Opening Session Speeches

Mr. Noli de Castro, Vice-President of the Philippines and Chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council

Your Excellencies Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Canada), Vice President Mohamed Ali Shein (United Republic of Tanzania), United Nations Undersecretary and UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka;

The Honorable Premier Gordon Campbell (British Columbia), Mayor Sam Sullivan (Vancouver), Mr. Charles Kelly (Commissioner General, World Urban forum III);

Members of the diplomatic corps; Honorable Ministers and Secretaries; Honorable Mayors; Representatives from Civil Society, Academe, Private Sector, Media, Youth groups; Citizens of Cities and Municipalities who are Participating in the Third World Urban Forum;

Good morning and Mabuhay!

I congratulate the United Nations Human Settlements Programme and the Government of Canada for hosting the Third World Urban Forum in this beautiful city of Vancouver where UN-HABITAT was born 30 years ago.

Reversing the trend

The theme for this year, "Sustainable Cities: Turning Ideas into Actions" reflects on the important role of cities and urban areas as staging grounds for local development. Indeed, this forum will find real meaning in bringing the fight against poverty down to the local level — the ground zero of development where poverty is felt and seen.

It is important to recognize that most of the world's population growth will occur in the cities of the developing countries. The 21st century will witness massive and rapid urbanization, with two billion new residents in cities of the developing world in the next 25 years. This process, though brought about by economic development, has also led to sharp divisions in growth between cities and social groups.

The next decade will also witness an increased urbanization of poverty. Nearly one billion urban residents in the cities of the developing world may end up being poor if current trends continue.

These are trends. But I am confident that a world united can prevent the further decline in the living conditions of the poor in urban areas.

If we work together, we can find common solutions to the global problem of poverty.

The twin campaigns on secure tenure and good urban governance and millennium development goals

You may recall, Madame Tibaijuka, that the Philippines launched the joint campaigns on secure tenure and good urban governance in 2002. You visited areas in Manila and Davao where you witnessed the overwhelming ownership of Filipinos of the joint campaigns, particularly the urban poor. We have since then implemented our national action agenda towards the attainment of the goals of the twin campaigns. Moreover, we have adopted and mainstreamed the Millennium Development Goals in our development plans. As Vice President and head of the government housing sector, I am personally committed to championing the principles of the MDGs, particularly goal 7, target 11.

To this day, we remain committed to wage a relentless battle against poverty in our cities and urban areas.

For us, Filipinos, this fight flows directly from the struggle for democracy nearly two decades ago, the seeds of which were planted many years before. In 1986, we finally became united as a people and ousted a military ruler through peaceful people power. Today, we want to harness the strength that emanates from concerted action and direct it towards development,

While it would have been easier to mobilize resources and command actions in more authoritative systems, we chose the path that is consistent with our ideals as a democratic republic. And indeed we have moved forward.

Yet we also recognize that there is still a long way to go before we reach our goals. We have done the "minimums" and set our fundamentals in place. We can not stop now.

Hence, we are grateful for UN-HABITAT and the Government of Canada for inviting us here. I am particularly pleased to see that a number of us from the Philippines are actively engaged in dialogues, networking, and training events. Through these activities, we hope to share our experiences in slum upgrading, housing finance, gender, and localization of the millennium development goals.

I believe that we will come out of this forum renewed and inspired. I believe that after this, we will hit the ground running again and continue preparing for our future . . . Right Now.

Mabuhay and a pleasant day to all. Thank you.