UCLG World Council adopts the Global Charter-Agenda of Human Rights in the City
Following the proposal of the CISDPHR, the commission working on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights, the UCLG World Council, gathered on December 11th, 2011 in Florence (Italy), has decided to adopt the Global Charter-Agenda of Human Rights in the City.
The adoption of the Charter-Agenda took place a day after the International Human Rights Day, celebrated by the Commission with the organisation of a round table on “Local Governments and the Right to the City” on December, 9th. More than 40 representatives of local governments participated in the session in order to debate on the promotion of local policies contributing to respect, protect and implement human rights in the cities.
The Global Charter-Agenda of Human Rights in the City is an initiative arising from the Forum of Local Authorities (FAL) for Social Inclusion and Participatory Democracy held in Caracas in 2006. Taking into account the debates carried out in this framework between local governments from all over the world, a group of experts from different countries drew up a preliminary version (2007-2008), and the document was then debated and modified by elected representatives, experts and representatives of the civil society of the five continents (2009-2010).
At first with the leadership of the Deputation of Barcelona and after with the city of Nantes and the Region Pays de la Loire, the initiative has gathered more collaborations and has been debated in a collective way in many international scenes, such as the three last editions of the FAL and the World Social Forum (Nairobi, 2007; Belém do Pará, 2009; and Dakar, 2011), the V UN HABITAT World Urban Forum (Rio de Janeiro, 2010), the IV World Forum on Human Rights of Nantes (2010) or the III World Congress of UCLG (Mexico, 2010).
All this work of political promotion and collective construction of the Charter-Agenda enabled to build strategic articulations with social movements, United Nations Agencies (mainly HABITAT and UNESCO) and within our own organisation, UCLG.
In the current situation of economic crisis and an eventual deterioration of rights, the Charter-Agenda represents a tool to be used by local governments in order to build more inclusive, democratic and solidarity-based societies in contact with its inhabitants.
In order to look up the final text of the Charter-Agenda, please use the following link:
The Secretariat of the Commission is at your disposal for further information
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