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• Cities, Magnets of Hope - 2006 World Habitat Day Message

Cities, Magnets of Hope - 2006 World Habitat Day Message

A message by the Deputy Secretary-General, Mr Ransford Smith, on World Habitat Day 2006, Monday, 2nd October.

World Habitat Day Message 2006

Today (Monday 2nd October) is World Habitat Day, an opportunity for us to reflect on human settlements and the fact that there can be no sustainable development without sustainable urbanisation.

People are being drawn to cities at a breathtaking pace. In the last 50 years, the percentage of the world’s urban population has increased from 30% to nearly 50%. As centres of social and economic activity, cities are exciting places to live and offer the promise of greater opportunities. However, urban centres will only deliver their promise of hope if urban poverty is addressed. In Africa, the most rapidly urbanising continent, one in three Commonwealth citizens live in slums in insecure, life threatening, informal human settlements without adequate access to clean water and sanitation. Regrettably, poverty and the deprivation experienced by urban slum dwellers are often underestimated and thus low rates of water and sanitation coverage, high child mortality and poor education enrolment go unrecognised. Yet, for example, good slum-upgrading programmes can reduce infant and child mortality rates by more than 80 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation.

Through ComHabitat, the Commonwealth continues to support its members in actively promoting implementation of the Habitat Agenda and the Commonwealth’s own goal to “demonstrate progress towards adequate shelter for all with secure tenure and access to essential services in every community by 2015”. ComHabitat is an innovative partnership which includes civil society and different levels of government, including Commonwealth Ministers responsible for human settlements.

Cities are increasingly the engine of economic growth.  They are inhabited by the urban poor who provide an essential pool of labour and services, but who need secure tenure and basic services to thrive. The fight against poverty must be taken forward in cities as well, offering hope to us all!