Best Practices Steering Committee

Report of the 2001 Annual Meeting

Florianopolis, Brazil, 6-9 November 2001

I. Executive Summary

The Best Practices Steering Committee held its fifth meeting in Florianopolis, Brazil, from 6-9 November 2001 upon the invitation of the Ibero-American-Caribbean Forum for Best Practices. The Municipality of Florianopolis, the State Government of Santa Catarina and Sul 21 – an event organiser, provided host facilities. Eighteen partners were present in this expanded Steering Committee, which included for the first time, 4 partners of the Ibero-American-Caribbean Forum. The meeting was held in parallel to the "Habitat Brasil 2001 International Conference" with the last day of the conference devoted to a one-day seminar on Learning from Best Practices featuring 7 of the 10 award-winning practices from the 2000 Dubai International Awards. Partners of the Steering Committee played an active role in organising this one-day seminar as well as working together with the practices to help refine their presentations.

Seven members presented their excuses for not participating and asked UNCHS to present progress reports and recommendations on their behalf. The meeting began with each partner presenting their activity reports for the 2000-2001 period and the issues they wished to have discussed. Issues raised were grouped under four working groups for further discussion: (i) issues concerning the Best Practices database structure including categories and sub-categories and the updating of existing practices; (ii) issues concerning gender mainstreaming and social inclusion; (iii) issues concerning the steering committee, working relationships among and between partners and the use of ICT; and (iv) preparations for the one-day seminar on learning from best practices.

The key recommendations and decisions made by the Steering Committee included (i) a concerted effort to mainstream gender and social inclusion for the 2002 Dubai International Awards including gender awareness and sensitisation of the Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury; (ii) the inclusion of new lead questions and of a "box" on gender to be integrated in the guidelines and reporting format for the 2004 round of the DIABP; (iii) the endorsement of the principle of applying all six criteria to the selection process; (iv) the continued focus of the partners’ network on documenting transfers of best practices and lessons learned through case studies and casebooks. The Steering Committee reaffirmed the decisions and recommendations of its previous session regarding, inter alia: (i) the inclusion of a template for "updates" in the guidelines for the 2004 DIABP; (ii) the archiving of non-updated practices and a concerted effort by all partners to seek updates to existing practices for the 2002 DIABP; (iii) more systematic sharing of information and of "news items" to keep all partners informed of ongoing applications and activities related to Best Practices through, inter alia, the expanded use of a new BLP Intranet to be developed by the end of the year by Together Foundation.

The Steering Committee welcomed three new partners including the Intermediate Technology Development Group, the Regional Information Centre on Local Government for Southern Africa and the Woodrow Wilson Centre. The Committee also established a standing committee for 2002.

II. PARTNERS REPORTS

1. Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme (UNCHS): The Secretariat focused its activities on awareness-building with Governments and Habitat Agenda partners through inter-governmental meetings and conferences including: the 18th session of the Commission on Human Settlements (Nairobi, February 2001); the 2nd Preparatory Committee for Istanbul+5 (Nairobi, February 2001); the International Conference on Business and Municipality (Bremen, April 2001); the Special Session of the General Assembly for Istanbul+5 (New York, June 2001); and the International Forum on Urban Poverty (Marrakech, October 2001). Parallel events were organised at these events to promote awareness of key issues, emerging trends and their policy and capacity-building implications, the contribution of best practices and lessons learned, and of the DIABP.

Information exchange and dissemination continues to be one of the main pursuits of the BP&LL. The means used to this end include the best practices database, the BLP Homepage, the BP&LL monthly newsletter and a new product – the Best Practices Briefs.

A meeting was held in Copenhagen in June 2001 between five Awards systems – the Stockholm Challenge Award, the Royal Award (ex-Princes’ Awards), ICLEI’s Local Initiatives Awards, the "bremen initiative" and the BLP. The meeting resolved to work progressively towards the harmonisation of reporting formats and criteria.

The bulk of the core programme’s efforts in mainstreaming lessons learned from best practices have been focused internally within UNCHS. This includes further development and promotion of "Inclusive Cities" as a "bridge" and substantive contribution to the two global campaigns on Secure Tenure and Urban Governance. The BP&LL was also involved in organising an Expert Group Meeting on Urban Policies and Enabling Legislation, 12-14 November 2001, in Brasilia, Brazil.

