Implementing the Habitat Agenda: Towards Child-Centred Human Settlement Development in Developing Countries

THIS BOOK, INITIALLY prepared as an information document for the 1997 session of the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements, focuses on urban children's legal right to an adequate standard of living. It considers not only housing and related services but also the social conditions that undermine children's physical and psychological health, as well as
their future prospects.

The book begins with a brief analysis of the following issues: homelessness, shelter related problems, service related problems, female headed households, street children, abused children, working children, and families displaced by natural disasters or political and economic circumstances. It then discusses the effects of each of these problems on children's health, psycho-social well-being, education and future economic productivity. After considering the broader policy context, and the general strategies necessary for promoting child centred human settlement development, the book makes specific recommendations for international agencies, central governments, local governments, the private sector, NGOs and local communities. The recommendations revolve around taking an integrated approach wherever possible, establishing general policies that support children and families, and programmes geared to families and children in especially difficult circumstances. A number of case studies and examples are offered in box form. A discussion of indicators for monitoring progress points to the need for both process and outcome indicators, and general and locally constructed indicators, as well as looking at stages in the process of indicator construction.

The book contains several annexes: tables on school enrolment rates in Africa and Asia, a list of child related references in the Habitat Agenda (the main product of Habitat II, the second UN Conference on Human Settlements held in Istanbul in 1996) and a list of the recommendations drawn from Habitat II’s plan of action.