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Citiesof Peace
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Cities of Peace. Journal no. 1February 2021The journal “Cities of Peace” is an initiative of the World Forum of Cities and Territories of Peace that aims to be an instrument for the periodic dissemination of experiences, reflections, news or campaigns that help to build coexistence and peace. It is a periodic journal and is open to contributions that can fulfill this mission.
The edition of this first number has been possible with the sponsorship of the government of Mexico City and UNDP ART Initiative, and the special collaboration of UCLG, in addition to all the entities of the International Organizing Committee.
The opinions expressed in it are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily re-flect the official position of the member entities of the IOC (International Organizing Committee).
Editorial Board Coordination
Antonio Zurita Contreras (ART UNDP Initiative) (coordination)
Editorial Board
Mariana Flores Mayén, (Coordinator of the Forum Technical Secretariat, Government of Mexico City)Jaime Rubén Morales Beltrán (Government of Mexico City)Tica Font (AIPAZ)Ana Barrero (AIPAZ)Braulio Díaz (global cities analist)Jonnathan Curiel (COLEF)Alberto Hernández (COLEF)Carlos Vladimir Rodríguez Valencia (Bogota City Council)Karen Rocío Majey Rivera (Bogota City Council)Pablo Fernández Marmissolle (UCLG)Helena Aranda. Mayor for PeaceLucía Morale. Barcelona (Barcelona City Council)
Editing
Silvia Tovar Jardón (UNDP ART Initiative)Pamela Reducindo Pérez, (Government of Mexico City)Lilian Reyes (Government of Mexico City)
Graphic Design Nancy Rodríguez Viteri, Jorge Montes.
© All rights reservedGovernment of Mexico CityUNDP - ARTUCLG2021
The total or partial reproduction of the contents of this document is allowed and recommended, as long as the source is cited.
Email: [email protected] www.ciudadesdepaz.com
International Organizing Committee
Table of contents
PresentationMexico City, city of innovation and rights ........................................... 5
InvestigationMaking peace among the people, with the planet and with governance; foundations for a Municipal Pact of the Future ......................................................................................... 8
Shifting the ‘fragility focus’ of international actorsto the local level ................................................................................... 12
District Observatory for Victims of the Armed Conflict: towards peace and reconciliation ....................................................... 17
Cartographies of peace: stories of our cities ..................................... 26
ReviewsGender violence prevention, detection and care plan for women who are victims of gender violence ................................. 28
San Salvador, towards a culture of peace .......................................... 29
UN Women: Campaign “Dejemos de hacerlo” (Let’s stop doing it) .............................................................................. 30
Let’s build peace, from cities to the world’, a campaign by municipalities committed to nuclear disarmament Mayors for Peace campaign calls for a ban on nuclear weapons .... 31
AIPAZ .................................................................................................... 32
Madrid City Hall .................................................................................... 33
OEI - Mexico: Teacher training on peace issues in the state of Guerrero ........................................................................ 34Atlante de le Guerre .............................................................................. 35
Educating Cities: The new Charter of Educating Cities, a coexistence advocate ....................................................................... 36
METROPOLIS - Violence in metropolis: answers to a global issue .............................................................................. 37
GIZ - SaferSpaces: A Guide to Designing Integrated Violence Prevention Interventions ...................................................... 38
The first and second editions of the World Forum on Urban Violence and Education for Coexistence and Peace were held in Madrid in 2017 and 2018. The objective of these meetings is to exchange and dialogue about the diverse manifestations of violence in ci-ties and territories, as well as to learn about experiences in peace building from different spheres (education, culture, sports, citizen participation, recovery of public spaces, le-gislation and social justice).
These meetings highlighted the leading role of peace-building and the eradication of violence in the political programmatic agenda of cities and territories, as well as the need to influence, from the voices and experiences of local governments, the glo-bal processes of peace-building. Peace un-derstood not only as the absence of explicit direct violence, but also as a guarantee of rights.
The Government of Mexico City decided to host the third edition of the Forum with the commitment to maintain this space for re-flection and exchange between different ac-tors (representatives of national, local and regional governments, networks of cities,
Mexico City, city of innovation and rights
international organizations, civil society, so-cial movements and academia), to collecti-vely build solutions at the political level and in the implementation of policies for coexis-tence and peace in the territories.
Due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 the third edition of the Forum started acti-vities in a virtual format. From October 5 to 7, 2020, the Towards the Forum event took place, where there was a valuable exchan-ge of experiences and discussion through 5 plenary sessions and 10 parallel events.
Reaffirming the spirit of the Forum not only as a one-off event but also as a broader pro-cess of reflection, advocacy and action, the idea is to keep the process alive and dyna-mic until the face-to-face forum is held in October 2021.
Today we start the publication of the Cities of Peace Magazine with the aim of having an instrument of periodic diffusion of experien-ces, reflections, news, campaigns that help to build coexistence and peace. Through notes, opinion articles and reviews, we will learn about various experiences from diffe-rent sectors and regions of the world.
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In this first issue, we will have the opportu-nity to meet the members of the Internatio-nal Organizing Committee: the accomplices who make this process possible.
It is necessary to identify the causes of so-cial tensions and reflect on what provokes violence in order to implement public po-licies, programs and citizen initiatives that help build culture and education for peace. From our perspective, the economic, social and cultural inequalities present in our so-cieties are the main causes of violence. Pea-cebuilding therefore requires policies that guarantee human rights.
