The GPR2C – Global Platform for the Right to the City is promoting an important debate
about the implementation of the Right to the City on a regional perspective in
Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 28th, 2015. The Regional Meeting in Africa will be held at University of the
Witwatersrand (WITS), in the Dorothy Suskind Auditorium, John Moffat Building,
from 8 am until 6 pm. The access is through Yale Road (from either Jorrisen or
Empire Wits East Campus). The meeting is hosted by Centre for Urbanism and
Built Environment Studies (CUBES).
The event comes on a strategic
moment, when a lot of countries meet in South Africa to participate at Africities
Summit 2015,
an event that brings, one day after, several entities to discuss the inclusion
of this cornerstone theme on African countries.
Around 60 participants will be
together at GPR2C event, representing Angola, Benin, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania,
Tunisia, Zambia, Zimbabwe South Africa and also Brazil, Italy and United
Kingdom. They are from different working fields – social movements
representatives, academics, human rights defenders, public authorities, among
others. The Deputy Minister of Human Settlements of South Africa, Ms Zou
Kota-Fredericks will be attending the conference.
Pat Horn, coordinator of Streetnet
International, entity focused on workers in the informal economy and based on
Johannesburg, emphasizes the importance to enforce the Right to the City in
African cities. “We are not yet seeing the practical application of the
inclusive urban policies and participatory processes that were being spoken
about by African Mayors at the UCLG conference in Rabat [Morocco] in November 2013, as far as the right of
street vendors and informal traders to their secure work space in public spaces
in their cities.”
For Wiego, an effective planning
must include consultation with the full range of public space stakeholders to
be representative and inclusive. The organization will bring to the meeting
issues regarding public spaces as a point of intervention to promote
inclusiveness and enable the voices of the poor to be heard in urban planning,
housing and slum upgrading, governance and basic services projects.
In note, the International Network
IAI (International Alliance of Inhabitants) considers that the growing slums in
Africa together with massive evictions as of the not so recent Nigeria’s case,
shows the difference between a good proposal and a given hard reality of human
rights violations. “If we want to win this challenge, it is necessary to do the
right mobilization of all the stakeholders, inhabitants on the front line
together with their demands, proposals,
and their day to day rhythm grounded on the human and environmental
rights, not on the neo-liberal and neo-colonial principles and policies.”
Local
building of the New Urban Agenda
In the Regional Meeting in Africa,
the GPR2C also intends to involve the organizations of the region and identify
potential participants from Africa region to discuss the New Habitat Agenda
building, in a regional perspective, and
share information among the participants about all processes of Habitat III
(Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban
Development) such as the reports available and strategies developed by civil
society.
The
Regional Meeting aims to:
1.
Present the Global Platform
for the Right to the City and disseminate its principles, goals and actions,
strengthening regional alliances and inviting new organizations to join it;
2.
Discuss the meaning of the
Right to the City in the region and conduct capacity-building activities (i.e.,
learning) on the conceptual, legal and institutional dimensions of this right,
based on findings from the research conducted by HIC and Polis Institute, which
analyzed these dimensions within case studies from Latin America, Europe and
Africa (full text available here);
3.
Promote an exchange of
experiences on policies, projects and actions that implement the Right to the
City;
4.
Review the Global Platform´s
Action Plan in order to localize, interpret and complement it consistent with
the regional participants’ priorities and other regional specificity.
5.
Analyze setbacks, challenges
and/or particular regional developments (national and regional reporting,
consultation with civil society, evaluating Habitat II commitments, etc.) in
the Habitat III process New Habitat Agenda;
6.
Share information about the
discussion processes and documents relating to the Right to the City within the
Habitat III Conference, preparatory process and follow-up (e.g., partnerships,
implementation, monitoring and reporting against targets and indicators).
Download here the event´s program.
Global
Platform for the Right to The City
www.right2city.org