Title of Event:

Name of Organisation:

Date and time of the session:

The Inclusive City

German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Cities Alliance

Wednesday, 21 June 2006

Key Highlights

1. Estimated no of participants: 90
2. Stakeholder group representation at the event: local government representatives, experts from International Organizations, universities and research institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations
3. What were the expected objectives: This networking event wanted to discuss recent strategies in developing, `transformation’ and OECD countries to facilitate social inclusion and to counterbalance the widening socio-spatial gap within cities.
4. What did the networking event achieve: The networking event with speakers from Egypt, South Africa and Germany and the participants helped to highlight innovations relevant to other cities, and discussed essential requirements for practical urban development policy. The participants recommended further policy approaches to enhance the ability of cities to foster social inclusion.

2. What were the core issues identified in your event as they relate to the theme and sub-themes of WUFIII?

Core issues of the presentations and discussion had been among others:

1. The role of public participation and its change in recent years in urban development projects,
2. The issue of informal settlement upgrading and the importances of social services
3. The still dominating but outdated planning view of urban renewal as a single method of urban development.
4. The need of a cross-sectoral urban development approach

3. What were the main points raised by panellists and participants in relation to these different issues? What new ideas have been generated as a result of the discussion?

One mayor observation had been that the problem of social exclusion is clearly not only a challenge in cities of the South – this issue is still at the top of the agenda in particular in suburban areas of cities in OECD countries.

Moreover, the panellists and participants warned against the use of one unique (“blueprint”) policy that could tackle all of the problems that cities face. 

As far as the discussion of urbanization is concerned, one has to recognize that each influx of people into cities drives the national economy, and the positive impact of urbanization should therefore be discussed.

4. What process steps have been identified in your event that could help turn ideas into operational reality?

The panel concluded that there is still insufficient focus placed on local government and jurisdiction. Therefore, there is a need for intergovernmental activities at the local level, and for national constitutions to be adjusted correctly to foster these activities.

Another major issue is that development policies have to move to scale. Relying on short-term projects cannot respond to the development challenges faced by cities, particularly in Africa and in Asia 

It has also become clear how increasingly global issues are in fact being managed locally, as for example highly political topics such as migration and social inclusion. In most cases, these issues are discussed nationally, but mayors and their teams are often in the frontline when it comes to dealing with these issues. So, the emergence of a national policy framework in which cities are working and contributing is very important in order to overcome the challenges of urbanization.