The City We Need · accordance with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision for ‘Sabka saath, Sabka vikas’ and the emerging global discourse on prosperity of cities. With the

The City We Need fosters inclusive prosperity5 – 8 October 2015Niua, India UTC

05uTC

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Urban Thinkers Campus: 05 – The City We Need fosters inclusive prosperity

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The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication pages do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the secretariat

of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries

regarding its economic system or degree of development. Excerpts may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. Views expressed in

this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, the United Nations and its member states.

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Contentsurban Thinkers Campus in figures ............................................................................................................................................. 4

introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................ 5

The City We Need principle(s) addressed ................................................................................................................................. 5

Matrix of linkages - TCWN 1.0 vs. new recommendations ...................................................................................................... 6

Key outcomes of the uTC........................................................................................................................................................... 6

Key recommendations.............................................................................................................................................................. 10

Key actors................................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Outstanding issues................................................................................................................................................................... 13

urban solutions ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13

Speaker .................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

List of all countries present ..................................................................................................................................................... 15

List of organizations present................................................................................................................................................... 15

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urban Thinkers Campus in figures

22 236

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14COUNTRIESREPRESENTED PARTICIPANTS ORGANIZATIONS

CONSTITUENTGROUPSREPRESENTED

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introduction

The focal theme: ‘The city we need fosters inclusive prosperity’ was in

accordance with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision for ‘Sabka saath,

Sabka vikas’ and the emerging global discourse on prosperity of cities.

With the new urban sector missions in india focused towards achieving

economic vibrancy and liveability through urban transformations for

growth and access to amenities for all, cross learning between missions

and sustained engagement between all sectors including corporate

institutions and business leaders is crucial. With this in mind, uTC india

was designed in consultation with uNGCN india, Cities alliance, DFiD,

Bernard van Leer Foundation, asian Development Bank, Research Councils

uK, WiEGO, Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, Swiss agency for

Development and Cooperation (SDC) and india Habitat Centre.

The new urban sector missions in india also promise to integrate key

themes of the global discourses towards HaBiTaT iii. Hence, it was

important to deliberate upon the linkages between Government of india’s

new urban sector missions, the Sustainable Development Goals and the

New urban agenda. in order to enable this, the uTC india was planned

with participation by various constituent groups responsible for drafting of

recommendations on the last day.

The City We Need principle(s) addressed1. The CWN is economically vibrant and inclusive

2. The CWN is affordable and promotes the right to the city

3. The CWN is well-planned, financed and governed

4. The CWN is resilient

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Matrix of linkages - TCWN 1.0 vs. new recommendationsThe key recommendations of uTC india including empowerment of youth and children, women and better facilities for homeless groups are very strongly

interlinked with the first City We Need principle i.e. The City We Need is Socially Inclusive. uTC india principles such as the need for inclusive prosperity and

the emphasis on skill development are linked with the City We Need principle of The City We Need is Economically Vibrant and Inclusive. a matrix which

highlights the impact and link of the uTC india City We Need Recommendations and the existing City We Need principles has been detailed in figure below.

Existing Principles Proposed Principles

Key outcomes of the uTCThe uTC india was structured into the initial part that consisted of the

plenary sessions, the city we need debate and the panel discussions. Some

of the key outcomes highlighted:

• The need for advocating shared responsibility and the need to re-write

the social contract between business, society and the government.

• The importance of establishing dialogues with stakeholder groups

and building of large collaboration of partners representing different

perspectives was emphasized.

• The need for balanced growth through both economic and social

inclusion, and linking of CSR initiatives with implementation and

monitoring of urban planning policies and programmes through joint

private and public frameworks for measuring policy outcomes.

• inclusion of the corporate sector was also felt to be crucial as it has the

possibility of bringing in global good practices. However, appropriate

governance structures need to be framed and the local governments

need to be made more accountable for creating better business

environments.

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• With the transforming relationship between center, state and local

government, urban development was pointed out as the shared

responsibility of the three-tiered government, with an urgent need to

have an integrated urban policy within the established framework of

cooperative federalism.

The thematic and urban thinkers sessions primarily focused on

understanding inclusive prosperity and its related aspects. Key outcomes of

these discussions included:

• People, practices, institutions, resources and discourses were felt to

be key factors for urban inclusion. Besides the qualities of respect,

dignity, citizen rights and rights to livelihood were discussed as a major

necessity for inclusion.

• Evidence in research has indicated that while growth has been important

in reducing poverty, those who are at the lower end of distribution

have hardly benefitted, emphasizing the urgent need for policies and

programmes to focus on something more substantial for our cities than

merely making them liveable and economically stronger.

