Connecting across Habitat Rights and the Right to the City

This collective dialogue will be the beginning of drawing connections across the spectrum of Habitat Rights and the Right to the City: Roundtable between United Nations Special Rapporteurs, civil society organizations and local and regional governments

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that it is not possible to separate the protection of health from access to water and sanitation, housing, food, education, work and others, making evident the universality and interdependence of rights. The current context has also opened up new spaces for collaboration between actors working on different levels and areas to respond together to joint challenges.

Under this framework, the Global Platform for the Right to the City, Habitat International Coalition and United Cities and Local Governments have come together to organize a collective dialogue between United Nations Special Rapporteurs, civil society organizations and local and regional governments. Building on previous collaborations that the three co-organizers and their membership have carried out with different mandate holders, the initiative aims to strengthen and support their work, by identifying possible areas and channels of cooperation and collaboration with civil society organizations and local governments under the framework of Habitat Rights and the Right to the City.

The dialogue will take place in two sessions with different mandate holders, with the first one taking place on Friday, December 4th 2020, between 15h and 17h CET (check your local time here).