Partnerships
From social distance to a world that is driven by communities
Background
Today, 55% of the world population lives in cities, and this number keeps increasing. As a result, urbanisation has become the major trend of the 21st century, especially concerning the management of inequalities. Indeed, local populations are divided by unequal access to decent housing, close public space, essential needs such as clean water and electricity, etc.
The World Bank estimates that about 100 million people will fall into poverty due to the impact Covid-19 has on societies. These “new poor” will add up to the one billion people already living in slums and other informal settlements, and who lack access to infrastructures and basic services. In addition to stemming poverty, cities are dealing with a backdrop of their revenues comprised between 15% and 25% according to UN-Habitat. All these challenges are making it difficult for countries to build local political structures.
In this context, cities have been at the forefront of local responses to the pandemic and have become a lens that exposed both inequalities and solidarity. Cities are also at the heart of political concerns to the extent national and global bodies are requiring local and regional governments to adapt their policies to their specific territory.
This brainstorming session explored participants’ priorities in the post-pandemic era, and what the local and regional governments’ constituency must secure to consider moving forward. Stakeholders aimed at going beyond the shared priorities and engaging on how to best organize the living community, leverage our connectivity and collective power and transform recommendations into actions.
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Challenges
- Joint advocacy is needed to strengthen and adequately fund basic public services as well as for caring for those that provide them for our communities.
- The structural dialogue opened by the UCLG Town Halls should be maintained and consolidated. This would be an instrument to enhance exchanges between constituencies and local and regional governments, as well as between spheres of government. Perhaps the more critical innovation would be bringing donors into the conversations about the recovery. This will ensure that the funding reaches the communities that need it the most, as we develop more resilient societies.
- Our societies are currently living a big risk. To spur this new way of thinking we need to align priorities.
Learn more about the challenges being faced by cities and regions
Responses
- Data and particular experiences would be at the centre of contextualized strategies. Gender equality should also be part of this shift to cope with exclusion and give a chance for innovative proposals to be implemented.
- As opposed to dystopic scenarios that are being presented during the outbreak, one of the responses is that of a realistic Citopia[1], which prioritises urban mobility and security. Localisation and democratisation constitute essential tools to connecting cities. A harmonised ecosystem composed of hubs of connection can arise from the rethinking of public spaces.
- Economic measures should put an end to excessive privatization. Since public institutions played a front role in the response to the pandemic, policies should focus on finding new ways of funding them, but also on reconnecting the public and the private sector to ensure balanced cooperation.
- Finally, stakeholders pushed for the construction of a structured space that would treat rights, services and needs as complementary priorities in the post-COVID era. Local governments should have a say in bigger institutions. This inclusion could take place digitally, but also on the physical space to equally integrate citizens.
[1] Citopia refers to a way of recovering from the pandemic that leads us towards a world driven by peaceful cities
Learn more about other responses and initiatives in terms of Migration:
Towards the Pact
- The participants have pinpointed a need to adopt multi-sectorial and multi-layered measures to achieve a systemic change. This remodelling should also be accompanied by the promotion of peaceful narratives that would make the cities safer, but also more democratic.
- Local and regional governments should seat beside national and international bodies since they are aware of the needs of their territory.
- All sectors have been impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, so they can no longer be treated separately. Therefore, common online platforms would allow citizens to empower themselves and share their experiences and knowledge with academics and politicians, in order to elaborate inclusive and coherent policies.
- Policymaking must move towards the collection of context-specific data and consider individual experiences to do not leave anyone behind and be able to raise awareness.
- The role of the public sector must be re-imagined and strengthened in parallel with the re-structuration of the private sector.
- Transport, human security, human rights, and gender equality are axes of work on which future policies should focus in order to connect public spaces between themselves.
- Cities have diverse potential, and they can become hubs of connections.
For further information on the topic of Public Service Delivery and its impact on cities and regions, please refer to the related resources included below.
- UCLG’s Live Learning Experience page
- Metropolis’ Cities for Global Health initiative
Frontliners