2. Best Practices Hub - City of Vienna: The Best Practices Hub-Vienna has been focusing its work on transferring successful practices. The Hub is continuously being approached by communities in the CEE region for technical assistance. Vienna has facilitated successful transfers in Chennai, India; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Ukraine Russia.

Vienna Hub also disseminates a quarterly newsletter on Best Practices in the field of Urban Environmental Technologies. Several Best Practices have been featured including Barnmil in Barcelona, The Växjö City in Sweden, The City Heating System in Helsinki, The Ouje Cree Nation in Canada and the Eco Business Plan Vienna.

The Hub has created a web-based mailing list, based on open source software model (hence license-free) with approximately 700 addresses, mostly in CEE Countries. Besides its function as a mailing list, the fact that it is web-based allows for a searchable archive as well as the creation of smaller information networks within the mailing list by its filter functions. See: http://www.lists.minordomo.org/bestpractices The mailing list is the most interactive part of the Hub's website, which was developed during the year 2000 and now features all 26 Vienna practices, which are available in a searchable archive in English and German. See: http://www.bestpractices.at

In October 2001 the City of Vienna held a symposium to promote the working with and transfer of Best Practices on a broader level, by including private partners, banks, media and NGOs. This was followed by a panel discussion with the networking agencies of the City, including the Business promotion fund, the head of EU projects, Städtebund Vienna and heads of the City administration on possibilities of new transfers, financing models and programmes of the City. Vienna also edited a brochure on the City of Vienna’s Best Practices (26) presented at the Istanbul +5 in New York.

3. Dubai Municipality: Dubai Municipality has embarked on a major promotional campaign to popularise the Dubai Awards. Towards this end the Municipality, in co-operation with Habitat, has facilitated the production of 10,000 copies of the Submission Guidelines and Reporting Format booklets in English, 5,000 in Arabic, 3,000 in Spanish, and 2,000 in French for the fourth cycle of the award. These copies were distributed to BLP partners. In addition, Dubai Municipality has collaborated with IBAM for the translation and production of the guidelines into Portuguese. The Municipality also produced 5,000 e-business CD-ROMs for the DIABP. The CD’s have been sent to the UNCHS regional offices as well as to Habitat in Nairobi and are being used to promote the award and the fourth cycle. Dubai Municipality has also produced two displays to promote the 2002 award (in English and Arabic versions).

Dubai Municipality reported on its efforts in inviting and encouraging over 5,000 institutions and organisations around the world to make their submissions for the fourth cycle of the award.

Other promotional undertakings by the Municipality include a total of 272 spots aired on all five beams of the BBC and Al Jazeera channels. Advertisements have also been placed in leading world newspapers and magazines.

The Board of Trustees of the award have welcomed a proposal by the Executive Director of Habitat to hold the next award ceremony during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) in September 2002.

4. ENDA Tiers Monde, Best Practices Regional Centre for French-speaking Africa: In a bid to promote the Dubai International Awards, ENDA undertook the translation of the Best Practices submission guideline into French, targeting French-speaking nations. A call for submissions for the 2002 Awards was done by directly contacting local authorities, central government agencies, associations, movements and organisations in Francophone, Africa.

ENDA made use of newsletters, local dailies and radio broadcasting stations to announce the call for practices. It also provides technical and substantive support to local initiatives/CBOs by providing explanations on the submission guidelines and how best to go about documenting their experiences.

ENDA's Regional Centre undertook the translation into French of the 1996 and 1998 best practices on the database and has created a web page for their dissemination: http://www.enda.sn/rup/blp.

The problems faced by French-speaking African countries and communities are: (i) meeting the costs of translating their submissions from French into English; (ii) mailing charges and (iii) understanding the reporting format. The challenge is to set up a cost-sharing mechanism whereby CBOs with insufficient funds are provided wit support for documenting their practices.

5. Government of Spain: The Spanish Habitat National Committee, under the auspices of the Government of Spain, prepared and presented a national report to the Special Session of the General Assembly "Istanbul+5". Good practices and policies have been used to illustrate major chapters of the Report, and to provide concrete evidence of the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

The National Committee published and disseminated a Catalogue of the Good Practices that it nominated for the DIABP and organised an exhibition on these practices was in June 2001. There has been growing interest in documented Best Practices as evidenced from the steady year-on-year increase in number of hits to the website (http://habitat.aq.upm.es ).