In Mexico City, the Government Program 2019-2024 aims to give access to the great rights of the people. In this sense, public po-licy efforts are aimed at strengthening ac-cess to education and training, sports, cultu-re, health, recreation, etc. In addition to crime prevention actions and citizen participation. This Forum is a bet to continue advancing in this sense.
It is important to recognize cities and territo-ries as places of peace, capable of reinven-ting themselves and being a dignified space for the people who inhabit them and travel through them.
We look forward to welcoming you this year to Mexico City for the third edition of the World Forum on Cities and Territories of Peace.
Diana Alarcón GonzálezGeneral Coordinator of Advisors and Inter-
national AffairsMexico City Government
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Peace is not an abstract concept nor of grand words; it is made on the street, everyday in our families, with our neigh-bors, but also when taking the subway and attending an entertainment show.
When we think of peace, we must think be-yond violence, we have to think of the vital components of security and the lack the-reof. Institutional racism is a kind of vio-lence. Inequality between men and women, among all people, is a kind of violence. De-cent education, universal healthcare, ade-quate housing and decent work must be the way forward to a peaceful world. No-body should feel alone in the face of great difficulties. This can serve as subtext for many kinds of violence.
Overlooking the pain of the most vulne-rable populations and the increase in in-equalities is in itself a kind of violence. The way we address these inequalities in the coming months will dictate both how we deal with the recovery and also the path we as humanity take in the coming decades.
This is the vital role that institutions can play at all levels, and this is the key to creating cultures of peace in cities. Urban realities can unleash many conflicts, but they are also a tool for identity, belonging,
Making peace among the people, with the planet and with governance; foundations for a Municipal Pact of the FutureEmilia SaizSecretary General of UCLG
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creativity and cultural development that can spare us from the chaos and sense-lessness of violence. We must be willing, however, to acknowledge design errors and be open to change.
The pandemic has revealed many of the problems within our systems, and this is also a reality when discussing violen-ce. During lockdown, gender-based vio-lence has grown more severe, we have seen a return of xenophobia and racism among many of our communities. On the other hand, the stress caused by the sta-te of alarm has been the perfect breeding ground for the development of hate spee-ches or clash-generating fake news.
However, not everything we have experien-ced over the past year has been gloomy. Solidarity has reigned among neighbors around the world, and in many cases has been more powerful than ever. We have seen examples of ordinary citizens coming together to support those in need by hel-
ping them with shopping, caring for their children, and getting involved in neighbor-hood life in a way that has not been seen for some time. We have also seen the great value of the public sector. Of the common property and its officers.
This sense of community, this shared va-lue of solidarity, has been the cornerstone of our societies during difficult months, and I am certain that it has made local and regional governments be perceived differently; as vital actors in fostering the renewal of the social contract. A social contract that serves as a basis for creating communities where conflict does not lead to violence and where security means fee-ling included and protected by the institu-tions and by the community itself.
It is this understanding of peace that gives cities a critical role on the agenda, not only in post-conflict situations and reconstruc-tion, but as the very foundations of peaceful societies. Local government networks have
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been saying this, and have been doing so for decades. They also announce the pres-sing fragility of our coexistence. Stories, realities and dreams are forged from proxi-mity and on a day-to-day basis. Without them, no large-scale treaty will be lasting or transformative.
Local and regional governments have pla-yed a key role in promoting dialogue with civil society to curb racist attitudes, su-pporting minorities and promoting a cul-ture of peace and inclusion. The recent edition of the Cities and Territories of Pea-ce Forum focused on the eradication of violence against the most vulnerable, the reduction of gaps, and the construction of spaces and communities free of violen-ce. In all these aspects, cities and regions, through policies focused on their commu-nities, have much to contribute.
This approach developed by local and re-gional governments around the world, that of putting the inhabitants of our territories
at the center of our policies, has served to prevent thousands of people from losing their homes, their jobs, their health, when the world came to a standstill. Protecting and guaranteeing basic services as a fun-damental right is the most direct path to peace, and must remain so in the recovery.
From UCLG, we understand that precisely local visions are essential to promote pea-ceful environments, and this is what we va-lue when awarding our UCLG Peace Prize. We take into account the perspectives of those local governments that work towards social cohesion in adverse and - on many occasions - openly conflictive contexts, and by the example shown by many other local and regional governments that also work towards more egalitarian, cohesive, and peaceful communities.
As we move through the second and third wave of the pandemic, and we begin to see a post-COVID 19 future with vaccination campaigns, we must keep in mind that re-
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turning to the world we had two years ago is not an option. If we do not ensure that all people have access to essential basic ser-vices there can be no successful, peaceful recovery, and that if we do not take into ac-count all the people who have sacrificed a great deal during this year we cannot talk about having overcome the pandemic.
Nor can there be peace and recovery if vaccination is not universal and supporti-ve. The awareness of the neighbourhoods will be essential. We must all have access to the vaccine and also exercise our civic responsibility by getting vaccinated. Not only for our own health, but for others.
Local and regional governments, drawing on the strength of their global networks such as UCLG, are key to leveraging these messages and with their transformative di-plomacy co-building peace without nego-tiation. This diplomacy will be key so that, with the lessons learned during the COVID, we can better address future challenges.
While the pandemic has highlighted the urgent needs for urban development, we must not lose sight of the long-term com-mitments we have all made together: we must continue in a direction that points toward meeting the SDGs. We must con-tinue to build a framework for all actors to carry out their role in localizing the univer-sal agendas, which is critical to building
cohesive, inclusive and resilient communi-ties in the long term.
