Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, is personally awarded with the 2006 Habitat Scroll of Honour for his his tireless work to help improve the plight of slum dwellers around the world.

One of the most senior Vatican officials, Cardinal Martino has repeatedly pledged the continued support of the Roman Catholic Church to help improve the plight of slum dwellers around the world. He personally intervened with the Kenyan government in 2004 to prevent the mass eviction of people living in Kibera, a crowded Nairobi slum that is home to over 700,000 people, through which the authorities had intended to build a new city bypass.

At the time, he personally met Mrs. Tibaijuka, and President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. Cardinal Martino raised the need to tackle the root causes of slums which he said were a “result of under-development and poverty because people who cannot earn a decent living in rural areas and come to the city for something better, get disappointed”. The problem of slums could therefore only disappear when countries are properly developed so that the aspirations of people are fulfilled wherever they may live. He acknowledged though that achieving global development would take a long time so in the meantime, we must continue to address the challenge of slums.

Born in Salerno, Italy on 23 November 1932, Cardinal Martino is an Italian churchman, who was ordained as a priest in 1957. He holds a doctorate in Canon law and entered the Vatican's diplomatic service in 1962, serving in Nicaragua, the Philippines, Lebanon, Canada and Brazil. In 1980, he was given a pro-nuncio diplomatic appointment to Thailand, and was named Archbishop of the titular see of Segerme. He was appointed named President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York in October 2002. A year later, he was elevated to the College of Cardinals. In 2005 he was one of the cardinal electors who voted in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.