The Committee launched a national call for submissions, the results of which will be forwarded to the BLP for consideration for the 2002 DIABP.

The Government of Spain recommended the reinforcement of existing networks of information and knowledge exchange to further promote lessons learnt from Best Practices.

6. Harvard Graduate School of Design - Centre for Urban Development Studies (CUDS): The Centre participated in the Urban 21 Conference in Berlin in July 2000 in the panel on indicators of sustainability. The Centre's presentation highlighted the experience of two best practices, one from Brazil and the other from South Africa, as examples of how to set up frameworks for citizens’ participation in urban the development and in the use of monitoring indicators.

CUDS prepared a background paper on "Decentralisation and the Management of Infrastructure" for the Third Global Report on Human Settlements issued in June 2001 for Istanbul+5. The paper, which is included as Chapter 13 of the report, covers three main themes: decentralised institutional frameworks and participatory processes; financing infrastructure, the expanding scope of partnerships, and equitable access to infrastructure and the empowerment of poor and marginalized communities.

The Centre is currently assisting the South African Ministry of Local and Provincial Affairs in organising municipalities participating in South Africa’s Municipal Infrastructure Program to submit their practices for the Dubai Awards.

CUDS has responded to several national and international organisations regarding information on Best Practices, and recommending selected practices to be presented at conferences on urban management and governance. The Centre organised a tour of five Brazilian cities which have been recognised as Best Practices by the BLP for 12 South African senior officials from central, provincial and local governments.

7. Ibero-American and Caribbean Forum on Best Practices: The Forum, representing 5 sub-regional partners, is currently working on summarising selected practices from the database into two-page reports. These summaries will be translated into English, Spanish and Portuguese and disseminated to BLP partners (in hard copy and electronic versions).

The Forum co-sponsored the "Habitat Brasil 2001" conference held in Florianopolis. A number of parallel events were held, including the 2001 BLP Steering Committee Meeting, a Poster Session for the presentation of potential Best Practices for inclusion in the Dubai 2002 Award Process and a Special Session on showcasing Lessons Learned by the 2000 Dubai Awards laureates.

Each sub-regional node of the Forum will identify and help support the documentation of 5 Best Practices by November 2001. From this date until March of 2002, the Forum Secretariat and nodes will be working directly with these selected practices in order to guarantee the presentation of 25 well documented, complete and translated experiences.

8. Brazilian Institute for Municipal Administration (IBAM): IBAM co-organises with the Caixa Economica Federal do Brasil the Brazilian Best Practices Award and database. For the 2002 DIABP, the Brazilian selection process will be completed in November 2001 and will be translated and forwarded to UNCHS in 2002. IBAM’s activities have also focused on the Brazilian Best Practices Reference Centre, a joint venture between the Brazilian Government and Habitat-LAC. The aim of this Centre is to promote the exchange of Best Practice expertise and experience originating from the Latin American and Caribbean region to Brazilian Governmental Agencies, municipalities and other organisations working to improve the living environment in Brazil. IBAM’s total financial budget devoted to Best Practices for 2000-2001 was US$ 261,000.

9. Huairou Commission: The Huairou Commission focused most of its efforts in past year on the transfer of lessons learned from grassroots women’s initiatives in two major events – the Grassroots Women’s International Academy at the World Expo in Hannover, Germany and a repeat Academy in New York on the occasion of the special session of the UN General Assembly on the review of the implementation of the Habitat Agenda (Istanbul+5). The Commission has also produced a series of casebooks on "Our Practices" which have been widely disseminated. The Commission produced an evaluation report of the Thematic Committee of Istanbul+5 from a gender perspective.

10. Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS): The Institute expressed its appreciation of the overall activities of the BLP and stated that it considered Best Practices as one of the most useful products of UN-Habitat. For this reason, it has been utilising the Best Practices Database in its role as a global training and capacity building institute. Participants in different IHS courses make regular use of innovative best practices to formulate their strategies and action plans at the local level and to improve the living environment. Consequently, every year an estimated 100 IHS participants make use of the Best Practice database in thesis development or individual project work. Additionally, courses organised by IHS outside Rotterdam make use of the database.