If a few decades ago our fears regarding peace were situated in international con-flicts, in the coming decades we will see an increase in national and urban conflicts instigated by existing inequalities. It is time to be bold and sign peace between people by recognizing as emergencies the struc-tural flaws of our system; such as lack of housing or access to health and education services, as well as the exclusion of parts of the population because of their origin, religion, sexual identity or physical or men-tal ability.
We must make peace with the planet, re-cognizing that our relationship with nature and other species cannot be based solely on the extraction and use of resources.
We must, finally, sign peace with the re-newal of governance by recognizing that the administrative boundaries we know fall short in an interrelated world that needs co-creation and co-management more than ever.
From the international community, we have placed our hopes in the instruments that communities around the world develop every day in their streets, neighborhoods and villages, living together and building resilience, culture and peace day by day.
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Shifting the ‘fragility focus’ of international actors to the local level
Zoë Pelter, Local Governance Specialist and Amy Gill, Team Leader – Core Government Functions and Local Governance, UNDP
Cities have been on the frontline of the CO-VID-19 global pandemic. The unique cha-llenges of the urban environment have ma-nifested throughout the pandemic through exponential caseloads: 55 percent of the global population live in cities, but they have accounted for 90 percent of cases.
The pandemic also means that local go-vernment revenue will be 15-25% lower in 2021, undermining public service delivery, infrastructure investments, and sustaina-ble urban development just as the need for health, water and sanitation, and medical and general waste disposal in dense ur-ban areas is at an all-time high. As sud-den challenges now give way to long-term crisis – economic recession, widespread unemployment, drained municipal resour-ces – mayors around the world have sou-ght to raise relief funds and find innovative ways to continue servicing the needs of vulnerable populations and to sustain the local economy.
Despite these efforts, the foundations of urban stability and social cohesion have been shaken. For some cities, the current context exacerbates multiple pre-exis-ting crises spurred by rapid urbanization, concentrated poverty, stressed resources
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and social instability. As such, COVID-19 merely places further strain on already over-stretched municipal governments and stressed populations. In particular, the pandemic in urban areas has been driven by inequalities in basic services, exposing weaknesses in the delivery of municipal public services and the structural barriers that impede access to services for many communities particularly for those alre-ady marginalized. Across Africa, UN-Ha-bitat finds that only 55 per cent of urban residents have access to basic sanitation services and access to healthcare has decreased for slum communities in cities such as Nairobi, Ibadan and Lagos as a re-sult of the pandemic
For decades, the international communi-ty has tried to address the multiple crises that cause fragility at all levels. However,
progress has been limited; 1.8 billion peo-ple lived in fragile situations in 2018 and, at current rates, that number is predicted to reach 3.3 billion by 2050. The inter-national community has traditionally fo-cused its assistance at the central state level and in very specific rural areas. Yet COVID-19 has firmly established that the focus on fragility must now account speci-fically for urban areas, and that to address the current nexus of multiple crises – and the economic and social tensions coming as a result - we must act with a multilevel approach. If we look closely, this shift is already underway: for the first time, more than 50 per cent of WFP food assistance programmes are now in urban areas. The COVID-19 pandemic makes it essential for national and international governance actors to focus their attention (and resour-ces) on the role of local government as a primary mechanism to ensure effective
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and inclusive crisis response and recovery. So what can we do a municipal level? How do we address this?
With COVID 19, we are witnessing the big-gest experiment in comparative governan-ce the world has ever experienced. Gover-nance is a function of social relationships and so to support beleaguered city go-vernance structures, we must look for so-lutions and measures that support and strengthen social cohesion and networks; that strengthen participation; and are con-sensus- oriented. We cannot address ur-ban areas as distinct, unconnected entities but as networked/mutual drivers of natio-nal recovery; as such, we need to work on the urban-rural continuum to promote re-covery, such as directly linking city mar-kets to agricultural food producers.
This pandemic is an opportunity to refra-me the way we deliver services, support social safety nets, and share information to respond to fragility:
Service Delivery - Support to the subna-tional level needs to focus on how servi-ces are delivered not just on what is being delivered. This approach integrates emer-ging findings on service delivery in fragile contexts, including the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium’s ten-year longitudi-nal study that looked at the link between services and state legitimacy.
At UNDP we believe that accountable and inclusive local governance systems are building blocks that can not only help res-tore services and infrastructure, but also foster social cohesion in divided commu-nities, facilitate participation in public life, distribute resources and opportunities equitably, and safeguard minority rights. Concentrating on the way in which servi-ces are delivered means we must prioritise grievance management systems so that services can be responsive to community needs; it is for this reason that UNDP su-pports local level complaint mechanisms in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. We also need
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to improve public sector customer service systems so service delivery can be more efficient, an improvement that UNDP su-pports in Syria. And we need to facilitate relationships between all actors at the lo-cal level to strengthen participation. For instance, in Yemen, UNDP is establishing and/or strengthening local recovery pla-tforms to bring together the local gover-nment, civil society, private sector, tribal leaderships and independent experts to support integrated public sector service delivery.
Information and data - A lack of data to guide policy and decision-making and poor information systems can impede coordi-nated solutions to fragility. The response to any crisis needs to be coordinated not only for an integrated approach at the lo-cal level but to ensure multilevel coheren-ce with regional and central governance structures/institutions. Information and data are pre-requisites for this coordina-tion and to involve the population.
In Nepal, UNDP is supporting municipa-lities to set up different communication channels such as local radio stations as
well as supporting information flows and coordination structures at the local level. Information-sharing will also be a vital aspect of municipal recovery planning: in a recent survey, the Global Resilient Ci-ties Network has found that 68 percent of municipal government respondents want ideas sharing platforms to aid COVID-19 recovery planning.
