, the deliberations and agreed text have to break from the past exercises of avoiding critical inquiry and, thus, failing to address crippling debt, irresponsible production and consumption, indulging profit and self-enrichment, and exalting private ownership (which some call freehold fetishism) over other forms of tenure.

Participants urged that the new Habitat Agenda address causes of shortcomings and failures to implement previously agreed-upon and treaty-bound obligations. In so doing, the Habitat III process and outcome should recognize that “growth [as an economic indicator] does not bring equity,” as one participant put it. Other development notions that demand to be updated include the updating of models of public-private partnership (PPP) that exclude the popular sector. This suggested the explicit promotion of fuller development-partnership options to include the popular sector (PPPPs).

Another recommendation for habitat development to be included in Habitat III was the notion of responsible investment. In this sense, it is not sufficient for private-sector actors to “do no harm,” but rather uphold their obligation to fulfill their social function. In this track was the recommendation that Habitat III embody the standard that public and private investment be prioritized to generate employment with decent work, especially for youth (as Majed Thabet also expressed in his opening remarks), and social protection for all.

In addressing deprivation, poverty and other human rights abuses, it was expressed that Habitat III debates and outcomes should require governments to serve and protect inhabitants as primary duties and functions. For this, some expressed that a rights-based Habitat III should create mechanisms of accountability for violations of habitat rights.

Among the specific problems solving issues that CSOs proposed for inclusion in the content of the new Habitat Agenda are reparations for victims of violations and support for alternative planning and social production, based on people’s processes and recognized human rights.

Participatory local democracy

Among the concepts that CSOs proposed to be raised to a global standard in Habitat III is empowered local government, as distinct from the executive-dominated “local administration” that prevails in many countries. While this is a domestic issue within states, it arises from the human right to participation in public life and aligns with the right to the city. With this proposal, participants hinted at an alliance with local authorities, which is another distinct constituency in the Habitat III process.

Resilience

Resilience needs to be redefined to reduce the burden on the victims, and emphasize both accountability and liability for crises and causal factors necessitating “resilience.” Resilience should also explicitly recognize that people and communities have the right to resist and obtain remedy for hazards, problems and violations that plunge them into crises, as well as the full implementation of reparations as an entitlement defined in international instruments. It is also important that we not just discuss “resilient cities”, but also the specifically focus on the human dimension of resilience, throughout the rural-urban continuum.

Expectations of Habitat III Process:

In his moderating role, Joseph Schechla had summarized the mechanisms for participation in Habitat III. That saw a self-organized International Facilitating Group for civil society that ran parallel to other state-formed and constituent groups. In addition, Habitat II featured a Partnership Committee for state and major group consultations, in which civil society actively participated.

Among the options that were on the table for discussion were a process by which CSOs prepare and present parallel reports (to the National Habitat Report) as part of a procedure in which state performance under the Habitat II agenda and related criteria are considered. These criteria would include a review and assessment of the status of relevant international agreements as part of an overall evaluation of Habitat processes. Among the innovations of CSO self-organization in the Habitat II process was the development of thematic “treaties” of agreed-upon principles relating to topics and social groups.

Since Habitat II, other UN agencies such as FAO and UNEP have evolved and provide models for CSO engagement. These have become permanent mechanisms, and potential exists for CSO engagement in Habitat III to become such a mechanism within UN-Habitat. Recently, as Matthew Boms explained, the post-2015 SDG process has supported an Open Working Group for all concerned constituencies.

Overall, it was clear in the event that participants believe that effective and meaningful participation of civil society is essential to their expectations of the Habitat III process. It was argued that people’s processes need to be especially empowered in the Habitat III preparations, because of the particularly brutal trends in urban development, as well as people’s innovation in production and consumption of habitat.

Interventions reflected the need for civil society to have united, well-organized efforts toward advocacy and mobilization at Habitat III and in the preparatory processes. Civil society engagement should be facilitated outside of the UN system, and provide technical and communication support.

The minimum expectation and demand of those present was to realize at least the same level of civil society participation as in the Habitat II process. For this, the memory of Habitat II veterans and, especially, Enrique Ortíz’ opening presentation were instructive.

Participants in the event called for a clear participation structure. Some proposed regional-level processes for civil society, especially for formulating joint positions and having input where travel to PrepComs is prohibitively expensive and/or administratively difficult.

Participants also expressed the need for technical support to ensure optimum civil society engagement. However, speakers expressed the need also for civil society control over its engagement process in self-organizing Habitat III inputs. However, some participants referred to the need for a pedagogical process and for greater information on entry points and other strategy advice. Repeated, too, was the need to ensure youths’ role and representation in drafting, decision making and implementation

For clarity of communication and to ensure a level field for all civil society actors in the Habitat III processes, it would be useful also to have clear definition of terms (terminology). (One participant proposed to produce and new and critical definition of “urbanization.”) This round of formulating the Habitat Agenda, it is possible to utilize multiple forms of communication to connect with communities.

As clarified in Matthew Boms’ introductory presentation, participants expressed the hope that the process relate the new SDGs with Habitat III, somehow synergizing the two processes in the 1^st PrepCom. Lucia Kiwala, chief of UN-Habitat’s CSO Unit, took the floor to provide some practical information for the participants.

Ms. Kiwala explained the process now ongoing to establish National Habitat Committees in each country whose task involves preparing the National Reports. However, the process needs many more country-level inputs. CSOs form only one of 13 partner groups in the Habitat III process. Others include local governments, indigenous peoples

She advised also that CSOs participants identify and work with “champions” among the states that support particular issues of importance to civil society partners. In reviewing the background documents, it is important to look for the gaps in issues and concepts that need to be included in the process and content.

As far as procedures are being prepared at present, CSO and other participants will be able to register for accreditation on line. UNGLS will be playing a supportive role for civil society actors throughout the process.

In addition to the PrepComs, the Habitat III preparations will involve ministerial-level meetings organized through regional UN Economic Commissions. Other instruments of decision making and information will be UN-Habitat Governing Council resolutions.

In wrapping up, Mr. Schechla thanked all participants for their valuable input and spoke on behalf of HIC in the hope that the outcomes from this networking event would contribute toward forming a broad united CSO platform toward an improved Habitat Agenda in 2016.