GENDER AND THE HABITAT AGENDA: ENGENDERING OUR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

About the Habitat Agenda

Habitat II, as a Conference and process, had a great impact on the way we think about human settlements and the way we collaborate across sectors to ensure adequate housing and sustainable human settlements for all. It brought together more non-governmental and community based organisation representatives than any other previous UN Conference, where due to intensive lobbying, the primary role of women in human settlements development was strongly recognised.

Thousands of women went to Istanbul, many from the grassroots level, to seek deeper commitments from the international community to change the conditions that keep the majority of women powerless and poor. Presently, around 100 million people, mostly women and children, are homeless. Women constitute 70% of the world's 1.3 billion absolute poor and 50,000 women and their children die daily as a result of poor shelter, water and sanitation.

Gender and the Habitat Agenda: Engendering Our Human Settlements is an effort to highlight the commitments made by Governments and calls to action to all sectors in the area of women and shelter. It compiles paragraphs of the Habitat Agenda that touch directly on women and gender issues, and is accompanied by unofficial summaries in simpler language.

This publication will help readers navigate through the Habitat Agenda to find specific paragraphs bearing gender and women's concerns and directives for action. It can be used for creating awareness of Governments' commitments and responsibilities, lobbying for and creating partnerships with other sectors, developing indicators for monitoring implementation, learning about of non-governmental groups in implementation of the Habitat Agenda and advocating for a gender perspective in human settlements development.

Published by the HIC-Women and Shelter Network, Financed by Misereor and Rooftops Canada
Paragraphs compiled by Tabitha Siwale, Unofficial summaries written by Carla Castañeda

© of this Booklet Design and the unofficial summaries HIC - Women and Shelter Network (HIC WAS) 1999 paragraphs of the Habitat Agenda were prepared by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and are not subject to copywrite

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This publication is the result of a large team effort. Many people contributed to this creation, and we would like to thank them for their contributions, we hope we have not left anyone out. Without them, this booklet would not be.

First, we would like to acknowledge the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), for our use of the official text of the Habitat Agenda.

We would like to acknowledge Habitat International Coalition, specifically Ana Basurto, and the Women and Habitat Program of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), and specifically Wandia Seaforth, for allowing us to use their compilations of paragraphs of the Habitat Agenda touching on women and gender issues. They were used as a base for what you see here.

Many thanks go to all at Women Advancement Trust (WAT) who also assisted with the various drafts and provided much assistance at critical moments.

We are also indebted to the participants of the Anglophone Africa Regional Meeting of the Network that took place in February 1999, for their time in reviewing the draft booklet and sending us their anonymous comments, many of the changes from the draft to this final version are a product of that pre-testing.

Special thanks go to Misereor and Rooftops Canada for providing the funding for this project.

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Habitat II was a world conference on human settlements organised by the United nations, held in Istanbul, Turkey, from 3rd to 14th of June, 1996. This was 20 years after the first such conference was held in Vancouver in Canada in 1976. The conference was attended by over 16,000 people, bringing together more representative of non-governmental and community based organisations than any other previous UN conference.

The two main themes for the conference were

1. adequate shelter for all
2. sustainable human settlements development in an urbanising world

These themes were very relevant since it is currently said that some 100 million people, most of them women and children, are homeless. Overall, at least 600 million people live in shelters that are life or health threatening in cities in the developing world.

Women constitute seventy percent of the world’s 1.3 billion absolute poor and 50,000 women and their children die daily as a result of poor shelter water and sanitation. Thousands of women went to Istanbul, many from the grassroots level, to seek deeper commitments from the international community to change the conditions that keep the majority of women powerless and poor.

Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and the HIC-Women and Shelter Network played a big role both during the preparatory process towards the Habitat II conference and during the conference itself. The Huairou Commission to which HIC - Women and Shelter Network is a member played a very important role in engendering the Habitat Agenda. As a result of intensive lobbying by women, the primary role of women in Human Settlements was strongly recognised and several clauses on gender and women were included in the Habitat Agenda.

At the end of the Conference, people started thinking about the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. Heads of States and Governments and official delegations made commitments to the objectives, principles and to the recommendations contained in the Habitat Agenda and pledged their mutual support for its implementation. In parallel session, NGOs also made a commitment of contributing to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

The Habitat Agenda is a global call to action at all levels. The document offers, within a framework of goals and principals and commitments, a positive vision of sustainable human settlements where all have adequate shelter, a healthy and safe environment, basic services and productive and freely chose employment. The Habitat Agenda is a guide for all efforts geared to turning this vision into a reality.

Since the Habitat Agenda has several clauses on gender and women, the HIC-WAS Secretariat decided to put all such clauses together in one booklet for easy access and reference by all interested parties. The idea is to share in a focused manner, the commitments that have a direct relevance to actions in the thematic area of women and shelter.

The selection of the gender and women clauses from the Habitat Agenda was done by the HIC WAS Secretariat with the assistance of the Women and Habitat Program of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) - Habitat and the Habitat International Coalition. The HIC - Women and Shelter Secreatariate further felt that adding an official summary in simpler language would make this compilation even more accessible.

We hope this booklet will help readers navigate through the Habitat Agenda to find specific paragraphs bearing gender and women’s concerns and directives for action. We feel this booklet can be used as a tool for:

It is the intention of the Secretariat to make the booklet accessible to all interested government officials, people from non-governmental organisation, community based organisations, activists at all levels but more so at the local level, so that it can be a useful tool in implementing and monitoring the implementation of the Habitat Agenda. That is why, at the moment, the booklet is available in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Kiswahili. This, the English version, is the first of the set.

It is our hope that all actors in the field of human settlements will find this booklet handy and easy to use.

Tabitha Siwale, MP
Secretary - HIC WAS
April, 1999

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Each page in each booklet is divided into two parts: the official text and the unofficial summary. The left, wider column in all pages is that of the official text, while the right, narrower, column of all pages contains the unofficial summaries. The official text has been copied directly from the official version of the Habitat Agenda. The unofficial summaries were written especially for this compilation and attempt to provide a brief on each of the paragraphs listed in less technical language. Because some words or phrases were too important to change completely to non-technical language the same were used in the summaries. To compensate for this, we have also included a page with some definitions.

All paragraphs in the official text column have been numbered in a progressive order (1, 2, 3…) according to how they appear in this booklet. To provide you with easy access to its source, the Habitat Agenda, we have also included each paragraph’s number from the Agenda in brackets. In the case of paragraphs with sub-paragraphs (a, b, c…) and sub-sub-paragraphs (I, ii, iii…) we have included the number also in the bracket, so that it becomes (165), (165b) and (165b ii).

All titles and subtitles of the Habitat Agenda were included whenever paragraphs from that section were selected for the compilation. Where no paragraphs from a section were selected, that section’s title or subtitle was not included in this booklet.

None of the summaries were numbered, instead they are paired as accurately as possible given layout limitations, to the paragraph it is summarizing. In the case of sub-paragraphs and sub-sub-paragraphs, the summaries were simply bulleted and indented and bulleted respectively.

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CBO: Community-Based Organisation

HIC: Habitat International Coalition

HIC-WAS: Habitat International Coalition – Women and Shelter Network

MP: Member of Parliament

NGO: Non-Governmental Organisation

UNCHS: United Nations Centre on Human Settlements

WAT: Women Advancement Trust

WHP: Women and Habitat Program