Decentralised knowledge exchange has long been a vital to urban responses to fragility. In Latin America, UNDP and the City of Madrid have partnered with cities, universities and decentralized cooperation agencies to adapt a methodology for ‘par-ticipatory urban violence diagnosis’ and in Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Maldives, UNDP works with local governments to de-velop tailored ‘resilience roadmaps’ based on available data sources.
The last year has shown that cities are un-deniably first responders to crisis, but they cannot act alone. UNDP and the interna-tional community must explore these and other actions to support the governance challenges facing municipalities under cri-sis today.
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Carolina Tejada SánchezDistrict Victims’ Observatory Coordinator
Colombia has been crossed by a social, political and armed conflict, which throu-ghout history has left hundreds of victims in its wake. A high percentage, but not all, of these victims have been registered, and the totality of the victimizing events and victims throughout the national territory is still unknown. This situation is based on the same forcefulness of the internal ar-med conflict and other political and terri-torial realities.
In different reports presented by the United Nations Office for Human Rights in Colom-bia, the need for the State to address the structural causes that generated and con-tinue to generate violence, and which are related to the lack of guarantees for hu-man rights and dignified living conditions, especially in the rural areas of the country, has been mentioned. This phenomenon has meant that, from 1985 to 2020, Colom-bia has systematized in its Unique Registry
District Observatory for Victims of the Armed Conflict: towards peace and reconciliation
Peace is wood worked without fearin the carpentry and sawmill.It’s the black man who never feels threatenedby a white brother, or by a clear day. […]CarLos Castro Saavedra (Colombian poet)Ode to Colombia
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of Victims, RUV, 9,068,190 people who are victims of the conflict, with 11 million victi-mizing facts where, the most relevant fact is forced displacement, in addition to the crime of torture, sexual violence, forced di-sappearance, and extrajudicial executions, among others. Figures on these events decreased during the peace process, but have increased in recent years.
The search for truth, justice and compre-hensive reparation has become the driving force behind the various entities commit-ted to ensuring that the scourge of war and systematic violence is known, studied and taught in order to create a culture of peace and reconciliation, mechanisms for con-flict resolution and guarantees of rights, so that this scourge is never repeated.
Victims in Bogotá and the guarantee of their rightsIt is within the framework of this scenario that the District Observatory of Victims of the Armed Conflict, ODVCA, emerges. In
the midst of a national context of multiple violations of human rights and internatio-nal humanitarian law, Bogotá became the main city of refuge or reception of victims in the country, in addition to those already existing in the capital who demanded spe-cial attention to guarantee their rights from the institutions.
The District Observatory of Victims was constituted as a public organization that is part of the High Council for Peace, Vic-tims and Reconciliation, created by means of District Agreement 491 of 2012, with the purpose of generating, processing, analyzing and disseminating information and recommendations that contribute to the improvement and decision making re-garding public policy of attention, assis-tance, integral reparation and guarantees of non-repetition for the victims of the ar-med conflict that reside in Bogotá; as well as to the promotion and implementation of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreements in the Capital District.
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Juan Pablo León
Currently, the city hosts in its urban and rural territory, 360,018 victims of which 191,532 are women, equivalent to 52% of the po-pulation, as well as 168,118 men and 364 of the LGBTI population. Since its creation, the Observatory has been generating aca-demic content, bulletins and special reports articulated with the different institutions of the Capital District, as well as with the academia, in order to help project from the Department of Peace, all types of recom-mendations around the search for the gua-rantee of rights for the Victims, Peace and Reconciliation, in addition to promoting pu-blic debate at the district and national level on public policy for victims. Likewise, under a constant articulation with those whose rights have been violated and who live in the city, it is projected that, in the contents generated by the Observatory, all types of recommendations that may be elaborated, will also be valued and felt by them.
Peace and the differential approach to victims
For the District Observatory, as guided by the Peace Council, the implementation of the Peace Accords and the restora-tion of the rights of the victims come first. Knowing the character and actors of the conflict, the main regions of expulsion, as well as the characterization of the victim population living in the city and the state of the restoration of their rights, with the aim of responding with the constitutional articles in force in Colombia, in which the State must promote the conditions so that equality is real and effective and measu-res are implemented in favor of population groups that have historically been discri-minated against, excluded or marginalized, is a fundamental part of the mission of the Observatory.
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Likewise, work is being done for the diffe-rential approach that constitutes a pro-gressive development of the principle of equality and non-discrimination, with the aim of incorporating in the processing and analysis, which is done of the information, the diverse differential approaches with the purpose of providing characterized and detailed inputs that allow the improvement of the decision making in the public policy of attention, assistance, integral reparation and guarantees of non-repetition for the victims of the armed conflict.
Within the population under special pro-tection are persons by life group: children, adolescents and the elderly; persons with disabilities; those belonging to indigenous, black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, Raizal and/or Roma communities; and persons according to their gender and sexual iden-tity: women, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-sexuals, intersexuals and/or homosexuals. Following this approach, in the framework of the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, November 2020, the District Ob-servatory of Victims of the Armed Conflict presented a report with the characteriza-tion and analysis of the population of wo-men victims residing in Bogotá, “Women at the epicenter of peace and reconciliation”, which seeks to give visibility to the multiple forms of violence that, on the occasion of the armed conflict, have affected women in a forceful and majority manner.
