UN special rapporteurs

Second dialogue between civil society, local government and UN special rapporteurs

"We are seeing our recommendations as global ones that are addressing the whole state but they are based on what we are seeing at the local level.”

“I think that this network, in this group, being able to organize, for me that’s the key to everything."

“We believe civil society networks can play a critical role in bridging this gap of accessibility particularly in making the work of special rapporteurs more accessible to community groups in terms of tools mechanisms of engagement and language.”

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Re-live the Cities are Listening Experience

Background

Following a first roundtable held on December 2020, the Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C), Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) held a second dialogue on February 3rd with Special Rapporteurs, civil society organizations and local and regional governments as part of the #CitiesAreListening process. The aim of these events is to foster connections among actors and issues, to identify shared priorities and advance human rights advocacy efforts.

The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified crisis faced in areas such as climate emergency, access to food, levels of extreme poverty, inequalities and proliferation of cases of violence around the world. It has also unequally affected human rights and protection in all continents. The UN published statistics which evidence that the less developed countries have been more impacted by death, school closures, freedom of movement, and did not all benefit from the same humanitarian responses.

CSOs, which encompass NGOs, community-based organizations (CBOs), academia, and any kind of association, constitute a third sector existing alongside and interacting with the state and market. The United Nations tend to work with CSOs concerned with (inter)national NGOs that have sufficient capacity to handle large development projects but it is diversifying its partnerships in order to promote context-centred approaches to local issues. To this end, they have created a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which provides NGOs with access to tools for human rights created by the United Nations. In addition, the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) has been built to support projects that strengthen civil society. In this sense, local governments have a key role to play in directing CSOs towards UN mechanisms and enforcing the changes that might be discussed by human rights organizations.

200

million schoolchildren live in 31 low-and middle-income countries that remain unprepared to deploy remote learning in future emergency school closures

15

times more COVID-19 vaccine doses per capita received by G20 members than sub-Saharan African countries

Challenges

Local governments should provide funds to grassroots organisations for them to be able to implement their projects, but also maintain trustworthy relationships to be able to trust the data they can provide to improve and create policies adapted to specific territories.
Violence at home increased and it concerns us all whether organizations take action through prevention (education systems, better tracking of these situations) or regulation (safe spaces for the victims to hide, law to punish violence). The whole society is responsible for this violence, and we should shift from a domination model to a normalisation of equality, peace and cooperation.
There is a lack of understanding around the structure of local governments, which might refrain other organizations to collaborate with them. The same happens with overlapping networks of cities, people, governments, and so on. We need to identify better the adequate interlocutors for each situation and to simplify processes.
The Covid-19 crisis has made it harder to connect with people, increased inequalities and destabilized the few bonds that were keeping societies stable. In front of this situation, we must re-learn to build relationships, but also to take into account the social issues the pandemic stressed and act upon them through collaborative and cooperative measures.
Air pollution and transportation must be addressed as founding tools to build sustainable cities.

Learn more about the challenges being faced by cities and regions

Responses

Municipalities and civil society organizations have led ambitious initiatives. In Lebanon, local food councils have been created in order to connect urban and rural spaces.
In France, a group of territories has committed to reaching a level of zero unemployment in the long term.
Initiatives coming from local governments such as promoting universal income, proposing redlines for violented people, policies aiming to foster more equality have also been implemented.
Local actors in some places seek to create local ecosystems that connect people from different backgrounds, with different objectives in order to create a unified and powerful society.
Addressing jointly, air pollution and climate change provide more benefits than trying to solve these issues separately. In this sense, transversal approaches have proven to be more interesting and sustainable, both economically and humanly.
Vancouver launched a mapping of green spaces in the city to provide each inhabitant with access to green spaces within a ten minutes’ walk of their home. The study highlighted that the wealthiest have already access to private green spaces, therefore resources won’t be spent of public green spaces in this area. As a result, the city decided instead to prioritize greener spaces in the poorest area of the city.

Learn more about other responses and initiatives in terms of Migration:

Towards the Pact

Exchanging practices and information is a first step towards moving to more consolidated collective action and developing joint strategies for influencing global processes within the UN and beyond, including developing new bold narratives based on the transformative potential of Human Rights.
To implement more transforming framing and strategies, civil society groups, local and regional governments must cooperate. Media and analysts portrayed the pandemic as a health crisis, but participants highlighted the need to face a crisis of care in a concerted manner.
Narratives based on growth are an obstacle to poverty alleviation and reduction. This is why instead of promoting mainstream solutions, the government should look at more inclusive, equitable and environmentally sustainable forms of development.
We need to move from state-based approaches to multilateral consortiums that will propose transversal measures which include civil society actors.

Resources

Second dialogue between civil society, local governments and UN Special Rapporteurs

For further information on the topic of Public Service Delivery and its impact on cities and regions, please refer to the related resources included below.