Events

Mon, 10th October, 2016 @ New Delhi

Global Compact Network India in collaboration with Habitat For Humanity India organised Multi Stakeholder Consultation on Housing and Sanitation within Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Framework on 3rd October 2016 in New Delhi. The consultation was attended by more than 120 people representing NGOs, Civil Society Organisation, Corporates, SMEs, PSUs, Ministry and Private Institutions.

Dr. Uddesh Kohli, Senior Advisor, UNGC, New York, in his welcome address stated that this is the first kind of consultation on Housing and Sanitation and Global Compact Network India has been instrumental in implementing its agenda towards Sustainable Development Goals with Housing and Sanitation at the core of development.

The consultation included a presentation on ImPact 50-50 HFH India Strategy which was delivered by Rajan Samuel, Managing Director, Habitat for Humanity India in which he stated that Habitat For Humanity India act as a catalyst and mentioned that 1,34,893 families and 6,54,757 individuals has been impacted. The ImPact 50-50 strategy aims to achieve holistic and integrated social change with Housing and Sanitation at the core of development. It also aims at making “Housing for All” and “Total Sanitation’’ a reality for 100 districts in India. He further elaborated on the Road Ahead for Coalition and Partnerships and has formed Sensitise to Coalition (S2S). This campaign is aligned with the Government of India’s “Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan” (Clean India Mission) to eliminate open defecation by 2019.

The second presentation at the consultation was delivered by Joseph Scaria, Director – Resource Development, Asia Pacific, Habitat for Humanity International in which he highlighted about the role of ImPact Asia Pacific. Around 800 million people live in the standard house and ImPact is designed to reach out to the vulnerable communities to build capacity of people and subsequently building Social Capital through funds. He further stated that partnership with Habitat for Humanity has brought about 400 corporate partnerships which will be successful in building CSR strategy. He also highlighted the 20-20 vision led by Vision Council which has three major indicators that includes Leadership Builders, Young Game Changers and Ambassadors.

Jonathan Reckford, CEO, Habitat for Humanity International in his special address highlighted the fact that Housing is a invisible problem and Habitat For Humanity has reached the target for providing affordable Housing for All. He stressed upon Multi sectoral approaches which will provide the affordable housing for all which includes Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnership. The role of critical societies to bring development includes private sector engagement and getting into consultation.
Further, Pooran Chandra Pandey, Executive Director, Global Compact Network India (GCNI) in his special added three critical factors which will accelerate the Housing and Sanitation which are basically:

1) The need for decentralized approach to manage the scale: Scale should be kept high to reach out the members and corporates for forging the partnerships.

2) Framework, Monitoring and Evaluation – Regular monitoring needs to be done at the ground level to provide better framework for development.

3) Access to resources: According to the reports and statistics around 74 million dollars is needed for empowering the individuals and for infrastructure it is 476 billion dollars.

The consultation included the representation from corporates which includes ReNew Power and NBCC Ltd. ReNew Power has done immense work in providing clean energy and sanitation in various districts of India. ReNew believes in Community Engagement and setting up toilet is not only important but empowering the community and getting the funds is eventually more important. Whereas, National Building Construction Co-operation has implemented 100 Bio- Digester Toilets for schools in PAN India and Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bio Digester Toilets in Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttarakhand.

The meeting ended with the vote of thanks by Sanjay Daswani – Director – Resource Development & Communications, Habitat For Humanity India.