Samata Sevana National Housing Program appropriate for national shelter activity in Asia Pacific Reg

The Asia and Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (APMCHUD) was held at Surabaya, Indonesia recently. Here National Housing Development Authority Chairman L.S. Palansuriya who represented Sri Lanka for this Forum, expressing his views.

“Sri Lanka has implemented the ‘Samata Sevana’ National Housing Program island-wide by maximum utilisation of public participation and methodical management of state funds for housing and settlement. Through these procedures, solutions were given for housing of urban and rural low income earners and estate workers as well as North East resettled community. Due to joint implementation of these activities in urban and rural areas, issues of urbanisation together with the issues of housing beneficiaries were answered with their participation.”

National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) Chairman L.S. Palansuriya expressed these views as the representative of Sri Lanka at the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (APMCHUD), which was held at Surabaya, Indonesia on 26 July. 

Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, established in the year 2006, had its first conference at New Delhi, India with the participation of Ministers of the said countries. Later, this conference was held at Tehran, Iran in 2008, Solo, Indonesia in 2010, Amman, Jordan in 2012 and Seoul, Korea in 2014. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of this organisation, the sixth Ministerial Conference is to be held at New Delhi, India during 14 to 16 December. 

The Preparatory Conference in that regard was held at Surabaya, Indonesia on 26 July and all ministers and government officials participated in the conference representing housing and urban development sphere of Asian and Pacific countries engaged in preliminary discussions on regional solutions for housing and settlement development and urbanisation issues which are common to the region. 

It was decided at this Preparatory Conference to present views and proposals for selected challenging subject areas pertaining to this sphere and that should be specially focused on at present. Responsibilities in that respect were allocated among the member countries. Accordingly, the Government of India is to make a presentation on special project activities regarding ‘Urban and Rural Planning and Management’. 

In addition, the Islamic Republic of Iran is to present on ‘Upgrading of Slum and Informal Settlements’. Sri Lanka, with the collaboration of Maldives is to present on ‘Delivery of Basic Services for the Settlement Development’ based on the experiences and inclusive of services required for other countries in the region. Moreover, South Korea and Indonesia are to present to ‘Financing Sustainable Housing’ and ‘Urban Development with a Focus on Natural Climatic Change Related Disasters’ respectively. 

A special organising committee was appointed in relation to the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, which is to be held at New Delhi, India to carry out these activities and the said committee comprises of India, Sri Lanka, Islamic Republic of Iran, Maldives, Republic of Korea and Indonesia. 

The NHDA Chairman further said, “In the context of urbanisation and population growth taking place in the world, the Asian and Pacific countries are confronted with a variety of common challenges. In quest of solutions in this respect, decisions jointly made by political leadership, local government authorities and government officials attract more importance. In this process of designing and implementation of such decisions, the priority should be given to the views and proposals of the benefited and thereby, more fruitful solutions concerned to the issues such as urbanisation, housing and settlement development existing in this region can be found.” 

It is expected to obtain more contribution towards future housing and settlement activities of Sri Lanka at the sixth Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development to be held with the auspices of the Prime Minister of India at the end of December of this year. 

Furthermore, the Ministry of Housing and Construction anticipates to obtain the contribution and assistance of Secretariat Office of Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development for the implementation of proposed projects in the Asia Pacific region based on the proposal for ‘International Housing Year 2007’ launched with the proposal of Sri Lanka which reaches the 30th year by the year 2017.