The Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, and the Managing Director of the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC) in Stockholm, Mr. Lennart Hjalmarson, have agreed to start a new collaboration aimed at helping developing countries promote security of tenure, better housing and service provision for poor people. The technical expertise from both organizations, which will be used in this collaboration, will allow a more effective and efficient utilization of resources made available to both parties. They signed a letter of intent on 18 October in which the proposed areas of cooperation between the two organisations will include: Information exchange; training and capacity building within the cooperative housing sector; and research and development in areas where cooperatives can more effectively contribute to the promotion of security of tenure and housing and social services development.
They also intend to evaluate and monitor contributions of the cooperative sector to housing and social services development, organise conferences and seminars and document lessons learned. Mrs. Tibaijuka said that poor housing conditions and poverty are closely related and mutually reinforcing, and that this new collaboration would improve planned impacts in the East African region, especially the Lake Victoria Region.
For further details, see: letter of intent |
