Statement on Human SettlementsAlven Lam, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentDuring Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the 13th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development New York City March 2, 2005 Mr. Chairman, without prejudice to the internationally agreed objectives on human settlements, we have a number of policy options and related case studies related to the themes of this session that we would like to put forward. We believe that these practical policy options can advance progress toward our shared objectives.
With the chair’s permission, rather than read through all of the policy options, I would like to focus on just a few in my intervention. We are distributing a more detailed list to you as well as to the rest of our colleagues in the room. The policy options I would like to mention here:
On home ownership and property rights issues, we believe secure land tenure and home ownership have strong economic, social, and environmental impacts. In the United States, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was created in 1934 to provide government insurance for mortgage loans issued by private banks to private citizens. Since its inception, FHA has insured almost 32 million single family loans. The modern American housing finance system evolved largely from this program and today relies largely on private mortgage insurance. Today, over 99% of the total housing stock of the U.S. is privately owned, with 69% owner-occupied. FHA has evolved from an agency to the current Department of Housing and Urban Development, where I have the honor to serve. Home ownership policy has helped American people to accumulate tremendous wealth in the past 70 years as well as improving people’s living environment. This long evolving policy also has deeply affected the democratic process in our society. Second, mobilizing local financial resources is a key strategy to implement any human settlement or housing policy. Government should enable financial incentives such as tax policy and public private partnership legislations, as well as reduce regulatory barriers to attract private investments and local resources to mobilize locally available resources. In 1977, the U.S. Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act to encourage private banks to work with community organizations. The legislation was designed to promote the availability of credit and other banking services to low-income communities. This legislation has attracted billions of dollars from the private banks to work with the traditionally "unbankable" communities. Third, the Mayors' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit (MAPES) is a good example of what Secretary General Annan and others have called "public policy networks." This group of mayors from the Pacific Basin established a knowledge forum where city mayors and managers from across Asia and the Pacific share experiences, identify achievable goals, and commit to achieving these goals. Started in 1999, MAPES meets every year on different subjects. In 2003 for example, the MAPES tackled three of the most crucial issues in the urban setting: air quality, water supply and sanitation and solid waste. This is an effective way to improve knowledge and technical skills of administrators and legislators responsible for medium and long-term city development. We believe these options and the others we have distributed are proven approaches that can be scaled up to make real progress in advancing sustainable development. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. |
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