In addition to preparing periodic bulletins, diagnoses, population, ethnic and demo-graphic reports, and advancing in the ge-neration of alliances, articulations and co-llaborative exchange work with academic entities, universities and institutions of the district, nationally and internationally, for research and the generation of contents
The Observatory has a tool for capturing and systematizing
information;the Information System
for Victims of the Conflict in Bogotá,
SIVIC
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that contribute to the contribution of in-formation and elements for social and po-litical analysis around the victims, peace and reconciliation in the framework of the post-agreement.
An information system that responds to victims and the city
On the other hand, the Observatory has a tool for capturing and systematizing infor-mation; the Information System for Vic-tims of the Conflict in Bogotá, SIVIC. Stren-gthening and making this instrument one that meets the new technological challen-ges and responds more fully to the role of systematization, diagnosis of information, as well as research, is an exercise that has been done constantly. In addition to strengthening this instru-ment, a new tool is being built that will make it possible to have control panels or dashboards, where, from a graphic way, the decision makers, the victims, the aca-demia and society in general, will be able to interact with the information, allowing them to know the state of the art of the vic-tims and the restoration of their rights in the city, as well as the population mapping, characterized and updated in each of the 20 locations of the city. All this information will have the privacy and personal data protection policies of the victims and can
be consulted from anywhere in the world. From the direction of the Ministry of Peace, a Strategic Plan has been created:“Peace and Victims” where the implemen-tation of the Accords is promoted, a stra-tegy for the social appropriation of me-mory, for peace and reconciliation in the territories of the city region, through so-cial pedagogy, knowledge management, and the implementation of a Development Program with a Territorial, Urban-Rural Fo-cus, which includes three large localities of the city, as an essential bet for the imple-mentation of the peace agreement, among other elements, where the Observatory will play a fundamental role, both in its diagno-sis and in its planning and execution.
Finally, the Observatory will continue to strengthen its information system, as well as the analysis and research tools that allow for the provision of indicators and inputs for the constant improvement of the public policy of attention, assistan-ce, integral reparation and guarantees of non-repetition for the victims of the armed conflict, as well as for the follow-up and monitoring of the implementation of the Fi-nal Peace Agreement in the capital district. In this important work, strategic alliances between observatories, study centers, ins-titutions and the academy, as well as the exchange of experiences, will be the order of the day during this period.
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¿If cities could tell stories, what would they tell us?What would they tell about us?
If we had the chance to address thousands of peo-ple from all over the world,what story of our cities would we share? Which among so many?
How would you express and tell a story of peace in our cities and territories?
Each possible response is an invitation, an open letter to reflect together, to create a map of stories —of stories, in plural— about our cities and territories; a map of settings of our daily life, a map of experiences that would remind us of the places that we in-habit, of their colors, aromas, sounds and affections.
Cartographies of peace: stories of our ci-ties is an experiential and narrative project that has emerged in the framework of the 3rd World Forum Cities and Territories of Peace, Mexico City 2020 – 2021. It envi-sions the promotion of stories shared by all those people who want to tell how they build solidarity and community, friendship and happiness, diversity and peace, in their own cities and territories.
Cartographies of peace:stories of our cities
Lilián Reyes Gutiérrez. General Direction of Human Rights. SIBISO. Government of Mexico City
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Maps, legends, stories, paths, they are all concepts that refer us to cartographies. Together, they illustrate a region in its own historical context, and thus delimit spaces, times and inhabitants. Territories in which organization and encounter between com-munities are propitiated, as well as the appropriation of public spaces, the com-munication and choreography that every-day people manage to share and live ac-cording to their desires, feelings and actions. Our cartography is built from the steps of everyday people, walkers, pedestrians, passersby, drivers, peepers, inhabitants: living people, people. Here, the term every-day people does not imply any socioeco-nomic, educational, or professional hierar-chy judgment as it usually does. Everyday people are inhabitants, all of them, who make cities and territories their home: who transit through them and shape them ba-sed on their own experiences and daily co-existence.
Cartographies of peace, the motives
According to Boris Cyrulnik1, words are li-ving organisms. Cartographies of peace draws its basis on this inspiration. Words,
1 Boris Cyrulnik. Del Gesto a la palabra. The etholo-gy of communication in living beings. Trad. M. Pino Moreno. Barcelona, España: Editoria Gedisa, S.A. 2009.
cities and territories are also living orga-nisms, since they create inhabited spa-ces for live and they are witnesses of its openness, freedom and diversity. These spaces are configured from the narratives of the people that transit through them, from the paths that delimit and draw the personal cartographies of each inhabitant: those that are drawn from the affections, from the daily encounters, from the mor-ning greetings that are heard in every cor-ner, from the gazes that cross each other on their way back home or on their way to work, buying something on their favorite store, or arriving to an anticipated or spon-taneous party.
However, on certain occasions, conjunc-tural moments radically modify the art of living our cities and territories. Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured the way of inhabiting spaces at a glocal level.
Some governments have implemented va-rious strategies to promote citizen self-ca-re, prevention, medical attention and mo-nitoring of cases. This has led to a series of reactions that have impacted the way in which we relate to our affective and care circles, and also, to the places that we in-habit.
Some cities have decreased their mobility due to the implications of transit in public space; others have stopped almost com-pletely, keeping a mandatory quarantine.
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But many territories have not been able to pause and they have had to keep their rhythm, their daily life with no changes. Socioeconomic gaps have been a major impediment to pausing or changing the dynamic of activities and tasks. Many peo-ple just cannot stop. That is why it is has become even more necessary to guarantee an income that ensures survival beyond the risks of exposure to the pandemic.
