EDITORIAL: WORLD HABITAT DAY A TIME FOR REFLECTION
Today is World Habitat Day (WHD) this year, the earliest date on which it can fall, as it is marked on the first Monday of the month of October each succeeding year.
With the theme “Accelerating Urban Action for a Carbon-Free World” for the year 2021, WHD is to amplify the global Race to Zero Campaign, and encourage governments the world over to develop actionable zero-carbon plans in the run-up to the annual International Climate Change Summit, the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) this year.
Projected to bring together about 190 of the United Nations’ 193 member countries out of the 195 world countries in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 31 to November 12, 2021, COP26 will discuss and otherwise dialogue on climate change as a global priority – and not the issue that it was on the global fringes about 30 years ago.
COP26 is one of the outcomes of the Paris Climate Accords on Climate Change, which were formally adopted as an Agreement in 2015 on ways and means of its mitigation, adaptation, etc. of the seemingly relentless and endless climate change.
Signed in Paris, France, on April 22, 2016, the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) became effective on November 4, 2015, after 55 UN-FCCC parties who generally account for about 55 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions ratified and acceded to the Paris Accords.
These were then deposited with the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York, the United States.
What with one thing leading to another, the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA Resolution A/RES/40/202) officially designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day in 1985, with the overall objective of promoting the idea that everyone deserves a decent habitat.
Celebrated across the world
Marked for the first time in October 1986 with the theme “Shelter is my Right,” WHD has since then been celebrated across the world by individuals, communities, organisations and governments by hosting a range of educational and promotional activities – including seminars, lectures, forums, conferences, and social media campaigns – in efforts to emphasise the basic right of everyone to proper shelter.
If nothing else, organisers say, this is because “a decent habitat can remove barriers to opportunities for a better life today – and a better future” for everyone.
Perhaps as the legendary Sisters of Fate would have it, Tanzania scrambled aboard the World Habitat Day wagon, starting Habitat for Humanity (Tanzania) operations in Kigoma Region in 1986.
In due course of time and events, the government set up a “Makazi Bora” microfinance product in 2009 with the noble objectives – among others – of “improving the living standards of low-income families through enabling communities to live in decent and affordable houses”, all under the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development.
Today, Habitat Tanzania offers microfinance loans to low-income families to improve their homes. It also advocates relevant policies on housing and land ownership, and supports water, sanitation and hygiene projects; as well as vulnerable groups such as widows and orphans in improving their living conditions.
“Viva, World Habitat Day”, we heartily shout from the housetops.
