Next week, the Governing Council of UN Habitat – representing 58 national governments - meets in Nairobi, and is due to adopt a new set of Guidelines on access to basic services.
These draft Guidelines emphasize the important role of decentralized local authorities in delivering public services, and complement the Guidelines on the Strengthening of Local Authorities which were agreed two years ago, at the last Governing Council meeting.
These Guidelines on strengthening local authorities have been welcomed by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and our world organisation, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). They have now been published in German and English by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, on the initiative of Dr Heinrich Hoffschulte, former First Vice-President of CEMR, who has also provided a commentary on them. CEMR hopes that the Guidelines will soon be available in many languages.
On 1st April there will also be a “dialogue session” with local authorities on “Promoting Affordable Housing Finance Systems in an Urbanizing World in the Face of the Financial Crisis and Climate Change”.
UCLG's secretariat has produced a useful guide to the issues under discussion in Nairobi.
The Governing Council meeting will be preceded this weekend by a meeting of UNACLA – the UN Advisory Committee of Cities and Local Authorities, to which UCLG nominates 10 members from every world region.
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