The "Global Parliamentarians on Habitat" is an international organisation of Parliamentarians. It was founded in 1987 with the aid of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) based in Nairobi/Kenya.

 

The Global Parliamentarians on Habitat are lead by a Board of Directors. The German Deputy Peter Götz is currently president of the Board. The presidents of the four regions Africa, America, Asia and Europe are Vice-presidents of the Board. Within the regions, the parliamentarians of this international organisation work together closely with the Board of Directors, under the leadership of their respective presidents. As legislators in parliament, the objective of the members of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat is to pursue sustainable development on governmentel level in the fields of housing, urban development and local self-government. This objective corresponds to the aims of UN-Habitat (www.unhabitat.org).

 

These topics are discussed at conferences at regional and global level, which are organised 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), Bukarest/Romania
(2008) and Zadar/Croatia (2011). The global conferences after Istanbul 1996 took place in Cancun/Mexico (1998), Manila/Philippines (2000), Berlin/Germany (2003), Rabat/Morocco (2005), Rio de Janeiro/Brazil (2010) and Zadar/Croatia (2011).

 

The Global Parliamentarians on Habitat accompany the work of UN-Habitat in a critical and constructive manner. They are also aware that, in the long term, our basic life resources can be secured only if the persons in charge at all levels take into consideration the reciprocity of commercial, social and ecological aspects when jointly developing global strategies and arrangements. The world population has already reached 7 billion. The United Nations predict that this number will increase to 10 billion by 2050 with the overwhelming majority moving towards the big cities. This makes it necessary to develop measures to influence this - often uncontrolled - rapid urbanisation, so that it becomes more governable and less dangerous to human dignity.

 

For this reason, the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat intend to influence the decision-making process with the aim of achieving a coordinated collaboration with national and local governments, with the private and voluntary sectors as well as with international non-governmental organisations (NGOs).