• Facilitating individual prosperity by providing livelihood options

at an institutional level was felt important specifically in planning

spaces to accommodate the informal sector and improve the ‘ease of

doing business’ especially for the poor to provide them an opportunity

to prosper.

• Shared prosperity which is at the heart of poverty reduction requires to

come through in inclusive economic development and job creation with

planned urbanization being key to that.

• The lack of access to land and tenure security was the main hurdle in

integrating the informal sector into the formal planning process, noting

that land, which includes shelter, access to services, and space for

carrying out various occupations was essential for ensuring health, and

safety of the workers to increase productivity.

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• Supporting and working with membership-based organizations of

informal workers was discussed as a key strategy to address urban

poverty and to work towards better planned, inclusive cities.

• The importance of considering home as workplace in addition

to living space, reflecting an understanding of how people use their

homes as workspaces, the costs they incur to do so, and the impact

that housing conditions and locations have on the productivity of home-

based workers by policy makers and planners was discussed.

• The need for lowering prescribed standards which not necessarily

translated into lowering the living standards of people and community

based design solutions are crucial to provide good quality living

environments.

• The need for more consultative master planning exercises by

enhancing and institutionalizing participation was discussed.

• inclusion of various stakeholders particularly children in planning and

shaping urban environments was felt important especially since 53% of

india’s population consists of children and youth. Young people having

skills and knowledge are capable of sensible, realistic suggestions (not

self-centered).

• a need for scaling up smaller successful initiatives of different

organisations working with youth and children to the city level was

crucial to be institutionalized to influence the development plan for the

city - Master plan, Zonal Plan etc.

• Structuring academic and research interventions to ensure inclusive

prosperity in planning of cities was discussed:

• The need to interlink and balance research and practice and the need

to emphasis regional institutions was discussed so that urbanization

issues are more contextualized instead of focusing on just large cities.

• The need for producing vibrant public spaces or urban commons

to ensure greater community level inclusion instead of private and

commodified spaces was discussed. inclusion of alternatives to

sprawling, auto-dependent areas, revitalization of downtowns and

inner-city neighborhoods, environment concerns, creation of lively,

interesting neighborhoods and commercial areas, and a need to foster

sustainable development, were also discussed as essential components

of planning curriculum.

• The need for planning students to be exposed to four sectors apart from

the current curriculum of universities was discussed which included

the functioning of the city to build their knowledge base, managing

human settlements keeping in view cultural aspects of the city, planning

keeping in view aspects of public security for children, elderly and

women, and monitoring and evaluating techniques of projects to ensure

institutional accountability.

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NIUA_India Retweeted @urbancampaign 5 Oct 2015

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• Environmental sustainability, was discussed as each persons or

organizations responsibility, especially for the corporate sector which

is responsible for maximum damage through exploitation of the

resources and degradation of ecology. it was felt important to ensure

that the corporate sector could promote environmental sustainability,

through its CSR activities which included external stakeholders, and,

through various sustainability initiatives and innovative approaches for

choosing resources, production methods and disposal methods. The

need for the corporate to map sustainability risks and challenges for

each sector to know how to mitigate them through projects and other

initiatives was also discussed. a need to explore indigenous knowledge

which assures of being context specific for ensuring environmental

sustainability was considered important.

The urban Thinkers Sessions focusing on climate change and adaptation

discussed the following key issues:

• The need for creation of a comprehensive framework bringing

together policy-makers, planners, developers and community

organizations to develop resilience in cities, and for conservation

of existing resources such as open spaces and water bodies, was felt

essential.

• The three pillars of a resilience framework- Systems (infrastructure),

agents (people) and institutions (laws), while harnessing local

knowledge, community advocacy, and micro-resilience planning and

protection of peri- urban areas was felt essential.

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• For increasing resilience, reduction in consumption, development of

alternative resources, and improvement in quality of existing resources

was discussed as key for developing a sustainability framework.

• additionally, the need to incentivize climate changes for which

data collection, and awareness campaigns, providing people with on-

ground, real-time information was crucial.

• One of the key requirements discussed for integrated and multidisciplinary

planning is the need to harmonize various organisations working on ground

to develop an integrated data collection system and a database manage-

ment system especially since data is essential for crucial policy decisions.

• The session on energy suggested that the importance of economics of

development should include policies for promoting sustainable energy

solutions for transport and energy efficiency.

• Market driven sustainable energy solutions need to be prioritised

for greater adoption and replicability through documentation of best

practices and learning.

• urban morphology was discussed as the key determinant of the city’s

energy intensity and hence requires to be careful managed.

