Introduction

Although the focus of UNCHS (Habitat) since the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) (City Summit) in Istanbul, Turkey in June 1996 has been on the planning, development and management of cities, it is acknowledged that a significant proportion of the world's countries and regions, though urbanizing, would still remain largely rural into the twenty-first century. The relationship between rural and urban areas in those countries will continue to be important. What's more, several countries from these still urbanizing regions have raised concerns about exclusive emphasis on cities as locus of human settlement development and management problem.

On 11 May 1999, on the occasion of the Seventeenth Session of the Commission on Human Settlements, which held from 5-14 May 1999, a colloquium on Urban-Rural Synergies was convoked at the United Nations Complex at Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya as one of the parallel events to the Commission Session. The purpose was to provide representatives from various countries and world regions, a platform and opportunity to reflect on their national/regional perspectives on this important and topical subject.

This report is a slightly edited account of the views and perspectives of the participants. It is presented in verbatim format to convey the depth and breadth of perspectives on the issue, as well as to reflect comparative regional views and perceptions. In a sense, this report constitutes a first step towards implementation of Commission on Human Settlements Resolution 17/10 cited above.

Next steps will include developing strategies for internalizing urban-rural interdependence in human settlements planning, development and management.

Annex 5 of the report is a summary report of an earlier Workshop on the subject, which was organized in Curitiba, Brazil by UNDP. It is annexed to this report to farther complement and enrich the views and perspectives on the subject.