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2024 GPR2C’s Year in Review: Celebrating 10 years fighting for the Right to the City!
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Dear friends,
2024 marks the 10th year anniversary of the Global Platform for the Right to the City. We celebrate this milestone in a time characterized by a delicate global context that makes the fight for the Right to the City and Climate Justice more relevant than ever in the face of long-standing and emerging challenges. As such, beyond a moment of evaluation and reflection, 2024 was an occasion to lay the foundations for the continuity of our work and collective struggle for the Right to the City. Find below a quick recap of the main milestones of this year.
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Climate Justice has emerged as a priority thematic for advancing the GPR2C agenda, supported by a joint project between Pólis Institute (Brazil), Kota Kita (Indonesia) and Development Workshop (Angola), with support from Misereor. The activities developed during 2024 included exchanges with GPR2C members and allies, such as the two public events held online in the framework of the High Level Political Forum (July) on the “The Right to Food, Food Sovereignty, and the Right to the City”; and on “Using the Right to the City to accelerate prevention of impacts on climate change in urban peripheries” and the dialogue on Right to the City and Climate Justice held in Cairo during the World Urban Forum (November). In terms of advocacy and awareness-raising efforts, the GPR2C team facilitated a collective response to a call from the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the context of Climate Change on the access to information on climate change and human rights (June), as well as the Urban October Campaign and related online events on the connections between Right to the City and climate change, with a particular emphasis on the role of youth.
Finally, as we start preparing for joining COP30 in Brazil, research and capacity building efforts were carried-out with members and new allies. These included a specific virtual informative session on “The impact of civil society on global climate governance: understanding the COPs” and the publication of the “Glossary on Climate Change: concepts, frameworks and stakeholders decoded through the right to the city”. This document aims at providing accessible information on climate change main concepts and topics to facilitate mobilization and advocacy initiatives by Platform’s members, allies and other civil society organisations.
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Throughout 2024, the GPR2C also focused on advancing the Right to the City through approaches based on care and commoning with a series of activities. In terms of care, the International Women’s Day Campaign focused on building caring cities. Some of the main points raised by the campaign included revising traditional approaches to urban planning and policies through a critical lens, incorporating new concepts and methods; establishing the necessary infrastructure and policies for the development of care systems that reconcile reproductive and productive work; recognizing and including the various cultural, memory, social, and economic characteristics of the communities that inhabit it and supporting community care networks. Additionally, jointly with RIPESS, the GPR2C also prepared a response to the call for inputs held by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the human rights dimension of care and support (April).
Regarding commoning approaches as a strategy to advance the Right to the City, and building on previous conceptualization and research efforts, two learning dialogues processes were held along with partners. Firstly, a cycle of peer-learning on “Basic Services as Commons: Innovative management between local governments and communities” was held with technical staff of local and regional governments in partnership with United Cities and Local Governments (May). The details of those exchanges have been compiled on this learning note and were also expanded in an in-person training held during WUF. Secondly, in partnership with Habitat International Coalition, the GPR2C facilitated three sessions on “Advancing the Right to the City in Africa: Commoning as a Tool for Transformative Collective Action”. The focus in this case was on the potential held for commoning practices linked to housing and land rights, as a way to foster community organisation and access through non-market based approaches. The learning note resulting from these dialogues will be released in January.
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🌐Global Agendas and Civil Society Engagement
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Following the celebration of the SDG Summit in 2023, this year was marked by the preparations for the Summit for the Future, held in parallel to the UN General Assembly (September, in New York) with the aim of putting forward “multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow.” The GPR2C and members attended the Summit and a series of other preparatory gatherings during the year, including calls for contributions and consultations to influence its final outcome. After concerning absences on initial versions, the “Pact for the Future” included a mention to cities and to adequate housing, despite overall shortcomings in the final draft and of the means of implementation and follow-up to the commitments.
Awareness-raising and advocacy in global fora also included the participation at the Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Countries on Sustainable Development 2024 held in Santiago de Chile and the engagement in the Civil20 – the civil society engagement group at G20. The first served as a preparatory event of the High Level Political Forum. It was an opportunity to strengthen work with countries in the region and other organizations, in particular in regards to the preparations for the Summit for the Future and the ongoing process of the consultative opinion in the Interamerican Human Rights Court on Human Rights and climate emergency. The second consisted of participation in two thematic working groups of C20, notably on Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Disaster Risk Reduction and on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.
Finally, the year ended with a joint participation along with many members and partners at the 12th session of the World Urban Forum, held in Cairo. The forum offered an opportunity to exchange with other organizations and groups working for the defense and promotion of the Right to the City and its diverse components. It was also the occasion to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of the GPR2C and to strengthen ties with key partners and allies, with a particular emphasis at the possibilities being held by the next UN-Habitat planning cycle, which will also cover the celebration of the 10 years of the Habitat III process.
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We extend our heartfelt gratitude for your renewed support and our best wishes for the year to come. Let’s continue our commitment to political action and social change by promoting, defending, and fulfilling the Right to the City at global, regional, and local levels, amplifying the voices of those affected by exclusion and marginalization.
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Henrique, Kelly, Lorena, Nelson and Sophia
GPR2C Support Team
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