• in relation to this, one of the key issues discussed in the panel discussion

was the need to curtail resource consumption and carbon emissions,

specifically by distributing urbanization to small and medium towns in

india, which would meet both the needs of sustainable urbanization and

inclusive prosperity and economic growth was felt.

• The session on municipal finance discussed the need for altering the

fiscal architecture of the country so as to strengthen local governance

agencies. While leveraging of funds from budgetary sources was

meager, the need of alternative sources of municipal finances was

discussed. However, with inadequate monitoring and regulatory

frameworks, private capital too has been hardly explored. The need

for municipal budgets to be more accountable outlining the outcomes

and expenditures under the CSR initiative, earmarking for poor, etc was

discussed highlighting the need for city budgets to be audited. The need

for a reliable database for city budgets was discussed.

• The final session that discussed the right to the city put forth some

crucial thoughts, like, whether the discussion for ‘right to the city’

should be restricted merely to the 32% urban population or expanded to

the rural population as well in view of migration as a crucial challenge.

another key point raised was that while we have notionally accepted

the right to housing why is it that it is forcing the poor to the fringes

with the spaces of democratic participation for the poor shrinking. Cities

need to be seen increasingly as sites for contestation over resources

with the shape of the cities being determined by policies and whom

they empower. additionally, the lack of enumeration of the homeless in

census surveys indicates the lack of awareness of numbers and living

conditions amongst administrators and policy makers.

Key recommendationsKey Principles have been agreed upon in the constituent group discussions:

a. The City We Need should Facilitate Inclusive Prosperity: The city should promote the right to livelihood, shared prosperity,

skill development, employment linked to industry (manufacturing and

services) supported by the private, state and civil society.

b. The City We Need should be Well-Governed: equitable

enforcement of legislations/laws. Should promote people’s

participation. Streamline existing legislations. Should be transparent

and accountable. and should be able to encourage an open planning

process.

#UrbanThinkers Campus India #ChildrensArtCampus Now in session #citiesforpeople @NIUA_India @urbancampaignhttps://twitter.com/Studio1652/status/650920857787723777

NIUA_India Retweeted @Studio1652 4 Oct 2015

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c. The City We Need should Consume Minimum Resources: Efficient/equitable use of resources and replenishing of resources

(‘replenish more than what we use’).

d. The City We Need is Where Youth and Children are Secure and Empowered: recognition, empowerment, awareness,

increased effective accessibility to basic amenities, opportunities for

personal development, addressing issues of vulnerability.

e. The City We Need should be Inclusive: barrier free

movements, better last mile connectivity - for pedestrians, access for

the disabled to the transit system, city that is safe for children - walk to

and from school should be safe, women should be free to move.

f. The City We Need should have Better Facilities for the Homeless: a program that works to move the homeless from

sleeping on the sidewalk --> sleeping in shelters (proper safe shelters

- safe for all) --> proper housing; upgrade the sensitivity training to

the cops and to other government employees (Not the one they have

now); Education of the homeless about their rights - Creation of a nodal

database access centre for non profits who work with them. Establish

means for knowledge sharing; account for empty housing stock

g. The City We Need should Emphasize Skill Development: incentive based employment

h. The City We Need should Empower Women, Build their Capacities and provide Adequate and Basic Services: Key

policy changes that were suggested were to; provide ample enablers

and safeguards to secure women financially, strengthen existing

communities in urban areas for both for knowledge dissemination

and to provide services, bring changes in urban design, integrate

various sectors of society; academia, media civil society etc. The

innovative solutions that the group suggested were incorporation of

e-governance to increase accountability, transparency and connectivity

in existing systems. and use of technology and urban design to ensure

women safety. Safety for women in institutional campuses

i. The City We Need should promote Knowledge-Sharing between agencies: Cross-organizational knowledge sharing.

Knowledge Sharing between development agencies, research

institutions, non-governmental organizations and citizen groups for

better resource management, participation, and evidence based

planning through feedbacks.

j. The City we Need is Pedestrian Friendly: Better traffic

regulation enforcement - safer city for pedestrian

History in the Making! National Campaign on Cities and Human Settlements launched at #UrbanThinkers India @urbancampaign @UNHABITAThttps://twitter.com/Niua_india/status/651609774040186880

NIUA_India @NIUA_India 6 Oct 2015

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Key actorsThe core groups that are identified as the key players in the proposed City

We Need principles include:

• Parliamentary Standing Committee (Elected Representatives) :

Parliamentary Standing Committee consented to accept the proceedings

of uTC india and deliberate upon the recommendations made on it. The

Committee proposed the introduction of the City adoption Programme

with support from members of parliament. The Committee also

proposed the expansion of the current urban planning, architecture

and engineering educational infrastructure in every state and proposed

establishing a State Level urban Development institute and Nodal

urban Development Officer in each district.

