The regional reporting process has been
one of the key spaces for deliberation towards the production of the Zero Draft
of the ‘New Urban Agenda’ which is being prepared by the five UN Regional
Economic and Social Commissions and UN-Habitat, in collaboration with the
Habitat III Secretariat. Regional reports aim to build on the national reports
produced in preparation for Habitat III, integrating additional inputs from
relevant research and outcomes of regional meetings.
A DPU team comprised of Alexandre Apsan Frediani, Barbara Lipietz, Sawsan Abou Zainedin and Rafaella Simas Lima have been researching on national
reporting processes in collaboration with Habitat International Coalition
(HIC), and have found that national reports are, in the main, failing to
capture the concerns and visions of civil society groups, including those
engaged with Right to the City struggles. This lacuna was likely to be carried
through to the regional reports. As a result, HIC’s working group on Habitat
III has prioritised the production of regional “dossiers”, based on listening,
discussion and feedback from civil society groups, that outline the key issues
that ought to be taken into consideration into the production of Habitat III
commitments.
Meanwhile, the Global
Platform for the Right to the City has identified the need to generate methodologies
and studies to monitor compliance of policies, commitments and initiatives as
they relate to the Right to the City.
To address these identified needs, the DPU team has co-coordinated
the production of a dossier for the African region based on a research project,
and is available here (pdf).The
dossier addresses the following objectives:
a. Provide input into the Habitat III process by presenting some
of the dominant challenges at the regional level, as perceived by civil society
groups, along with proposals for the “New Urban Agenda”;
b. Stimulate discussion beyond the Habitat III process and
further research on themes related to the Right to the City across cities,
nations and regions in order to contribute towards the activities of the Global
Platform for the Right to the City.
The immediate hope of this project is to feed into the
discussions of Habitat III. More critically, it is hoped that the development
of this dossier helps to stimulate a broad discussion among civil society
groups, nurturing collaboration, sharing experiences and supporting
transnational collective action.
The findings from the dossier were shared at the ‘Fulfilling
Habitat Commitments’ conference that took place in Surabaya,
Indonesia on 24th July, which took place just before the beginning of the ‘Third Preparatory Committee of the Habitat III Conference’.