Connecting across Habitat Rights and the Right to the City: collective dialogue with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that it is not possible to separate the protection of health from access to water and sanitation, housing, food, education, work and others, making evident the universality and interdependence of rights. The current context has also opened up new spaces for collaboration between actors working on different levels and areas to respond together to joint challenges. 

Under this framework, the Global Platform for the Right to the City, Habitat International Coalition and United Cities and Local Governments have come together to organize a collective dialogue between United Nations Special Rapporteurs, civil society organizations and local and regional governments. Building on previous collaborations that the three co-organizers and their membership have carried out with different mandate holders, the initiative aims to strengthen and support their work, by identifying possible areas and channels of cooperation and collaboration with civil society organizations and local governments under the framework of Habitat Rights and the Right to the City.

The dialogue will take place in two sessions with different mandate holders, with the first one taking place on Friday, December 4th 2020, between 15h and 17h CET (check your local time here) with the following mandate holders:

• Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing;

• Mr. Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;

• Felipe González Moralez, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of migrants;

• Victor Madrigal-Borloz, UN independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity;