The Habitat International Coalition and its Working Group on Globalization and Privatization of Habitat are hereby issuing a call for cases/experiences on confronting the social and urban consequences of privatisation of housing, land and services, with the objective of coordinating strategies to denounce and struggle against these situations.
The Context
The privatisation of social housing and utilities as well as the greater scarcity of social services, land and other resources under the constraints of economic globalisation and neoliberal policies have affected lower-income groups in most of the world and has led to new types of housing precariousness. Governments have limited their capacity to influence the housing market and there are insufficient low-cost houses available for sale or rent.
Nevertheless, organised citizens and social society’s organizations are already struggling worldwide and their accumulated experience should be disseminated. Therefore, this call for cases/experiences aims at gathering systematised information to share strategies and endure renewed efforts to confront globalization and privatisation of habitat.
The Call for Cases/Experiences
The cases/experiences should focus on the capabilities of reaction, measures taken and other proactive initiatives assumed by individuals, social movements, civil society’s organisations, or other actors who are already acting to confront speculative privatisation.
The idea is to build a knowledge base and to coordinate capacities for effective international networking and campaigning regarding habitat privatisation. It is aimed to support the building of coordinated strategies to strengthen the public debate both in the "North" and the "South".
Presentation
We call for documentation, reports or information about cases/experiences which should be presented under the following scheme:
– Title
– Sub-title
– Comment (Abstract)
– Contact information for the stakeholders of the experience, case or struggle
– Name and organization of the person writing the case
– Text of 5 to 7 pages (no more than 15,000 characters) with:
o Background
o Situation
o Involved actors
o Lessons learned
– Proposals for a global strategy
– Keywords to describe the fiche
– Photo, image, caricature
We will collect your contributions, try to use and evaluate them within our work, and publish results at a special Working Group page on the HIC website hic-net.org
Deadline 18th August 2006.
Please send your contributions to the mail addresses below
Many regards
Ana Sugranyes, HIC General Secretary, gs@hic-net.org
Fernando Jiménez, fjimenez@hic-net.org
