 The government of Sweden, represented by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and UN-HABITAT have agreed to enter into a Program Cooperation Agreement for 2009-2011.
The agreement will be financed with MSEK 70 from the global allocation over 3 years. Sida is taking a programme-based approach to the new agreement. “This new cooperation with UN-HABITAT ensures that UN-HABITAT’s results analysis and planning cycle becomes the point of departure for Sida´s analytical work and dialogue with the agency”, says Ulf Källstig, Head of Team for Global Programmes. “Sida will likewise be able to promote its priority issues (within environment, democracy/ human rights, and economic development) primarily through engagement in dialogue rather than through earmarking of funds. And Sida will link its financial commitments to UN-HABITAT’s results framework and budget cycle”, Källstig added. The purpose of this agreement is to support UN-HABITAT’s work through the implementation of its Medium Term Strategic and Institutional Plan (MTSIP) for 2008 to 2013. The MTSIP is organised into 5 operational and 1 organisation focus areas. The Sida support will be used to finance 3 MTSIP focus areas which are in line with the Sida strategies for cooperation within urban development and with multilateral organisations:
Promotion of Participatory Planning, Management & Governance
Promotion of pro-poor land and housing
Excellence in Management Inga Björk-Klevby, Assistant Director General of the UN, and Deputy Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, has signed the agreement on behalf of the agency. “UN-HABITAT is a small agency with a large mandate and cross-cutting operations,” say Björk-Klevby. “Our mandate covers the 1 billion poor people living in slums around the world. This support from Sida will strengthen our work in democratic urban planning, urban safety and land management in countries where there are substantial urban poor people. The Sida support will also help improve our systems for results-based management and quality assurance of our activities and processes. ” This agreement is among the first in a series of programme-based agreements that Sida will initiate with other multilateral development institutions. Background The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. It is in the only global UN institution whose principal mandate is housing and urban development. The objective of the organisation is for at least 100 million slum dwellers to have their lives improved by year 2020, and for the proportion of people without safe access to drinking water and acceptable sanitary facilities to be reduced by half by 2015. Its fundamental policy documents include Agenda 21 from 1992, the Habitat Agenda from 1996, and the Millenium Declaration’s “Cities without slums” initiative. UN-HABITAT is headquartered in Nairobi, has 3 regional offices (in Kenya, Japan and Brazil), and 5 liaison offices that are mostly engaged in resource mobilisation. UN-HABITAT has programme managers who share offices with the UNDP in about 40 developing countries. The agency employs a total of 255 professional/technical and support/administrative staff. UN-HABITAT runs two major worldwide campaigns – the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, and the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure. UN-HABITAT also has some 154 technical programmes and projects in 61 countries around the world, most of them in the least developed countries. These include major projects in post-war societies such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. ---------------------- For further information, please contact: Sida
Nayoka Martinez-Bäckström, Programme Officer (Urban Development), Team for Global Programmes, Department for Development Partnerships, Sida, Tel +46 8 698 5766 ,
e-mail nayoka.martinez-backstrom@sida.se UN-HABITAT
Spokesperson & Head Press & Medias Relations Unit, Tel: (254 20) 7623153 , Fax: (254 20) 7624060, E-mail: habitat.press@unhabiatt.org, Website: www.unhabitat.org, or Media Liaison, Media & Press Relations Unit, Tel: (254 20)..., Fax: (254 20) 7624060, E-mail: habitat.press@unhabitat.org |
