The Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) model is an initiative of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, conceived as an open space for critical exchange between all stakeholders and partners with the aim to promote sustainable urbanization. It is also envisaged as a platform to advocate for enlightened planning and design, community engagement, good urban governance and management of our cities as advocated in The City We Need and propose urban solutions in addressing urbanization challenges to urban futures.
UN-Habitat has initiated a specific Covid-19 campaign to engage partners to take action in cities and communities to address the challenges of the pandemic in solidarity with the most vulnerable while building resilience. To help the Campaign achieve this goal, a series of Covid-19 Urban Thinkers Campuses under seven urban-related topics will be organized throughout the months of April and May 2020. So far, 9 sessions have been planned on different subjects such as Urban Vulnerabilities, Community Leaders at the Frontline, Planning and Design for Pandemic Urban Resilience and the gaps in safety, basic services and housing. You can see the full list of sessions here.
On Thursday May 7th at 14:30h (CET), the session on the Shelter Gap will take place, with the participation of a series of speakers and stakeholders working on the Right to Housing, including Lorena Zárate of the Global Platform for the Right to the City. It is estimated that 1.8 billion people, or more than 20 percent of the world’s population, lack adequate housing. This calls for immediate action is to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the homeless and 1 billion people living in informal settlements or slums. The session is co-organized by Habitat for Humanity and Compass Housing.
You can click here for the full agenda and more details on the meeting and click here to register.