Cartographies of peace: Stories of our ci-ties pursues to gather a diversity of stories of resistance, related to living spaces be-fore and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities and territories, as well as their inha-bitants, are a swarm of living cells that are influenced by the difficulties of their envi-ronment, but also by processes of resilien-ce, solidarity, and affection.
In the different stages of life, sometimes we fall in love with certain places, some-times we take distance, or we move out of them; sometimes we must get away and find a refuge. Even so, our stories are still there, inhabiting the interior space, con-trasting what is outside and waiting for us. That is why is so meaningful, in these times of distance, to retrieve these stories and inhabit, through words, the places that have built us. In the end, a person can always “be happy in a city, as it is possible establishing an otherwise satisfactory re-lationship with someone, or establishing an instrumental or pedagogical bond”2.
Cartographies of peace: Stories of our ci-ties is the initiative of a space full of spa-ces in which geographic expressions of feelings are registered and disseminated,
2 Cf. Paul B. Preciado. “Agorafilia”. In An apartment on Uranus, chronicles of the crossing. Barcelona, España: Anagrama. 2015, pp. 181-184
Cartographies of peace is a call for participation and reflection from what will be a large archive of recorded stories in a diverse virtual map, built collectively.
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as well as experiences that bring us closer to all those people who want to establish a dialogue about the art of inhabiting their places, urban or rural, open or closed, their territories. The great motivation for this space is sharing a vision of different posi-tive actions that are taking place in diffe-rent global scenarios today.
While setting up a space to tell the city, we believe that, by recovering stories of pea-cebuilding from everyday life, it is possible to neutralize the normalization of violence. We consider that a key action to achieve this is the promotion of real stories that reinforce peace and its exercise from the Right to the City as an alternative of recon-ciliation. This will make visible that other territories are possible.
In this campaign, we will think of the map as a record that will guide us through a
specific geography: the neighborhood, the colonia, the alcaldía, the ranch, the little town, the house beyond the borders. Ever-yone will be able to read and build this map; it will exist because of and for the people. It will invite us to explore places from the de-tails told by those who share their experien-ces on how they shape paths for peace and affection with geopolitical scope, ranging from the experience of browsing and finding out to communicating what a territory cau-ses them when inhabiting and living it.
Cartographies of peace is a call for parti-cipation and reflection from what will be a large archive of recorded stories in a diverse virtual map, built collectively; a multiplied geography of all those people who join this project to tell one or more stories of their city or territory; and thus tell those places to thousands of people from different parts of the world.
@ciudadesdepaz
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An Action Plan
To achieve a glocal narrative, this initiative promotes the participation of so-cial media users in the Cartographies of Peace project, through stories that will be shared on the World Forum Cities and Territories of Peace, Mexico City 2020 – 2021 website. Cartographies has proposed a methodological path with three key goals for the campaign as an action guide:
• First of all, the representation on a georeferenced map of the co-llected stories on empathy, solidarity, community, diversity and peace.
• Furthermore, the visibilization of stories on peace building from the everyday, to strengthen resilience processes departing from collective stories.
• Finally, the contribution to the neutralization of the normaliza-tion of violence and hate speech by disseminating content that reinforces peace and its exercise from the Right to the City as an alternative for building a culture of peace and non-violence.
To invite people to join this space and share their stories, an exclusive sec-tion has been designed for Cartographies of peace: Stories of our cities on the World Forum website. In this section, the user will find the bases of the call, as well as its terms of reference.
They will also find a form to register their stories and the georeferenced map that will show the precise places where the referred events happened.
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Stories and people: who?
Four groups of spokespeople and narra-tors will outline the basis of the stories that we will share. Thus, in this space we will read and visit the geographies of:
• Everyday people, people who transit, constitute, and embody the public space. People that make cities and te-rritories their homes from day-to-day coexistence.
• Human rights defenders and promoters. • Experts on human rights and peace,
representing different fields of action, e.g., activists, civil society organiza-tions members, representatives of governments, and academia, to name a few.
• Heroes of cities and territories, agents of community change, e.g., teachers and neighbors, among others.
Telling: how do we get to these stories?
To motivate a diverse collaboration around the world, we will have a communication strategy that will focus on the social me-dia accounts of Cartographies of Peace and the World Forum Cities and Territo-ries of Peace. Our objective is to get a lar-
ge amount of people informed about this campaign; therefore, content will also be designed according to the profiles pre-viously described.
We will establish a continuous dialogue with the campaign social media followers, launching a direct and constant invita-tion to motivate them to tell their stories in different formats, promoting universal accessibility for all potential participants, through pictures, videos, drawings or short writings in which they share an experien-ce or an action related to peacebuilding in their spaces.
Thinking cities as Territories of Peace
Beyond the design and development of concrete actions to help Cartographies of Peace grow, the great purpose is to inspire people from all over the world to seek, find out and communicate other ways of expe-riencing their cities, their territories. Thus, from attentive and involved observation, the positive actions —big or small— that contribute building a culture of peace will be recognized. The stories from our cities will remind us that our lives can be more livable if we reconfigure our territories from a positive perspective.
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The Guardia Urbana of Barcelona, local city police, works daily through male violence cases. Last December, the municipal Council approved a new action plan with the aim of increasing the City Police’s resources and preparation to improve prevention, detection and care for women victims of gender violence, as well as to optimize the system’s existing resources.
