Since 2014, the Committee has actively participated in the Global Platform for the Right to the City, an international space for collaboration between around a hundred actors from civil society organizations, the academic sector and local governments in order to promote the Right to the City at local and international levels.
Within this Platform, the Committee is focused on the advocacy activities towards Habitat III. Indeed, through the dedicated section on this website, you can access an analysis of the 10 Policy Paper Frameworks developed by the experts appointed by the Habitat III Secretariat, as well as the recently released final Policy Papers. This analysis has been collectively carried out by the Platform’s member organizations. It reveals the urgent need to develop a more coherent approach regarding habitat issues in the forthcoming Global Habitat Agenda, which should be based on Human Rights and the Right to the City to be able to properly respond to the challenges posed by the growing exclusion and inequalities generated by the world’s current urbanization processes, which are based on “competitiveness”.
Furthermore, the Global Platform for the Right to the City is organizing regional meetings aiming to strengthen its roots in different world regions. Following a first African regional meeting held in Johannesburg on the occasion of the Africities Summit (November 2015), a European regional meeting of the Platform will be held on 2-3 April in Barcelona – just before the Habitat III Thematic Meeting on Public Spaces. The Committee is actively taking part in the organization of this meeting, along with the Barcelona Observatory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and the Polis Institute.
The meeting is open to civil society organizations, local and regional governments and researchers, and aims to present the principles, objectives and actions of the Platform. It is aimed at those organizations that incorporate the Right to the City approach in their actions, in order for them to share information and to analyze regional obstacles, challenges and/or particularities.