If international conferences have any value, it is that occasionally they can catalyse action at the national and local level.

Of course, media coverage of these events generates some degree of useful public awareness throughout the world.  And for global issues like climate change or for infrastructural mechanisms like telecommunications, they are essential to establish the regulatory regimes under which international cooperation can take place.  Some of the international conferences of the last two decades will, no doubt, make a difference and even be remembered in future history books.

But one has to wonder how many of these events owe their origins and outcomes to the basic need for survival  of international bureaucracies which must periodically get their mandates renewed and be seen to be active in some way.  And they provide huge numbers of jobs for official preparing endless draft documents and for diplomats negotiating innumerable, and mostly peripheral agreements.

In any case, whatever their pedigree, for the half of the world’s population that  is poor and marginalised, these global tamashas can rarely do much, other than providing a platform for eloquent rhetoric on their behalf and large scale sympathy for their plight.

What, one has to ask for example, is the impact on the ground today of the first Habitat Conference that was held in Vancouver in 1976?  How much have the international community and national governments achieved in housing and providing decent settlements for their people?  In the 20 years since then, the quality of city life throughout the world has deteriorated  significantly.  And, in India, there are nearly 40 per cent more people living in houses that are officially considered inadequate.

How can we make Habitat-II, which is planned for 1996 is Istanbul, different?

The answers may lie in the outcomes of the Earth Summit at Rio and the UN Conference on Environment and Development at Cairo.  A primary lesson from these conferences is that the Independent Sector has a major role in orienting the preparatory process, in determining the outcomes, and in ensuring implementation of the agreements reached.  The ‘92 Global Forum at Rio, which brought hundreds of ISOs directly and thousands indirectly into the negotiating process  showed the legitimacy and the potential for impact on global policy formulation that can be taken by the Independent Sector.

The Cairo Conference went further in this direction and was, in fact, “hijacked” to some degree, by women’s rights activists who managed partially to lift the blockade placed in its path by various groups of political neanderthals.  However, its inability in this process to address other salient issues of development, environment and the urgent need for making a demographic transition to a more sustainable level of population demonstrated that all sides in an intersectoral dialogue, no matter how deeply convinced of the correctness of their respective positions, must bring a greater sense of humility to the conference table.  Otherwise, the process can only lead to a one-sided agreement which will never be implemented.

Habitat-II could be different if governments, business and the Independent sector come to the table with a clear understanding of what constitutes housing rights (and wrongs) and the precise mechanisms of how, by whom, and in what manner these can be addressed.

The Government of India has taken a welcome step in the right direction by involving the major sectors concerned with human settlement  and shelter issues: local governments, the private sector and the Independent sector.  After intensive deliberations by each of these sectors.  After intensive deliberations by each of these sectors, the National Steering Committee established by the Government will synthesize  inputs of these sectors into a National Report to Habitat-II.

A weakness of those who campaign for greater equity in society is that they rely on moral injunctions - what should be or what ought to be - without considering the feasibility - what can be - or the responsibility - by whom, how and by when.  Thus, housing rights activists have often fallen into the trap of proclaiming the “Right to Shelter” for all without pinning down those who must make this right possible.  “Government should”....”Society must” ... “they have to”....

But Government claims that it does not have the resources to meet all the demands we place on it.  Society, as a whole, probably does, but who is going to give up how much for what?

The debate now has to become more pragmatic.  For everyone to have a house and a decent living environment we have to pinpoint those who must provide the resources, (mainly the rich), those who must establish the mechanism (primarily governments) and those who must take the action forwards (mostly citizen and their organisations).

This Habitat-II special issue of our newsletter present some of our suggestions on these issues.

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