UN agencies welcome World Summit’s outcome document

United Nations agencies have welcomed the pledges and declarations in the World Summit’s outcome document last week and its recognition of the urgent need for increased resources for programmes to improve the lives of the poor worldwide.

“At a time when people are on the move and already 50 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, the battle for sustainable development will be won or lost in the streets of our cities and towns,” UN Programme for Human Settlement (UN-HABITAT) Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka said yesterday.

With 1 billion poor people already living in slums, she was encouraged that world leaders called for increased investment in the Slum Upgrading Facility, as well as in affordable housing and infrastructure, she added.

UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Dervis told the five-year-old Community of Democracies, with a membership of more than 100 countries, that the Summit had made important strides, though more needed to be done.

In a speech, he welcomed the steps the Summit had taken to strengthen democratic institutions, including the establishment of the new UN Democracy Fund, to which 13 countries already have contributed $32 million to promote and consolidate new and restored democracies with financial and technical help.

Referring to UN reform, which was part of the Summit’s agenda, Mr. Dervis said: “Let me also say that it is clear that a reformed UN will also need to embody greater participation, transparency and accountability – the very hallmarks of a democratic community.”

The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to the UN Millennium Declaration, whose progress was being measured at the Summit.

He said constructive synergies would allow all agencies of the UN system to become more efficient and cost-effective.

WMO operates global and regional early warning systems for such natural hazards as tropical cyclones, drought, and airborne nuclear and chemical pollutants.