Among other activities, a permanent coordination space will be created in each district of the city to organize interventions between victim services, social services and police, improving information flow and attention to women; different trainings will be carried out for all staff, including human trafficking detection and care for victims; new work protocols will be crea-ted for intervention in public nightlife areas and a work plan will be started to include restorative measures and alternatives to punishment in cases of administrative infractions, as a way of broadening the responses from the administration to build responsible and respectful masculinities.
Gender violence prevention, detection and care plan for women who are victims of gender violence
Learn more: ajuntament.barcelona.cat
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The city of San Salvador is committed to promoting social cohesion, respect for human rights and a culture of peace, endorsing actions for the security and coexistence of its inhabitants. Therefore, the Municipal Violence Prevention Committee has designed strategies within the fra-mework of the Violence Prevention Policy approved in 2020.
One of the flagship projects is the “Model of Comprehensive Community Care for Resilient and Constructive Youth” (MAIC by its Spanish acron-ym). It focuses on: (1) Establishment of Comprehensive Community Care Centers, spaces for cultural and educational promotion. (2) Development of activities that encourage participation of youth through education. (3) Provide aid to young people to facilitate their education or employabili-ty. Until now, we have already worked with 50 communities and 250,000 young people.
The strategy is based on the establishment of opportunities that contri-bute to secure human rights and the diminution of inequality gaps. This work is complemented through actions that prevent gender violence, the recovery and revitalization of public spaces to ensure a safe, inclusive and sustainable city.
Learn more:sansalvador.gob.sv www.sansalvador.gob.sv
San Salvador, towards a culture of peace
UN Women: Campaign “Dejemos de hacerlo” (Let’s stop doing it)
In 2019, “Dejemos de hacerlo” (Let’s stop doing it) campaign was laun-ched by UN Women, the governments of Nuevo León and Guadalajara, the National Institute of Women and the Wunderman Thompson agency. Its objective was for men of different ages who use public spaces to iden-tify and recognize the various types of sexual harassment and violence against women and girls in public spaces.
The campaign was evaluated in 2020 to analyze and measure its impact. From the findings identified, it was determined that the campaign made visible the issue of sexual harassment in public spaces, creating aware-ness about the different ways in which such harassment is perpetrated and how is normalized on the street.
The campaign led to recognize a greater number of actions that were considered of less intensity to be sexual harassment after being exposed to the contents of the campaign. In the same way, it helped almost all the men exposed to the campaign declare their intention to change ha-bits and actions around sexual harassment, thinking better before acting against women.
Find the complete Evaluation Report
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The Spanish network of Mayors for Peace and Fundipau, a member of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), have launched the ‘ Let’s build peace, from cities to the world’ campaign to call on the Government of Spain, acting through cities, to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
On July 7th, 2017, this treaty was adopted at the United Nations, which prohibits all ratifying countries from developing, producing or manufactu-ring nuclear weapons, nor from acquiring, possessing or stockpiling them under any circumstances. On January 22nd, 2021, the treaty will finally enter into force, having been signed and ratified by 50 states.
Municipalities have a key role for a fairer, peaceful and nuclear disarmed world, and it is precisely for this reason that cities must have the strength to call on the world’s states to commit themselves to its total abolition.
Let’s build peace, from cities to the world’, a campaign by municipalities committed to nuclear disarmament
Mayors for Peace campaign calls for a ban on nuclear weapons
To learn more about the campaign, please visit: www.ciutatsdepau.org
Or follow it on social media using hashtags:
#prohibamosarmasnucleares y #ciudadesdepaz
The Spanish Association for Peace Research (AIPAZ) has held its 2020 Conference “Peace Research in Spain: from present to future. Theory and practice”, whose aim is to review and analyze the Peace Research being developed in the Spanish scenario, its features, how it can continue to evolve and the proposed ways in which it should do so.
The lectures given at the Conference have been published in a Report dis-cussing and reflecting on the theories and conceptual frameworks of Pea-ce Research that the different AIPAZ centers are working on; introducing the initiatives that are being carried out in the centers; identifying the inte-gration between theory building and practice that these theories encoura-ge to develop; and making proposals on how to work on peace in complex, plural, diverse and changing societies. It also reflects on the redefinition of the local and global peace agenda in the new international context of a pandemic and its aftermath.
AIPAZ
Download: “Report on Peace Research in Spain: from present to future. Theory and practice”
Link to the Conference website
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Madrid is among the safest cities in the world.
The municipal government placed safety and security at the center of its government program as key pillars for the construction of a safe city: building a livable and cohesive, supportive and inclusive city; promoting an economy based on sustainable growth, with quality employment; and deepening its work as an accountable, transparent and efficient govern-ment.
This priority has also been reflected in the City Council’s international activity through the collaboration of the European Forum for Urban Se-curity, the World Cities Organization (UCLG) and other networks (UCLG, Eurocities, Metropolis, Mayors for Peace), United Nations Agencies such as UNDP, UN-Habitat, IOM, ILO, UN-Women, and citizen associations, and also by organizing the first two editions of the World Forum on Urban Violence and Education for Coexistence and Peace. . Another example is Madrid’s active participation in the “UN Safer Cities” program on urban safety, a benchmark program in the UN ecosystem on the subject.Finally, the responsibility assumed by Madrid has also allowed the city to position itself as a reference at the European level on issues related to urban safety, since the City Council leads the working group on Urban Safety of the European Union, in which the work on knowledge and advo-cacy is translated into legislative and funding proposals at the European Union level, and in synergy with the Resolutions of the UN ecosystem.
Madrid City Hall
Learn more:ec.europa.eu
www.madrid.es
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In cooperation with the Secretaria de Educación del Estado de Guerrero (SEG in its spanish acronym) and the Agencia Española de Coopera-ción Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID in its spanish acronym), the project Teacher training on peace issues in the State of Guerrero is being implemented.