The Institute has focused its efforts in promoting transferability of lessons learnt to regions where most of its course participants come from. The estimated financial contribution of IHS to BLP is US$ 15,000 per cycle.

11. Joslyn Castle Institute (JCI), University of Nebraska: JCI has been working on several key projects as part of its overall strategy to promote sustainable design and development at the local level. These projects include a dialogue on regional growth, a visioning process for the City of Omaha, and a neighbourhood revitalisation plan. These projects were based on other similar Best Practices in community visioning; as a result plans are underway to produce a casebook on best practices and indicators of sustainability. JCI is also in the process of becoming an independent non-for-profit organisation.

The Joslyn Castle Institute participated in the International Ecospheres Conference, in June 2001, which focused on issues and interdependencies of land, water and populations. The institute also reported on its progress regarding its promotion strategies for the Dubai Awards.

12. University Federico II of Naples - Faculty of Architecture, Department of Conservation of Cultural and Environmental Heritage: The Faculty organised and participated in a series of lectures and seminars focusing on integrated conservation of the environment and cultural heritage. This is the main focus of the Faculty, which proposes the concept of integrated conservation of inner city cores as an approach to socially, and culturally sustainable urban development. This has been an issue of growing concern in much of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin as inner city cores, harbouring most the urban heritage, are facing degradation and increasing levels of urban poverty and social exclusion.

The Faculty has produced several publications that feature an analysis of selected Best Practices focusing on the conservation of cultural heritage and sustainable urban development.

Several researches are currently underway one of which is being undertaken at PhD level on an ex-post evaluation of selected practices in view of establishing guidelines for ex-ante evaluation of urban projects focusing on the integrated conservation of urban cultural heritage.

13. The Together Foundation: The Together Foundation has been very active throughout 2000-2001. It opened offices in Miami, Venezuela and Brazil. It participated actively in organising and promoting the Spiritual Forum held at the United Nations in 2000. The Together Foundation also demonstrated new hardware and software platforms and applications it intends to implement for the work of the BLP and for hosting the Best Practices database server.

14. International Urban Planning Association for the Environment (UPE): UPE joined the BLP in 2000. It was supposed to organise an International Conference in Haifa, Israel in 2001. However, circumstances prevented this event from taking place at the international level. UPE will organise a similar event in September, 2002 in Oxford during which it intends to feature several Best Practices. UPE is also actively engaged in publishing an academic series of books on urban environmental planning and management in which it intends to highlight lessons learned from best practices.

III. Reports of New Partners

15. Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG): ITDG joined the BLP in 2001. Its activities include the transfer of lessons learned from experience in the use of appropriate technologies between Africa, Latin America and Asia. It has produced several publications on lessons learned in the use of energy-saving technologies in the production of building materials.

16. Regional Information Centre (RIC) on Local Government for Southern Africa: The RIC also joined the BLP in 2001. It intends to promote the Best Practices database amongst all local authorities in Southern Africa and to mobilise them in submitting their practices for the 2002 DIABP. The RIC just recently became an autonomous entity, but continues to collaborate closely with IULA-Africa, the Municipal Development Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Commonwealth Association for Local Government.

17. Woodrow Wilson Centre: The WWC joined the BLP in 2001 further to its participation in Istanbul+5 in New York in June 2001. The WWC is a think tank focusing on policy analysis and development for domestic and international development. Since joining the BLP, the Centre has devoted an issue of its quarterly journal to Istanbul+5, including Best Practices.

IV. Reports of partners not attending the 2001 SCM

The following are highlights extracted from the activity reports of partners unable to attend that were presented by the Chairperson.

18. Centre for Environment and Development for Arab states and Europe (CEDARE): CEDARE reported that it currently working with its focal points to identify and document Best Practices in the Arab region. It is also actively engaged in transferring best practices knowledge, expertise and experience between several municipalities and communities in West Asia and North Africa.

19. DelNet (ILO): Delnet continues to be very active in Latin America in identifying best practices and applying lessons learned from Best Practices in its ongoing work in local development initiatives and capacity-building.

20. Development Planning Unit, University of London (DPU): The Development Planning Unit (DPU) of the University of London and the BP&LL co-produced a book on "Implementing the Habitat Agenda: in search of urban sustainability". The book sponsored by DFID-U.K. contains over 80 references to good and best practices and was officially launched in New York at the Special Session of the General Assembly in June 2001. The core programme was also involved in providing extensive inputs for the Global Report on Human Settlements and the State of the World’s Cities Report, which were also launched during I+5 in New York.

