C. Slum Upgrading Facility

Tangible steps taken in this direction are the slum upgrading initiatives in Eastern Africa, including the Kenya slum upgrading programme.

Slum upgrading provides a unique opportunity for attaining the Millennium Development Goals.

Urban development promoting jobs, upgrading slums and developing alternatives to new slum formation

Emphasis has been placed on national polices for urban development, shelter and slum upgrading.

The UN Habitat Government of Kenya slum upgrading programme is located at the Athi River and at Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa.

During the period under review, significant progress was made in establishing a slum upgrading facility.

Through Cities Alliance, one of UN Habitat's main partners in slum upgrading work is the World Bank.

Pro poor policies could be a means to engage the poor in city development and slum upgrading.

The Cities Alliance provides small grants that support the formulation of city development strategies and citywide slum upgrading initiatives.

Reduction of debt service burdens can release domestic resources that can be allocated to slum upgrading or other urban developing activities.

Seeking impact at scale, the Cities Alliance provides support to nationwide slum upgrading and to cities committed to implementing citywide development strategies

The subprogramme includes the Slum Upgrading Facility (see para. 49 above) which is managed in conjunction with Cities Alliance (see para. 60 below).

Also, OIOS is aware that there is an ongoing discussion within UN Habitat on the terms of reference of the Slum Upgrading Facility.

It will also play a catalytic and preparatory role in leveraging domestic investment for slum upgrading and other pro poor human settlements development.

Memorandums of understanding were signed with three countries in East Africa, while cooperation agreements were concluded with five other countries to promote slum upgrading.

The slum upgrading programme continues to constitute a path breaking process, in which each stage contributes significantly towards achieving the Millennium Declaration target on slums.

Governments are encouraged to support the normative and operational activities of UN Habitat, working with Habitat Programme Managers to promote slum upgrading, affordable shelter and sustainable urbanization.

One option, currently being piloted at the global level, which aims to mobilize and blend funds from public and private sources is UN Habitat's Slum Upgrading Facility.

In terms of mobilization of resources, US 1.8 million for the design phase and US 10 million for the slum upgrading facility three year pilot phase was raised.

It will accomplish this by enabling cities, slum dwellers, financial intermediaries, Governments and the financial service sector to package their upgrading projects in ways that will attract private investment.

Discussions centred on overcoming urban poverty and ensuring a sustainable urban future, and fostered thorough reflection on the best policies and strategies for achieving poverty reduction and slum upgrading.

When fully functional, the Slum Upgrading Facility will provide follow up assistance to ongoing pre investment activities carried out under the Programme's technical cooperation activities (see paras. 17 22, below).

UN Habitat will implement the Facility by combining in house political and technical expertise on slum upgrading with the support of an international service contractor, recruited through competitive bidding, specializing in investment and project finance.

Further, UN Habitat has strengthened inter institutional relations with the Development Credit Authority of the United States Agency for International Development and is exploring co financing support to slum upgrading initiatives in Ghana and Uganda.

Thus, in its programmes aimed at slum upgrading, urban planning and management, and also regional development, UN Habitat will engage in capacity building for all key stakeholders the better to address youth problems in communities.

The members of the Cities Alliance also played a crucial role in supporting the development of the UN Habitat Slum Upgrading Facility, mobilizing financial contributions through a trust fund of the World Bank dedicated to that purpose.

In addressing directly the problems of the world's slums, an enabling strategy is integral to the approach of UN Habitat and is a substantial part of the value added by UN Habitat in the slum upgrading process.

Favelas, or metropolitan slum.

Some Governments have established trust funds for slum upgrading, while others have instituted national policies and programmes with a view to offering the urban poor security of tenure and a role in decision making as genuine development partners.

Upgrading system

Replace expected accomplishment (i) with the following (i) Increased awareness of and sensitivity to the plight of the urban poor, and enhanced cooperation and partnership in slum upgrading initiatives in line with the Millennium Development Goal 'cities without slums' .

27 33, below), as well as GuarantCo, a loan guarantee facility of the Private Infrastructure Development Group that has expressed interest in ring fencing 20 per cent of its funds for pilot projects initiated by the Slum Upgrading Facility.

With regard to recommendation 3, many members supported the proposal that UN Habitat should strengthen awareness of the progressive and full realization of access to adequate housing, including security of tenure and slum upgrading, within all activities of UN Habitat.

The Executive Director should establish an in house task force to mainstream housing rights, including security of tenure and slum upgrading, in all aspects of UN Habitat activities in the same way that gender issues have been mainstreamed (see paras. 17 and 18).

He therefore urged all Member States to make non earmarked contributions to UNHHSF on a multi year basis. He also encouraged them to support the UN Habitat initiative to develop a facility to raise funds for slum upgrading and other human settlements activities.

The Millennium Project drew attention to the new slum formation and the need to provide positive alternatives to new slum formation.

Residents of fancy neighbourhoods and slum dwellers

In recent years, UN Habitat has reoriented its operational activities to support its normative functions and to help find workable solutions for slum upgrading and sustainable urban development by putting in place and testing norms and strategies at the national, regional and local levels.

(a) The governing policy in regard to technical assistance for which UN Habitat is the executing agency should be that relevant pilot projects which involve direct technical assistance for slum upgrading be designed to scale up, if they are assessed to have had a positive impact

(b) In the context of addressing the problem of raising medium to long term domestic capital, a critical element of moving to scale, the Slum Upgrading Facility should clearly define its role and the division of labour vis à vis other international organizations and lending institutions

Targeted measures to increase opportunities for education among slum dwellers could strengthen their role as agents of change and partners in slum community improvement.

Slum areas have also been badly hit by landslides.

Both the crisis of rapid urbanization and the unique opportunity presented by slum upgrading for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals call for Governments to adopt, as a matter of urgency, pro poor, gender sensitive urban policies and action plans, as called for in the Habitat Agenda.

Upgrading traditional economic sectors though enhanced productivity