Strategy

National Centre for Human Settlements “Habitat Moldova Centre” is using and developing the experience and capacity of UNDP “Mesmerizing Moldova” Project. The follow up approach is based on previous agreements between the Government of Moldova and UNDP (“Mesmerizing Moldova” Project Document signed in June 2001), and between the Government of Moldova and UN Programme for Human Settlements “UN-Habitat (letter of Minister of Ecology and Territorial Development from 11/02/2004, letter of Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova from 16/11/2004 and letter from UN-Habitat Executive Director from 08/03/2004).

Mission:

The Habitat Moldova Center’s mission is to improve management and governance of the cities, national policy toward human settlements in order to ensure sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

Objectives:

Acting as focal point in Moldova in the field or urban development, the general objectives that will lead the MHC activity come from its mission and consist in:

• Facilitating cooperation between UN – Habitat and the Republic of Moldova
• Support national government in strengthening the legislative, regulatory and policy framework within which human settlements development take place
• Strengthening the capacity of cities (management and governance) to manage sustainable urban development
• Development and assisting network creation between Moldovan urban settlements and relationships with international organizations in the field, as well as similar networks from abroad
• Informational support and facilitate information exchange regarding the national and international advanced experience in the field and best practices
• Assist international assistance programmes and projects toward human settlements challenges through information support and knowledge
• Monitoring implementation of Habitat Agenda and Millennium Development Goals at national (urban system) and local (urban settlements) levels
• Develop the cooperation between national, local, donors and international institutions implied in development of urban settlements

Activities and tools:

• Capacity building of main actors at national and local level involved in urban development process

ü       Develop training modules for different kind of urban development actors (central and local administration, urban planners, specific urban and regional policies’ specialists, civil society)

ü       Elaboration, translation and publishing the books and brochures in the field of urban and regional development

ü       Provide trainings and workshops for different categories of urban and regional development actors

ü       Maintaining and developing a specialized library in the field of urban and regional development

• Advocacy and awareness

ü       Organization of thematic round tables and conferences

ü       Articles in newspapers, TV and radio programmes

ü       Research and feasibility studies

ü       Legal draft documents analysis and interpretation

• Policy advice, consulting and technical assistance

ü       Assist central government in designing legal and normative documents, policies in the field of regional and urban development

ü       Assist cities in elaboration and implementation of various programmes and projects related to urban management and governance

ü       Demonstrative projects

ü       Assist central government and cities in fundraising

ü       Seminars

• Informational support

ü       Editing specialized magazine “Urban Moldova”

ü       Best practices collecting and dissemination

ü       Maintaining and developing thematic web page www.habitatmoldova.org

ü       Seminars

• Monitoring and Evaluation

ü       National Urban Observatory: dates on urban developments status (yearly bulletin “Cities of Moldova”: informational base for policy makers, researches, and citizens, civil society)

ü       Progress Reports on Habitat Agenda and MDG

ü       Monitoring and evaluation the implementation of various national and local strategies and policies

Management:

The Centre is governed by the Centre’s founders, representatives of which are constituted the Board of the Centre. This Board is revising and approving long and medium run strategies of the Centre and yearly work plans and budgets. 

Operational activities of the Centre is managed by its Executive Director, which will is appointed by Centre’s Board for a period of 3 years. The Centre isstaffed by a small number of professionals with an excellent understanding of regional and urban development, assisted by several expatriate advisors (David Forbes - IHS Rotterdam, Liviu Ianasi – Harvard Centre for Urban Studies, Nicolae Taralunga – IHS Romania, Tatiana Roskoshnaya and Jean-Yves Barcelo– UN Habitat), supported by a small administrative staff complement. The Centre has fully equipped office, its own training facilities, well stocked library, with full sets of relevant publications.

The Centre is recruting services of different experts from its networking and others for its specific tasks and activities

Partnership:

“Habitat Moldova Centre” is continuing cooperation with UNDP Moldova and Regional Development Agency of the Republic of Moldova, Chisinau City Hall, key Governmental and independent  institutions in the filed, donors and technical assistance projects with the aim of insuring efficient cooperation and maintain their efforts in building broad coalition.

One of the main pillars of the Centre strategy is the building up and enhancement of partnership relations between the Government (central and local) of the Republic of Moldova, urban settlements, non-governmental institutions and United Nations Programme of Human Settlements UN-Habitat.