21. Human Settlements Management Institute and Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO-HSMI): HUDCO-HSMI continued to disseminate information on Best Practices widely throughout India. It also uses the best practices database for its extensive training programme for local authorities, and housing and urban development officials from central and provincial government agencies.

22. International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI): ICLEI represented the BLP at the meeting o the harmonisation of award systems in Copenhagen in June 2001. It is actively engaged in preparations for Rio+10 in undertaking a survey of Local Agenda 21 initiatives and in preparing a report based on the findings of the survey.

V. Report of Working Group I

The agenda of Working Group I included:

• Revision of categories, sub-categories and reporting format for best practices

• Updating of existing documented practices

• Procedures and preparations for the 2002 DIABP

• Access to the database

• Procedures for validation and evaluation of submissions

Decisions and recommendations of the Working Group included:

1. Categories and sub-categories of the Best Practices database

After examining the draft changes proposed by UN-Habitat, Working Group I decided to adopt the proposed changes with the following modifications:

• Environmental Management: Replace "monitoring and control" with "integrated assessment, monitoring and control"

• Environmental Management: Add sub-category on "indicators of sustainability"

• Urban Governance: change "women in leadership roles and decision-making" to "women in leadership roles";

• Civic Engagement and Cultural Vitality: Change "the arts" to "the arts and cultural development"

• Urban and Regional Planning: Add sub-category "cultural heritage/conservation planning"

• Use of Information in Decision-making: do not use abbreviations.

The Working Group also recommended the establishment of an Intranet working group to review and evaluate the categories and sub-categories of the database based on, inter alia, the number of practices in each category/sub-category.

UNCHS explained that the changes to the database, including a new "look and feel", provisions for broad-band and the inclusion of photos, video clips and graphic material were subject to a contract with Neostream, an Australian firm, through an enabling grant provided by the Government of the U.K.

2. Updates

The working group reiterated the need to archive practices that are not updated after two rounds (4 years) given that the existence of the practice and their validity of the information can no longer be guaranteed and in some cases can become misleading. It also decided that each partner would be responsible for contacting all non-updated practices in their respective areas, as follows:

• Arab States: Dubai Municipality (excluding Egypt)

• Arab States - Egypt: CEDARE

• Africa (French): ENDA

• Africa (East and Central): UNCHS/ITDG

• Africa (Southern): Regional Information Centre for Local Authorities (Southern Africa)

• Asia & Pacific: UNCHS

• Europe (West): IHS, Naples

• Europe (East & Central): Vienna

• Latin America (excl. Brazil): Ibero-American-Caribbean Forum

• Brazil: IBAM

• North America: Together, JCI

It was decided that archived practices will continue to be accessible through the database search engine but will be distinguished by: (i) a different shade or font colour; and (ii) by a preface to the record that the validity of the information contained in the practice can no longer be ascertained by UNCHS or its partners.

It was also decided that all updates should be based on the reporting format for 2002 and that an Intranet working group be established to formulate a reporting template for updates to be included in the guidelines for the 2004 DIABP.

3. Access to the database

Two proposals were tabled - one to provide the database free of charge, and the other to provide access free of charge to all information with the exception of contact names and addresses and advanced search capabilities. These proposals were made based on the fact that revenues from the on-line database are negligible as compared to the sale of CD-ROM versions. After much debate in the working group and in the plenary it was decided that each partner would be responsible for determining who should have access to the database free of charge and that partners, wishing to do so, will provide the password in relevant pages of their respective homepages.

It was recommended that UNCHS and Together look into the possibility of allowing partners to manage the subscription to the database to provide an incentive for more pro-active marketing of the database.

4. Preparations for 2002 DIABP

The following recommendations were made:

• Each partner will post the guide and reporting format for the 2002 DIABP on their homepage;

• UNCHS to establish a mailing list of past submitters for further use and reference and for partners to use for soliciting updates;

• All partners to be involved in validating submissions in their respective fields or areas of expertise and consulted with regards to nominations for the TAC and Jury;

• All submissions to be requested in English given the poor quality of translations;

• A free temporary password to be provided to all past practices requested to provide updates.

