//CORRECTED REPEAT//DEVELOPMENT: Need For Poverty Alleviation Stressed At Berlin Conference

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN, Jul 4 2000 (IPS) - More than new technology and scientific progress are needed to alleviate poverty and fulfil the basic needs of the people, United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said Tuesday.

“We also need radical changes in human relations – in the way we think about each other and our shared lives in an interdependent world,” said Annan.

He joined German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, in officially opening the Global Conference on Sustainable Development of Cities taking place in Berlin.

Annan arrived in the German capital Monday, after inaugurating the newly built venue of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. Prior to that, he visited the World Exposition Expo 2000 in Hanover.

Known as Urban 21, the conference is taking place under the broad umbrella of the five-month long Expo 2000 which opened its doors on June 1.

Annan told diplomats, government officials, city planners and representatives of non-governmental organisations in Berlin, that he had found the World Exposition both inspiring and worrying.

Inspiring, because the science and technology being exhibited promise significant improvements in the human condition.

“But also worrying, because parts of the display – for instance, the pavilion devoted to poverty and basic needs – make it very clear that we need more than new technology and scientific progress,” the UN secretary general said.

Increasingly more and more lives are being lived in cities. Already, nearly half the world’s people are city -dwellers. Within just 25 years, it will be two-thirds of them – more than five billion. According to UN statistics, almost all of that rapid increase will come in developing countries.

By then there will be almost 300 cities, with populations of over one million, and nearly 100 mega-cities with more than five million inhabitants.

Against this backdrop, one of the United Nations’ priorities must always be concern for the weakest and poorest members of the human family.

Annan said, this was the rationale behind the “Cities without Slums” initiative launched by the World Bank and the UN last December. With former South African President Nelson Mandela as its patron, the project is aimed at improving the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, through a global alliance of cities and their development partners.

The Berlin conference is being attended by participants from 100 states and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Explaining the background to the conference, German chancellor Schroeder said: “With Urban 21, the Federal Republic of Germany – together with the states of Brazil, Singapore and South Africa – would like to intensify the extremely important international understanding on the sustainable development of cities, which began with the Rio conference in 1992 and the Human Settlements Habitat II in 1996 in Istanbul.”

The idea to hold Urban 21 came up at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly, Rio plus 5, in 1997 when Brazil, Germany, Singapore and South Africa established a joint Global Initiative for Sustainable Development.

The Berlin conference was preceded by a meeting of the mayors of the world’s largest cities.

The globe’s largest agglomerations include: Tokyo with a population of 27

million, Mexico City (16.6 million), Sao Paulo (16.5 million), New York (16.3 million), Mumbai (15.1 million), Shanghai (13.6 million), Los Angeles (12.4 million), Calcutta (11.9 million), Buenos Aires (11.8 million), Seoul (11.6 million) and Beijing (11.3 million).

Others with a population of 6.5 million and above are: Delhi, Karachi, Cairo, Paris, Tianjin, Manila, Moscow, Jakarta, Dhaka, Istanbul, London, Chicago, Teheran, Lima, Bangkok and the Ruhr district in Germany.

The contents of the conference have been prepared by a world commission, comprising of personalities from all parts of the world.

The commission Tuesday presented a World Report on the Urban Future. It analyses current global trends of urban development and proposes guiding principles for urban development in the 21st century.

The world commission Urban 21 members include: Ela Bhatt of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, South Africa’s Housing Minister Sankie D. Mthembi-Mahanyele, World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin, and UNEP chief executive Klaus Toepfer.

The Berlin conference will end Thursday after adopting a declaration on the Urban Future. A first draft circulated Tuesday struck an optimistic note.

It said: “We believe that if we harness the positive forces of education and sustainable development, globalisation and information technology, democracy and good governance, the empowerment of women and civil society, we have a chance of building cities of beauty, ecology, economy and social justice.”

The significance of information technology and good governance was also underscored by German chancellor Schroeder.

“Good governance entails the observation of democratic principles, the obligation of accountability and the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes which impact their lives.”