Report of "Colloquium on contribution of the co-operative sector to housing development"

The Habitat Agenda sets out the goals, principles and commitments for improving the quality of life in human settlements and elaborates on actions required to accomplish the two goals of "adequate shelter for all' and 'sustainable development in an urbanizing world'. More specifically, the Habitat Agenda calls for organizations of the United Nations system to intensify their co-operation with associations and networks of the co-operative sectors in adequate sheller and sustainable humun settlements development. The United Nations has since strengthened its focus on the role of co-operatives in social and economic development. Secretary-Gencral Kofi Annan - in his message on the occasion of the 8th United Nations International Day of Co-operatives (6 July 2002) - noted that co-operatives "support social cohesion and stability and give life to the concepts of corporate responsibility and citizenship. They provide essential services, ranging from housing to health care, that strengthen community development." The Colloquium brought together representatives of relevant United Nations organizations, international networks of co-operatives, practitioners and researchers, with a view to evaluate and share experiences relevant to the contributions of the co-operative sector to housing development. The deliberations had a particular focus on the realities in Central and Eastern Europe, where privatization of public assets in many countries has led to the transformation of co-operative housing into condominiums, quite often without due attention being paid to management and maintenance issues. The Colloquium was organized around three main themes, namely an enabling environment for housing co-operatives: legal, financial and institutional frameworks; the role of co-operatives in management, maintenance and revitalization of housing stocks; and the contributions of housing co-operatives to community development, The report contains a summary of discussions, conclusions reached and the full text of the presentations made.