Annex D
STATEMENT ON DFID'S WORK WITH UN-HABITAT
1. Mandated by UN Resolution 56/206, UN-Habitat
is the UN agency for human settlements, to promote socially and
environmentally sustainable towns and cities, with the goal of
providing adequate shelter for all. UN-Habitat's work is related
to MDG Goal 7, Targets 10 and 11 which respectively
concern access to water and sanitation and improving the lives
of slum dwellers.
2. UN-Habitat has received core funding
for the UK since being included in the 1997 White Paper on
International Development. DFID represented the UK on the Governing
Councils from 1999 to 2007 before this passed to the
UK Permanent Representation to the United Nations Headquarters
in Nairobi in 2009.
3. DFID's 2000 Target Strategy Paper
(TSP) on Urban Poverty confirmed its support for UN-Habitat and
set out DFID's approach to urbanisation and urban poverty, citing
the slum improvement programmes it then had, mainly in India and
Kenya.
4. DFID worked with UN-Habitat to find better
ways of working on slum upgrading on a continuing rather than
a project based basis, leading to the UN-Habitat Slum Upgrading
Facility (SUF). The resulting Pilot Programme was supported by
DFID with $US10 million in conjunction with the Cities Alliance
World Bank Trust Fund, together with $US4.5 million from
Sweden and $4.8 million from Norway.
5. A SUF Consultative Board was formed in
2004 representing the banking and finance sectors, the slum
dwellers themselves, as well as the donors' interests. A three
year SUF Pilot Programme started in late 2006 and is scheduled
to conclude in December 2009. However, at its most recent meeting
the SUF Consultative Board has recommended a further two-year
consolidation phase to December 2011 in order to track the
evidence of commercial loans being made by local banks to slum
dwellers' own projects, that operate with the backing of guarantees
from the "Local Finance Facilities" (LFFs) created by
SUF. These LFFs ensure that the guarantees and other credit enhancements
are developed and administered at the local level (either municipal
or national) with the technical and financial support of SUF at
the global level.
6. UN-Habitat has recently set out its overall
goals and objectives in its Medium Term Strategy and Institutional
Plan 2008-13 (MTSIP), agreed at its 2007 Governing Council
21st Session—the 58 member state "board"
that approves its work programme and budget on behalf of the General
Assembly.
7. UK annual core funding for UN-Habitat
has been sustained at £1 million, supplemented by steadily
increasing contributions from Norway, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands.
| 