• ULBS: Local Governance: Opportunities for promoting participation

from all sections of civil society through e-governance platforms.

Establishing City Level Citizen Engagement Portals.

• Chambers of Commerce: Establishing ‘industry specific inclusive

Skill Development Training and Education Programmes’ to diversify the

existing job sectors, and promote industry specific skills based training

for women from low-income sections of the society.

• Citizen groups: Create knowledge sharing platforms and work towards

increasing self-representative participation of all sections of society.

• NITI Aayog: To take note of the changing social landscape in cities

and prescribe flexible, city-specific planning norms and look towards

more recognition and inclusion of the informal section in to the fabric of

planned urban development.

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• Though the uTC india advanced the idea of inclusive prosperity into the

urban discourses in india, more needs to be done to establish linkages

between the various sub-themes such as local economic development,

support for informal sector, skills and entrepreneurships, planning

legislation, cohesion and resilience through community planning,

financing modalities.

• The discourse could not capture the strengths and weaknesses of the

completed and new urban sector missions in greater details so as to

identify their contributions in making indian cities inclusively prosperous.

• The permeation of the uTC india deliberations through various means of

media was inadequate. This prevented a national level response to the

four day consultations.

• There were inadequate representation of the Local Government

representatives such as Mayors and Commissioners who will be

responsible for implementing the new urban sector missions.

• uTC india did not have adequate representation from some of the

identified constituent groups such as ; i) Foundations and Philanthropies,

ii) Farmers, iii) indigenous People, iv) Grass-root Organizations.

• The gaps identified in relation to the strategic positions of the theme

inclusive prosperity is proposed to be addressed through the ongoing

research on preparing inclusive prosperity framework for 3 cities. The

other issues can be addressed through the year long National urban

Campaign.

Outstanding issues

Ashok b lall says we need strategic effective & broadly clear solutions @NIUA_India #UrbanThinkershttps://twitter.com/divya1127/status/651696445737725952

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urban solutions

• Recognize and institutionalize approaches for ecologically sound urban

development process.

• Promote human rights as one of the core purpose of urban planning.

• Facilitate the integration of the informal economy in city development

strategies.

• Establish local knowledge networks for regular exchange of critical

ideas and technological solutions.

• Promote affordable housing strategies through market creation and

policy interventions.

• incentivize climate change adaptations and environmentally conscious

behaviors in planning process by harnessing new and alternate energy

sources, off-grid solutions and promotion of passive-adaptive design

solutions.

Sri Pinaki Mishra, Chair, Parliamentary committee on Urban devlpmt, at UN Habitat Urban Thinkers Campushttps://twitter.com/Nafeesmeah/status/652004951711813632

NIUA_India Retweeted@Nafeesmeah 7 Oct 2015

@NITIAayog S. Khullar calls for a new social contract for inclusive cities through new governance #UrbanThinkershttps://twitter.com/urbancampaign/status/652070281519886337

NIUA_India Retweeted@urbancampaign 8 Oct 2015

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Speaker

Prof. Jagan Shah Director, NIUA

Ms. Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, assistant-Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director, uN-Habitat

Mr. Yuri Afanasiev, uN Resident Coordinator

Mr. Uddesh Kohli, Senior advisor, uNGC

Ms. Christine Auclair, Project Leader, World urban Campaign, uN-Habitat

Mr. St. John Gould, Director, uK Trade, investment and Prosperity-india

Dr. Eduardo Lopez Moreno, Director, Research and Capacity Development, uN-Habitat

Mr. Saurabh Sanyal , Secretary General, PhD Chamber of Chamber and industry

Mrs. K. Saraswathi, Secretary General, Madras Chamber of Commerce and industry

Mr. Vikas Gadre, Director General, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and industry

Dr. A. Ravindra, IAS (Retd), Former Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka

Dr. Renu Khosla, Director, Centre for urban and Regional Excellence

Prof. P.S.N.Rao, Head, Department of Housing, SPa Delhi

Dr. Roli Asthana, Senior Economic advisor and Deputy Head, DFiD india

Mr. Ron Slangen, urban Development Specialist, aDB

Dr. Shobha Vijender, Councillor, North Delhi Municipal Corporation

Mr. V. Suresh, Former CMD, HuDCO

Dr. Nandita Chatterjee, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and urban Poverty alleviation

Prof. O.P.Mathur, urban Specialist and Senior Fellow, institute of Social Sciences