The Ibero-American-Caribbean Forum, in a parallel meeting, decided on its strategy for 2002 to focus on better quality submissions. Each partner will focus its attention on assisting 5 submissions for a total 25 submissions, while the UNCHS Habitat-LAC Office would focus on a selection from 12 practices presented at the Habitat Brasil 2001 Conference.

5. Evaluation Procedures

The Steering Committee recommended the establishment of a subcommittee to look into and develop means for the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of results of documented practices. The University of Naples suggested the use of a matrix. Discussions on this topic revealed, however, issues related to the capacity of submitters to use a matrix and the difficulties associated with different contextual circumstances that would not lend themselves easily to a uniform matrix. There was general agreement for the need to obtain more information with regards to results and processes.

VI. Report of Working Group II

Working Group II focused on the issue of gender mainstreaming and social inclusion. This agenda item was proposed by both UN-Habitat and the Huairou Commission prior to the meeting, and seconded by the Government of Spain with regards to social inclusion. The interest of UNCHS lies in the ability to identify those practices where women played a leadership role for policy development purposes. The Huairou Commission was concerned that gendered initiatives were not adequately represented among the award-winning practices, more so in light of the fact that quite a few of the former formed part of the shortlist of 40 practices for the 2000 DIABP. The Government of Spain’s interests were to further the visibility and lessons learned in social inclusion.

Work Group II made the following decisions:

• To clearly state in the TOR of the TAC and Jury and to brief their members that all six criteria were to be applied equally in the selection process, namely: (i) impact; (ii) partnership; (iii) sustainability; (iv) leadership and community empowerment; (v) gender equality and social inclusion; and (vi) innovation within the local context and transferability;

• To review and update the guidelines to further stress the importance of gender awareness and to include a box on "gender and social inclusion" in the submission guide for 2004 (see draft proposed text in Annex I to be reviewed and edited by the Secretariat for approval);

• To prepare a simple handbook on gender and social inclusion for use by the TAC and Jury, including a briefing of TAC and Jury members by the Secretariat;

• To separate the category of "gender equality and social inclusion" into two categories to make gender equality more prominent.

The Group also recommended that partners include gender in their feedback to submissions that meet the advance deadline of 31 January 2001. Several partners agreed to do so.

VII. Working Group III

Working Group III was devoted to the preparations of the one-day seminar at the Habitat Brasil 2001 Conference. The group met and worked with the 8 award-winning practices of the 2000 DIABP to harmonise and focus their presentations on lessons learned. The Group also clustered the presentations so as to facilitate discussions and decided that the meeting would provide participants of the seminar with a few minutes to engage in discussions on lessons learned before opening the debate to the floor. It also decided that two members of the Steering Committee would join the presenters of each cluster to form a panel and to give their substantive inputs in terms of lessons learned.

The Conference programme is attached in Annex II.

VIII. Working Group IV (Plenary)

Working Group IV became a de facto plenary session and focused on outstanding issues related to internal workings of the Steering Committee; the role and responsibility of partners; collaboration between partners; an offer by Joslyn Castle Institute for nominating interns to a summer school; discussions related to next Steering Committee meeting; and the formation of a standing committee to provide fast track approval on new developments. Together Foundation also made a presentation on new software and hardware developments for the BLP homepage and Intranet to be put into place by early 2002.

1. Role and designation of partners: Discussions were held on the distinction between thematic and regional partners and whether this distinction was still valid and necessary. The discussions revealed that to date, there was little or no overlap in the role or responsibilities of different partners. The issue of partners’ financial contributions was also raised and it was agreed that UNCHS would make a renewed effort to ensure that partners paid their fees and provide an account of revenues and expenditures in due course.

2. Collaboration between partners and use of Intranet and Sharing of Information: The core programme initiated discussions on the need for partners to systematically inform partners of their ongoing activities and initiatives in the application of best practices to ongoing training and capacity-building activities, the development of case studies and the evaluation of best practices. It was felt that the systematic sharing of information was not only necessary to keep the general public informed of BLP’s activities; it would also provide partners with insights and opportunities for potential collaboration. It was agreed that UNCHS would send monthly reminders for partners to provide a brief of their activities. Similarly, partners took note of the new software and hardware plans by Together Foundation and agreed to use the Intranet more frequently for the sharing and exchange of information, working tools and documents. It was felt this would contribute to more opportunities for partners to collaborate and to undertake joint activities in what amounts, in total, to an impressive number of events and new developments.

