Housing and Land Management
Achievements in 2008
UNECE work on housing and land management this year was highly relevant to several of the main items on the agendas of the United Nations and its Member States, particularly those in the UNECE region. These challenges will continue to shape activities of the Committee on Housing and Land Management and its Working Party on Land Administration in 2009.
One such challenge is climate change, now being addressed through the Committee’s work on energy efficiency in housing. The building sector is one of the main contributors – directly and indirectly – to GHG emissions (see the essay in this Report). IPCC has established that for total housing stock, the most significant portion of carbon and energy savings by 2030 will be made in retrofitting existing buildings and replacing energy-using equipment. However, most of the technical solutions are still either unavailable or unaffordable for many countries. The Committee will contribute in different ways to increasing energy efficiency in buildings in the region, not only by maximizing synergies with the UNECE EE21 Project and other international organizations, but also by identifying major trends and problems related to energy efficiency in housing, providing sound policy advice, and promoting and assisting with respect to capacity-building.
The Committee is currently preparing two international workshops on energy efficiency in the building sector, to be held in Austria and Bulgaria in 2009. Based on the Committee’s findings and recommendations, good practices in member countries will be compiled and shared, and sustainable solutions will be disseminated to decision makers and practitioners.
This work is also directly connected to a project proposed by the Housing and Urban Management Advisory Network (HUMAN), the advisory body to the Committee, focused on the renovation and management of multi-family housing stock. This project, launched this year, responds to the urgent need throughout the region to refurbish large portions of the existing multi-family housing stock. (This need is particularly acute in EECCA and SEE countries.) The timeliness of this project is critical, as refurbishment is no longer simply an issue of housing quality: given the extremely precarious conditions of many buildings, the more countries delay interventions, the more buildings’ condition becomes a safety issue as well.
The work of the Committee and the Working Party on Land Administration touches upon another economic global challenge, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States that is now affecting markets worldwide. The current financial crisis is not only creating the loss of billions in the global economy, but also the loss of citizens’ homes even in the wealthiest countries. The newly established Real Estate Market Advisory Group (REM) is currently working to develop guidance for UNECE member States on the “sustainable use” of the real estate market, in particular how to assess risks and gauge benefits. REM is organizing an international workshop to be held in Rome in spring 2009.
Many of the efforts of the Committee and its Working Party have continued to gravitate to the topic of “land”, underlining how correct land management and administration are a prerequisite to sustainable development. This has a direct link with achievement of the MDGs and contributing to discussions on the subject at the Commission on Sustainable Development. A workshop on the legal empowerment of the poor (Bergen, Norway, April 2008) discussed the legal aspects of land administration, a prerequisite to guaranteeing access to land and property. A second workshop (Cavtat, Croatia, October 2008) focused on the influence land administration has on people and businesses, emphasizing its close linkages with healthy economies. Additional workshops to address land management and administration and their linkages to the sustainability of cities and their economies are planned to be held in Azerbaijan and Bulgaria in 2009.
Challenges for 2009
The work of the Committee and the Working Party on Informal Settlements is also directly related to the achievement of the MDGs. The phenomenon of informal settlements underlines trends in the region that are quite worrisome. One the one hand, a small portion of the population has attained a very high level of wealth, building separate “gated” communities that do not interact in a healthy way with the rest of the urban tissue. On the other hand, poverty is advancing, not only in countries with economies in transition but throughout the UNECE region. Informal settlements are a first sign of this malaise. Over 50 million people live in impoverished, illegal or precarious housing conditions in the region. A draft analytical study on informal settlements is in preparation, which will be enriched during the next intersessional period by recommendations, guidance and selected case studies.
Two further phenomena afflicting the UNECE region are labour migration and population growth. These are likewise region-wide challenges with serious implications and impacts on housing needs and policies. In-depth discussions on housing and population changes took place during the Committee’s sixty-ninth session; one outcome will be a joint publication with the UNECE Population Unit in 2009.
The Committee’s work continues to tackle urban challenges and country-specific policy advice through its country profiles on the housing sector. Country profiles of Belarus and Kyrgyzstan are currently being finalized; the next profile will be on Azerbaijan. A land administration review of Bulgaria is also being completed.
