Habitat International Coalition

HIC General SecretariatSantiago Bueras 142, Of. 22Santiago – Chilewww.hic-net.org

April 2006

Since 1976 Habitat International Coalition has been working to raise awarness on housing and land issues world-wide

“Unless progress is made … the elites will be swept away”Enrique Peñalosa

HIC is an independent, international, non-profit movement of some 400 organizations and individuals working in the area of human settlements. Members include NGOs, CBOs, academic and research institutions, civil society organizations and like-minded individuals from 80 countries in both North and South. A shared set of objectives bind and shape HIC's commitment to communities working to secure housing and improve their habitat conditions.

Preparatives and activities towards Habitat II - Istanbul 1996

World Habitat Day

Global CampaignHousing Rights Now !2002 - 2005

Working in the field with members, partners and friends

HIC with ACHR and SDI in Bangkok, 2005

Reinforcing peoples’ assets and supporting communities struggles for the defense of housing, land and habitat

To stop and denounce evictions

Meeting with evicted residents in Nairobi

Thai Assembly

Defense of the right to land of minorities and indigenous people in Middle East

Exchanges Latin America – Asia for post-tsunami reliefArpilleras Project in Banda Aceh, IndonesiaHIC-SELVIP-UPC Link

Mainstreaming a gender approach

With social movements at the World Social Forums since 2001

Bamako 2006

Caracas 2006

Porto Alegre 2005

Advocating for global actions on defense of the right to housing now !

Habitat JAM

Strategic planning for 2005-2007

Preparing HIC 30th anniversary at WUF 3

HIC Perspectives and Initiatives

• The social production and management perspective concerns practices that affirm people as active agents of change, striving for human development within the context of global and local deprivation.

• The human dignity and rights perspective seeks to enhance the implementation of international consensus, commitments and obligations, including those relating to the universal entitlements of individuals and groups – women, men, youth and children. These human rights reflect and help to secure freedom and well-being, skills, wealth, power and respect. It involves the defence and fulfilment of human rights, specifically the right to adequate housing, which includes secure tenure.

• The sustainable environment perspective involves enhancing the implementation of international consensus, commitments and obligations to ensure social, economic and environmental sustainability of “habitat as human settlements” and “habitat as planet Earth”.

• The gender equality perspective promotes equal access of women and men to social, economic, cultural and environmental features of habitat, and the effective participation of women in decision-making.

HIC at World Urban Forum 3Vancouver – Canada June 2006

Inside WUF:

• Networking events: Monitoring the Right to Adequate Housing (HLRN/HIC); Urban watches / observatories: tools and facilities for more effective actions through better decision-making processes (HSEN/HIC); Social Production of Habitat (HIC/InWent/UN-ROLAC)

• Civil Society Round Table: HIC has a leading role in the preparation of the civil society and NGOs roundtable, to review and assess 30 years of activity towards pro-poor, gender-sensitive and enabling urban policies, allowing peer-to-peer focused and action-oriented exchanges, with an historic and critical approach. (Still to be worked-out together with UN-Habitat and with a previous virtual debate)

• Speaker corner: a booth within the WUF III Convention Center, to facilitate a space for representatives of social movements and civil society organizations: people who don’t have a site at the official agenda and will like to share their experience, present materials, videos or have a meeting place among grassroots leaders, civil society organizations and social movements. The speaker’s corners will promote official debates to continue in a fluent and flexible arena and bring to the UN the message of the World Social Forum.

Outside WUF:

• Working Group on Globalization and Privatization: in coordination with Canadian and US groups, HIC is proposing an alternative activity outside WUF to go on with the working plan and to support regional/local struggles.

• Rally and street parade: two different expressions: to supports the demands of local groups and to retrieve the spirit of the street parade of 1976, in the spirit of the pluralism and the feast-like march of the World Social Forum.

• Board Meeting: an operative meeting on 18th all day, 19th morning and 23rd in the afternoon. If necessary the Executive Committee will gather the 24th in the morning. Main issues include: implementation of the Strategic Lines (2005-2007), membership, elections, and HIC evaluation. A draft agenda will be distributed later for your comments.

• General Assembly: the annual meeting of members will be the opportunity to identify the scope and issues of the evaluation process of HIC networking activity (HIC / Misereor). A draft agenda will be distributed later for your comments.

HIC at World Urban Forum 3Vancouver – Canada June 2006