Commission acts on housing issues: children's rights, refugee strategy considered.

• Position: Uited Nations Commission on Human Settlements - Includes information on plans for 1996 HABITAT II conference

Children's housing rights and the development of a strategy to assist refugees and displaced persons were among the topics of 13 resolutions adopted by the Commission on Human Settlements at its fifteenth session (24 April-1 May, Nairobi).

With children making up 40 per cent of the world's population, the Commission declared that mechanisms should be developed to protect their housing rights and called for an expert seminar on that subject, as well as further consideration of the issue at its next session, to be held in 1997.

Other resolutions dealt with: the participation of women in human settlements development; aid to countries with economies in transition; strengthening efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean; and issues related to urban environment. Outgoing Commission Chairman David Johansson of Finland recalled that two major themes for the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT II) - to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, in June 1996 - were sustainable human settlements in an urbanizing world and adequate shelter for all.

The commitment to adequate shelter for all was re-emphasized by Wally N'Dow, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Centre for Human Settlements and Secretary-General of HABITAT II.

"Human settlement policies in the future will influence and be influenced" by global development issues, he told the Commission. "Local authorities, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, women's and community groups, as well as young people who will live in the world of the next century, must become part of the solution."

In a message by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to the Commission, read by Dr. N'Dow, it was noted that the Commission session held special significance as the last before the Istanbul conference, concluding a series of global meetings that would "forge the elements of a new common global strategy of people-centred and sustainable development...