The UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights shares its 2016 Activity Report. This document reflect the progress made towards the realization of the Human Rights in the city and the Right to the City, based on the Committee’s Action Plan. These achievements have been possible thanks to the active partnership between the Local Governments of the Committee, citizens and academia.
The recognition of the Right to the City by the global agendas sets the ground for its realization
The year 2016 was marked by the participation of the Committee in the Habitat III process, both with civil society, through the active participation in the Global Platform for the Right to the City, as well as within the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments coordinated by UCLG’s World Secretariat. Taking part in this process allowed the Committee to promote the Right to the City at a global scale, as well as to strengthen its relations with civil society. The joint action of these diverse stakeholders played an important role in achieving, for the first time in an international text, a mention to the Right to the City in the Habitat III Agenda.
The Committee coordinates a network aimed at realizing the Human Rights approach in local public management
Throughout 2016, the Committee has also supported the initiatives of members that implement a Human Rights-based approach in their local public action. In that way, the Committee continued its active promotion of the Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City and the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City. The Committee has also followed its work of producing and disseminating knowledge on social inclusion, participatory democracy and Human Rights, especially through the publication of the report The Rights Approach through the Bogotá Humana Development Plan: Towards a New Construction of the Public Sphere, as a result of the Pilot Human Rights Monitoring Program. This program consists in allowing an international expert group to support Local Governments to measure the impacts of their public policies in the light of the Human Rights included in the Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City, through a participatory approach.
The Executive Secretariat of the Committee expresses its gratitude to its active members, whose participation, initiatives and financial supports have made these results possible. We recall the importance of relying on the active participation of our members in order to maintain the Committee’s work. To that end, the Executive Secretariat is at the disposal of those Local Governments willing to concretize a closer collaboration based on our 2017 foreseen activities. In order to do so, you can contact [email protected].