[caption id="attachment_122816" align="alignright" width="156"] Agreement was signed, 17th October[/caption]
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Urban Development and Revitalization Organization (UDRO), Sabzevar Municipality and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) on Friday 17 October 2014. At an auspicious ceremony held at the Sabzevar City Hall, the MOU was exchanged in the presence of the City Council, the Governor of Sabzevar, and other senior city officials. The MOU provides a framework of cooperation within which Sabzevar Municipality, UDRO and UN-Habitat shall cooperate in empowering informal settlements in Sabzevar and improving environmental, demographic, social, economic, physical and managerial conditions of targeted neighbourhoods including neighbourhood classification in Sabzevar city in terms of social participation.
Eid-Gah Neighborhood in Sabzevar
Sabzevar, a city of some 250,000 inhabitants in the Khorasan province, has been increasingly facing the challenge of informal settlements expansion on the fringes of the city due to internal migration and proximity of surrounding villages to the city limits. The city authorities wish to address and upgrade the living conditions of the population living in the informal settlements through a joint collaboration with UN-Habitat. While a more detailed project needs to be developed in the coming weeks, the desirable outcomes of this collaboration are expected to be, inter alia, the legal status of the dwellers in these areas, empowerment of informal settlements dwellers (particularly women) and community participation in problem solving of informal settlements, inclusion of informal settlements in the urban development strategy, and integrated forward-planning urban approaches, founded on resilience principles.
Informal settlements Upgrading Committee in Sabzevar CountyThe signing ceremony was followed up with a meeting of the city authorities under the chairmanship of the Governor, where the results of an independent needs assessment survey of the informal settlements were presented and discussed. The UN-Habitat representative also visited Eid-Gah and NirooGah Neighborhoods as main informal settlement areas of Sabzevar.
After terminating mission in Sabzevar, UN-Habitat Representative paid a visit to Bojnurd city, capital of North Khorasan on Saturday (18th Oct) and met with the provincial Governor and the city Mayor and discussed on the similar situation of informal settlements in Bojnurd city.