Mr. Pooran Chandra Pandey, Executive Director, uNGCN india

Mr. Barjor E. Mehta, Global Lead, World Bank

Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Head, uN-ESCaP S&SWa, New Delhi

Prof. Amitabh Kundu, Delhi Policy Group

Mr. Palash Srivastava, Director, iDFC

Prof. Usha Raghupathi, Professor, Niua

Mr. Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, IAS, Joint Secretary, Ministry of housing and urban Poverty alleviation

Prof. Amaresh Dubey, CSRD, JNu

Prof. Meera Mehta, Emeritus Professor, CEPT university

Prof. Kala Seetharam Sridhar, iSEC, Bangalore

Dr. Nafees Meah, Director, Research Councils uK

Ms. Namrata Bali, SEWa

Ms. Shalini Sinha, Sector Specialist, WiEGO

Ms. Dharitri Patnaik, india Representative, Bernard Van Leer Foundation

Prof. Dinesh Mehta, Emeritus Professor, CEPT university

Prof. Shrawan Kumar Acharya, Professor, CSRD, JNu

Dr. Debjani Ghosh, Senior Research Officer and Coordinator, Habitat Partner university initiative

Ms. Sheela Patel, Chair, Slum Dwellers international

Mr. Bijal Bhatt, Mahila Housing Trust

Ms. Pratima Joshi, Shelter associates

Prof. Neelima Risbud, SPa-Delhi

Prof. Amita Bhide, School of Habitat Studies, TiSS

Mr. Marco Ferrario, Micro Home Solutions

Mr. Ashok Pavadia, additional Secretary & adviser, inter-State Council Secretariat, Ministry of Home affairs, Government of india

Dr. R. Gopichandran, Director, Vigyan Prasar, Government of india

Mr. Ashok B Chakraborty, Chief Sustainability Officer, National Foundation for Corporate Social Responsibility, indian institute of Corporate affairs, Ministry of Corporate affairs

Dr. Sanjeevan Bajaj , CEO, FiCCi Quality Forum

Dr. Vatsal Bhatt, Director – Cities and Neighborhood Developments, uSGBC

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Dr. Geetika Sharma, TCS innovation Lab

Dr. Anil Roy, associate Professor, CEPT university

Mr. Daniel Ziegerer, Director of Cooperation, Swiss agency for Development and Cooperation

Dr. Shirish Sinha, Swiss agency for Development and Cooperation

Dr. Rathin Roy, Director, NiPFP

Mr. Mrutyunjay Behera, Director (infrastructure), Department of Economic affairs

Mr. Jeetendra Singh, Director (PPP/infrastructure), NiTi aayog

Mr. Krishan Dhawan, Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation

Mr. Ashok B. Lall, Principal architect, ashok B Lall architects

Mr. Rakesh Kacker, IAS(retd), Director, india Habitat Centre

Ms. Romi Roy, Deputy Director, uTTiPEC, Delhi Development authority

Prof. Rajan Rawal, Executive Director,Centre for advanced Research in Building Science and Energy

Mr. Pinaki Mishra, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on urban Development

Dr. Ramgopal Agarwala, Honorary Senior Fellow, NCaER

Mr. Dushyant Chautala, Member of Parliament

Ms. Sindhushree Khullar, Chief Executive Officer, NiTi aayog

Mr. D.S.Mishra, IAS , additional Secretary, Ministry of urban Development

List of organizations present1. uN-Habitat,

2. Cities alliance,

3. uNGCN india,

4. DFiD,

5. Research Councils uK,

6. The Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF),

7. aDB,

8. Cities alliance,

9. WiEGO,

10. Shakti Foundation,

11. Swiss agency for Development and Cooperation,

12. YuVa,

13. uNMGCY

14. india Habitat Centre

List of all countries present1. australia

2. austria

3. Brazil

4. Canada

5. Equatorial Guinea

6. Ethiopia

7. Georgia

8. Germany

9. iceland

10. india

11. italy

12. Kenya

13. Madagascar

14. New Zealand

15. Northern Mariana islands

16. Poland

17. Sweden

18. Switzerland

19. Turkey

20. united Kingdom

21. united States of america

22. Zimbabwe

united Nations Human Settlements Programme P.O. Box 30030 Nairobi 00100, Kenya

World urban Campaign Secretariatwww.worldurbancampaign.orgEmail: [email protected] Tel.: +254 20 762 1234 www.unhabitat.org

utc.niua.org

Documents

The City We Need · accordance with the Honourable Prime Minister’s vision for ‘Sabka saath, Sabka vikas’ and the emerging global discourse on prosperity of cities. With the