In a first phase, the formative workshop for Educational Agents was de-veloped (online), guiding 312 teachers (18 groups) in the use of a Tool-box, divided in three levels of operation: Containment, Conflict Resolution and Transformation. The second phase is to increase the number of par-ticipants to 528, by following up on the instrument and holding a second workshop (May 2021).
The purpose is aid schools to contribute building lasting peace by enga-ging in efforts to stop inappropriate student behaviour; to support school community members in developing skills that enable them to conflict resolution constructively and to encourage the transformation of pedago-gical practices and management in favour of inclusion, equity and partici-pation.
Related sites: Press release Lanzamiento de la prueba piloto del taller “Formación de docentes en temas de paz en el Estado de Guerrero”
Inauguration ceremony
OEIMexico: Teacher training on peace issues in the state of Guerrero R
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The Italian website www.atlanteguerre.it, a site focused on war, low grade conflicts and social crises around the world, has devoted a special focus on the 2030 Agenda in its dossier section. This dossier looks at the indi-vidual goals one by one: understanding where we are with regard to the provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals’ 17 chapters. The re-view, entrusted to Alice Pistolesi, who has been working for several years on the “Atlas of Wars” project, began this work on November 10th, 2020, and, so far, has addressed the first six goals. The aim is to review all the SDGs before the third edition of the World Forum on Cities and Territories of Peace. Each letter explores a target and attempts to investigate where each target’s path lies.
Atlante delle guerre e dei conflitti del mondo is a project born over 10 years ago, which releases every year an updated volume on not only the state of war, but also on the ongoing attempts of peace worldwide. For the past three years, a website has been running with daily updates which explores, in the dossier section, some topics of general interest related to peace and war. During the past year, the website also posted a regular update on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on global geopolitical balances. Although an Italian publication and website, the Atlante project aims to address all countries in the world. Therefore, the forthcoming Atlas volume will also be produced in English.
Atlante de le Guerre
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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Educating Cities and in order to respond to the new social, environmental and educational cha-llenges facing cities, the International Association has carried out a joint update of its roadmap that will serve as a horizon for the more than 500 cities around the world forming this organization committed to citizen education. Education is a fundamental tool for social transformation that allows us to develop as people and build a community based on respect for diversity, equality and non-discrimination. This education, as stated in the Charter’s preamble, must contribute to the formation of “a free, res-ponsible and caring citizenship, capable of living together in diversity, of resolving conflicts peacefully and of working for “the greater good”.
The Charter, consisting of a preamble and 20 principles, contains many elements that will enable us to move forward in the construction of ci-ties that promote peaceful coexistence among diverse people, capable of dialogue and active listening. These cities should have a friendly and respectful public space that encourages meetings and ensures the eradi-cation of all types of violence and exclusion. Therefore, we encourage you to read the new Charter, as well as to watch the dialogue between Joan Manuel del Pozo (philosopher, professor emeritus and trustee of the Uni-versity of Girona), Yayo Herrero (anthropologist, social educator, profes-sor and ecofeminist activist) and Maria Truñó (President Delegate of the IAEC and Commissioner for Education of the Barcelona City Council), who provide important reflections on the new Charter of Educating Cities.
Related site: www.edcities.org
Educating Cities: The new Charter of Educating Cities, a coexistence advocate
Our cities and metropolitan areas are the hubs that connect our societies and are therefore the scenario of the contradictions of our time. On the one hand, they provide opportunities for a large part of the planet’s popu-lation; on the other hand, they represent spaces of strong inequalities and conflicts in which urban violence is reproduced. At the same time, initiati-ves that reveal coexistence are being built.
Thus, it is as necessary to identify the types of urban violence in order to meet the challenges of peaceful coexistence and the well-being of po-pulations, as it is to promote and reinforce inspiring responses to urban conflicts that constitute a global reference.
Last October, as part of the Road to the Forum initiative, we launched the Metropolis Observatory publication titled Violence in the Metropolis: answers to a global issue, in which the authors analyze a number of stra-tegic policies of metropolitan management for coexistence, as well as the suitability of the metropolitan approach for the provision of public goods and the implementation of measures that meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations.
Related site: www.metropolis.org
METROPOLIS: Violence in metropolis: answers to a global issue R
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SaferSpaces is an interactive platform run by and for community safety and violence prevention practitioners in South Africa to connect, share knowled-ge and learn from each other.
The “Guide to Designing Integrated Violence Prevention Interventions” was developed by the GIZ Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention (VCP) Pro-gramme together with the Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading NPC.
This Guide and the accompanying Case Study booklet grew out of the idea that the collective knowledge about violence prevention in the technical and financial cooperation within the South African-German Development Cooperation should be shared. That way the institutionalization, upscaling, adaptation and fostering of synergies amongst actors in the sector could be facilitated. The developed knowledge products provide government and practitioners with a guide to Designing Integrated Violence Prevention Inter-vention at community and area-based level.
The tree stresses the importance of a whole-of-governance and who-le-of-society approach in violence prevention, as is reflected in the emerging knowledge products. This process of sharing knowledge through exchan-ges, workshops and interviews, as illustrated by the roots of the tree of 14 case studies, branches off into six “leaves,” which are the six strategies laid out in the Guide to Designing Integrated Violence Prevention Interventions.
GIZ - SaferSpaces: A Guide to Designing Integrated Violence Prevention Interventions
Learn more: www.saferspaces.org.za
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