This IDS-led project involves the development and implementation of a side-event at Habitat III – the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development.
Addressing security and inclusion in cities as universal issues, at this side-event in Quito, Ecuador, we will focus on how well-managed urbanisation can revitalise urban spaces that had either been lost to violence or suffered from a lack of access to basic services and neglect.
Practitioners, community leaders and researchers will come together to ask what terms of inclusion are needed to adhere to the principles of the New Urban Agenda. At the street-level we ask: how is security understood by law-enforcement agencies in contemporary cities? And how does this relate to the lived experiences of city dwellers, particularly the poorest and most marginalised? At the city-level we turn our gaze to the city wide socio-political and civic actors and institutions that govern urban security provision. And, at the national-level we look at how the dynamics of security provision in cities relate to the processes of state building and peace building.
Community leaders from Harare and Nairobi will introduce a short film produced by the Institute of Development Studies and Slum Dwellers International (SDI). The film profiles the voices of the most marginalised urban residents narrating what a fruitful, violence-free life in the city means to them.
The following discussion will cover what cities in the global north can learn from experiences in the global south, and vice versa. Participants will hear from practitioners with hands-on experience of implementing successful municipal interventions, alongside researchers who have studied and evaluated these interventions over long periods of time. The event will create a space for an evidence-based dialogue on safe and inclusive cities, amongst high-level policy makers and researchers. The event will also aim to mobilise networks of key actors involved in the co-construction of knowledge around safety and inclusion in cities in order to take the New Urban Agenda forward.
Follow the event on Twitter #SafeCities.
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