Global Parliamentarians on Habitat

 

„Global Parliamentarians on Habitat“is an international organisation of Parliamentarians founded in 1987 with the aid of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS-Habitat) based in Nairobi/Kenya.

 

A „Board of Directors“leads the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat. Current president is the Mexican senator Eloy Cantu Segovia. Vice-presidents are the presidents of the five continents of Africa, America, Asia, Australia und Europe. On the continents the parliamentarians of this international organisation work with the respective president in the chair closely with the Board of Directors.

 

Similarly to the aims of UN-HABITAT (www.unhabitat.org) their objective is to pursue a sustainable development in the field of housing, urban development and self-government at local level in terms of legislation at governmental level in parliaments.
These topics are discussed at conferences at regional and global level, organized every two or three years by the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat in cooperation with the parliamentarians of the hosting countries. The European conferences of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat within the last ten years were held in Bonn/Germany (1997), Zagreb/Croatia (1999), Helsinki/Finland (2000); Berlin/Germany (2003), The Hague/Netherlands (2006); the global conferences after Istanbul 1996 took place in Cancun/Mexico (1998), Manila/Philippines (2000), Berlin/Germany (2003), Rabat/Morocco (2005).

 

The Global Parliamentarians on Habitat accompany the work of UN-Habitat in a critical and constructive manner. They are also aware that the basic life resources can be secured in the long term only if the persons in charge at every level take into consideration the reciprocity of commercial, social and ecological aspects within the scope of global and common strategies and arrangements. Since the world population has already reached 6 billions and due to the forecast of the United Nations this number will increase up to 10 billion by 2050 with overwhelming majority willing to settle in big cities, it’s necessary to find measures to control this rapid urbanisation and to keep the development governable and adequate for human dignity.

 

For this reason the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat intend to influence the process of decision-making in order to achieve a coordinated collaboration of both national and local governments and communities with private and voluntary sector and the international non-governmental organisations (NGO).