3. JCI Summer Internship Programme: JCI confirmed that it was organising a summer internship programme in 2002 in Omaha, Nebraska and invited partners to nominate mid-career professionals to attend this fully sponsored event.

4. Standing Committee: A Standing Committee was formed comprised of the following partners: ENDA, Huairou Commission, JCI, RIC-Southern Africa and UPE.

5. Venue of the next Steering Committee meeting: Partners were informed that the 2002 DIABP Award ceremony would most likely be held in Johannesburg, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10) in September 2002. Discussions were held on the pros and cons of holding the Steering Committee just prior to the Award ceremony. Several partners felt that such a meeting would be both onerous to organise and be subject to conflicting events and demands. Two partners offered to look into the possibility of hosting the next meeting: Fundacion Habitat Colombia in Cartegena, and UPE in Oxford on the occasion of the planned 4th UPE conference to be held in September 2002.

Annex I

List of Participants

1-Humaita, 22271 070
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Fax: (55 21) 5371262
Email: ibam@ibam.org.br
Web: http://www.ibam.org.br

University of Naples "Federico II",
Department of Conservation of Environmental and Architectural Assets
Professor Luigi Fusco Girard
via Roma, 402 - 80132 Naples, Italy
Tel: 0039 081 2538761; Fax: 0039 081 2538649
Email: girard@unina.it / cerreta@unina.it
Web: http://www.unina.it

Woodrow Wilson Centre
Dr. Marc Weiss

1 Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300, Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20002-3027, USA
Tel; (1-202) 691 4229; Fax: (1-202) 691 4001
Email: weissma@wwic.si.edu
Web: www.wilsoncenter.org

Invited Observers
Prefeitura de Florianopolis
Hon. Ageal Regina Heinzen Amin Helou, Mayor of Florianopolis

Gabinete de Prefeitura Municipal de Florianopolis
Centro - 88010-080 Florianopolis SC, Brazil
Email: gabinete@pmf.sc.gov.br

Ministry of Science and Technology of Brazil
Ivonice Aires Campos, Enga , Special Advisor to the Minister'
Esplanda dos Ministerios - Bloco E - sala 362
Brasilia - DF - Brasil 70067-900
Tel: 55 61 3177922/3177921/3177983, Fax: 55 61 2256039
Email: ivonice@mct.gov.br

Electric Company of Minas Gerais
Dr. Antonia Alves Cardoso

Annex II

Conference Programme

Habitat Brasil 2001 International Conference

One-day Seminar on Learning from the 2000 DIABP Award-winning Practices

9 November 2001

09h30: Opening

Welcome address by the Mayor of Florianopolis, ???

Presentation of the Florianopolis child-protection initiative

Working methods and agenda, Nicholas You (UNCHS)

10h30: Break

11h00: Integrated Local Development

Luanda Sul Self-financed urban infrastructure programme - Miguel Antonio Nogueira

Citizenship and participatory democracy in Cotacachi, Ecuador, Patricia Espinosa

Panel discussion: Mona Serageldin (Harvard University) and Marta Garcia-Nart (Ministry of Development, Government of Spain)

12h30: Break

14h00: Environmental Management and Ecological Concerns

Eco-tourism initiative, the Cirali experience, Turkey, Emine Kursutuk

Spanish Greenways Programme, Spain, Carmen Aycart

Hamilton-Wentworth Air Quality Initiative, Canada, Denis Corr

Panel discussion: Ed Frank (Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies) and Luigi Fusco-Gerard (University of Naples)

15h30: Break

16h00: Gender and Social Inclusion

Women Empowerment Programme, Nepal, Marcia Odell

Shambob Brick Producers Cooperative, Sudan, Mohamed Majzoub

Police Training programme in the protection of human rights, Amapa, Brazil, Joselita ???

Panel discussion: Claudia Laub (El-Agora), Malick Gaye (ENDA)

17h30: Closing

Closing remarks by the representative of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Ivonicey Aires Campos

Closing Remarks by the representative of the Mayor of Florianopolis,

Summation of lessons learned – Nicholas You (UNCHS)