Europe and Central Asia housing forum: 'Promoting sustainable housing futures for all'

The Europe and Central Asia Housing Forum was held from 22 to 24 April 2013 to bring together leading professionals committed to the cause of sustainable housing. It will have four main themes: regulatory frameworks, housing solutions, housing vulnerabilities and human development.

Building safer homes in safer places: approaches to preventing risks from industrial sites to housing and land
Natural and human-generated disasters have resulted in large-scale damages to housing across the ECE region and present very important challenges to the work of governments. This calls for common efforts of member States to develop disaster risk prevention measures through building safer houses in safer places, thus contributing to the global implementation of the UNISDR Hyugo Framework for Action, the UNECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, the EU "Seveso Directive" - the Directive on the control of major-accident hazards as well as to the development of a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

The seminar is a follow-up event to the seminar on land use planning around hazardous industrial sites organized by the UNECE Committee on Housing and Land Management (CHLM) and the Conference of the Parties on the UNECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents in November 2010. The November 2010 seminar participant concluded that safety aspects were not well integrated in land use planning due to the lack of the communication and cooperation between safety experts, planners and main stakeholders. It was also outlined that although international guidelines on safety and land exist , they are not sufficiently reflected in the national legislation and regulations of most of the UNECE member States.
This seminar will be aimed to discuss the following questions: What concrete actions need to be taken by the UNECE, national authorities and stakeholders to promote implementation of the existing guidelines on safety and land use planning in the UNECE member States? Which international rules and recommendations on safety and land use should be considered while developing and implementing policies and planning practices at the national level in the ECE countries? How they should be incorporated in the national legislation?

The seminar aims to discuss the following questions:

What concrete actions need to be taken by the UNECE Committee on Housing and Land Management, the Conference of the Parties on the UNECE Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, national authorities and stakeholders to promote implementation of the existing guidelines on safety and land use planning in UNECE member states?
Which international rules and recommendations on safety and land use should be considered while developing and implementing policies and planning practices at the national level in ECE countires? How should they be incorporated in national legislation?
Which targets could be included in the draft Strategy that would support efforts of governments to prevent risks to the population from industrial sites?