In line with the call of the 2005 UNECE reform for enhanced visibility of its work within and outside the United Nations system, the Committee also pursued intensive activities in the area of outreach and communications. For instance, at the Committee’s annual session a newsletter (Vital Spaces) was launched which will report on a quarterly basis on UNECE activities on housing and land management.
POPULATION
While Governments’ responses to population ageing retain centre stage, other issues – namely changes in family patterns, intergenerational and gender relations and below-replacement or very low levels of fertility – also have important implications for many areas of public policy. These issues were reflected in UNECE work on population in 2008 and will continue to shape future activities in this area. The projected acceleration of population ageing in many countries over the next 5 to 10 years is further increasing the need for informed policy response.
UNECE work on ageing is framed by decisions of the UNECE Ministerial Conference on Ageing (León, Spain, 6-8 November 2007). The León Ministerial Declaration, a report on implementation of the Regional Strategy for the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and edited keynote papers and contributions were published in 2008 in a volume of conference proceedings. The Declaration and Regional Strategy aim to encompass the entire spectrum of the policy-relevant implications of population ageing and include as a key component the mainstreaming of ageing across all policy areas. While several organizations deal with specific aspects of population ageing, UNECE is the only intergovernmental forum in the pan-European region to hold an integrated discussion on ageing-related policy areas, for example social protection systems, the labour market and care, as well as promoting coordination between them.
In León, countries expressed the need for a mechanism to ensure follow-up activities. Discussions led to the establishment of the Working Group on Ageing, which will provide a framework for regular intergovernmental meetings to reinforce implementation of the León Declaration and the Regional Strategy. It is expected that the Working Group, meeting for the first time in December 2008, will intensify the exchange of experience between member States, inter alia through a series of policy briefs addressed to a wide audience that will demonstrate successful examples of ageing-related policies and programmes. Monitoring implementation of the Regional Strategy, using indicators of achievement, has already greatly improved the understanding of country progress and its measurement. The Working Group can serve to strengthen involvement of Government focal points as well as broaden the range of countries with available indicators. The Working Group’s activities also aim to develop member States’ capacities to pursue ageing-related policies and programmes. Some of these activities will require voluntary contributions from member States, as well as partnerships with other organizations such as the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, the International Institute on Ageing and the United Nations Population Fund. UNECE will work towards attracting such contributions and strengthening the partnerships.
Sustainable responses to policy challenges require that the causes and consequences of demographic developments are understood and explained. To this end, UNECE coordinates the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP). Through data collection and research, GGP tackles such issues as low birth rates, the reconciliation of career and family, the integration of young people in society, solidarity within and between generations, and gender equality. The data collected in Generations and Gender Surveys are from nationally representative samples of the population between ages 18 and 79, with two follow-up surveys at three-year intervals. The GGP Contextual Database complements these data with macro-level information on policies and other aggregate indicators. The analyses thus link factors that operate on the level of individuals and households with aggregate country level indicators and policies, and allow for explanatory and policy-relevant insights that cannot be achieved using other sources. At its seventh meeting, the GGP International Working Group adopted guidelines for data cleaning and harmonization, took decisions on issues related to dissemination of microdata and exchanged experiences in programme implementation.
2008 saw the launch of an international data archive that contains harmonized microdata from the first six countries (Bulgaria, France, Germany, Georgia, Hungary and Russian Federation) to complete their surveys. This marked a step change in international comparative research on generations and gender, with more than 40 new projects launched this year. Norway and Belgium collected data in the first wave of the survey, which brought the total number of countries with survey data to 16; more countries are set to follow in 2009.
Obviously, the impact of GGP on the lives of citizens depends on whether and how the programme’s analytic outputs are considered in policymaking. A conference on “How Generations and Gender Shape Demographic Change – Towards Policies Based on Better Knowledge”, held in May 2008, brought researchers and policymakers together to discuss the GGP findings in view of the needs of policymaking. The Conference addressed key challenges in policy areas related to family and reproductive behaviour as well as intergenerational and gender relationships, reflected advances in knowledge in these areas and provided guidance on the use of such knowledge in policymaking. The proceedings will be published in 2009.
Further challenges for GGP are shortening the time from data collection in the participating countries to the availability of harmonized microdata for international use and increasing the number of participating countries. The continuing partnership of GGP with the European Commission is helping to meet these challenges.
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