Faced with the spread of COVID-19, increasingly impacting communities and territories across the world, local governments play a key role in addressing the most urgent needs of city residents. Mayors, councillors and municipal officers are providing first line support to the most vulnerable while promoting solidarity and making efforts so that the needs and realities of their territories are well heard. Mitigating the impacts of the pandemic over already existing inequalities and protecting fundamental rights - such as health, housing, non-discrimination and, more fundamentally, the right to life - are all issues at the heart of the current crisis that members of the UCLG-CSIPDHR are now willing to collectively address.
More than ever, the UCLG-CSIPDHR is ready to offer a platform to foster solidarity and cooperation between local authorities in the face of the challenges encountered in this unprecedented context. This includes providing a platform to exchange knowledge, initiatives and public policies implemented locally, but also to offer opportunities for debating on how to approach the epidemic from a human rights and right to the city point of view. It also proposes an open space for collectively debating around the period that will follow the current phase of the crisis: What urban territories and cities do we want to build in the aftermath of the pandemic? What kind of cooperation do we want to develop between urban territories and communities?
In the coming months, the UCLG CSIPDHR will support and co-organize working spaces with local authorities and its various partners; promote and put in common initiatives taken by its members - whether in the form of working groups, virtual seminars, bilateral or multi-stakeholder gatherings -; and launch calls for contributions on various subjects in order to promote and articulate the political visions and experiences developed by local authorities within the network. In order to continue developing its 2020 Action Plan, the UCLG-CSIPDHR will offer alternative solutions to canceled events in order to continue collaboration dynamics and synergies initiated so far.
These initiatives will take place in articulation with the #BeyondTheOutbreak initiative by UCLG, UN Habitat and Metropolis, fostering debates, knowledge exchange and live learning on local and regional government responses to the epidemic across the world.
If you wish to join this work and contribute to local government networking within the UCLG-CSIPDHR, do not hesitate to contact the Secretariat of the Committee. You can also follow us on Twitter to keep track of the most recent events and updates, and subscribe to the COVID-19 newsletter that will be put in place exceptionally by the Secretariat during the pandemic in order to be as close as possible to emerging challenges and initiatives undertaken by local authorities to address this unprecedented scenario.
Networking and solidarity: Initiatives by partners
Several partners of the UCLG-CSIPDHR have already put in place banks of practices covering local government responses to COVID-19. In this regard, we invite you to explore:
- The “Cities for Global Health” platform by Metropolis and AL·LAs within UCLG’s #BeyondTheOutbreak initiative
- A bank including local government practices related to citizen participation and civic solidarity promoted by the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (OIDP)
- The “COVID-19 and Human Rights” section at the website of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
- The “Right to the City face to COVID-19” section at the website of the Global Platform for the Right to the City
- The “Culture and COVID-19” section at the website of the UCLG Culture Committee
Many members and partners of the UCLG-CSIPDHR have also launched declarations on critical areas for human rights and right to the city guarantee in this context:
- “The Right to the City face to COVID-19” by the Global Platform for the Right to the City
- “COVID-19: We need a human rights-based habitat” by the Habitat International Coalition
- “Housing, the front line defense against the COVID-19 outbreak” by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing