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III Commitments

E. Financing shelter and human settlements

47. While recognizing that the housing and shelter sector is a productive sector and should be eligible, inter alia, for commercial financing, we commit ourselves to strengthening existing financial mechanisms and, where appropriate, developing innovative approaches for financing the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, which will mobilize additional resources from various sources of finance - public, private, multilateral and bilateral - at the international, regional, national and local levels, and which will promote the efficient, effective and accountable allocation and management of resources, recognizing that local institutions involved in micro-credit may hold the most potential for housing the poor.

48. We further commit ourselves to the objectives of:

(a) Stimulating national and local economies through promoting economic development, social development and environmental protection that will attract domestic and international financial resources and private investment, generate employment and increase revenues, providing a stronger financial base to support adequate shelter and sustainable human settlements development;

(b) Strengthening fiscal and financial management capacity at all levels, so as to fully develop the sources of revenue;

(c) Enhancing public revenue through the use, as appropriate, of fiscal instruments that are conducive to environmentally sound practices in order to promote direct support for sustainable human settlements development;

(d) Strengthening regulatory and legal frameworks to enable markets to work, overcome market failure and facilitate independent initiative and creativity, as well as to promote socially and environmentally responsible corporate investment and reinvestment in, and in partnership with, local communities and to encourage a wide range of other partnerships to finance shelter and human settlements development;

(e) Promoting equal access to credit for all people;

(f) Adopting, where appropriate, transparent, timely, predictable and performance-based mechanisms for the allocation of resources among different levels of government and various actors;

(g) Fostering the accessibility of the market for those who are less organized and informed or otherwise excluded from participation by providing subsidies, where appropriate, and promoting appropriate credit mechanisms and other instruments to address their needs.

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