On 19 February, Saint-Denis hosted a preparatory meeting for the 7th Conference on the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which will take place from 7 - 9 October 2010 in Tuzla (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The meeting was chaired by Mr. Didier Paillard, mayor of Saint-Denis, Mr. Jasmin Imamovic, mayor of Tuzla, and Mr. Patrick Braouezec, President ......
On 19 February, Saint-Denis hosted a preparatory meeting for the 7th Conference on the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which will take place from 7 - 9 October 2010 in Tuzla (Bosnia-Herzegovina). The meeting was chaired by Mr. Didier Paillard, mayor of Saint-Denis, Mr. Jasmin Imamovic, mayor of Tuzla, and Mr. Patrick Braouezec, President of Plaine Commune. Representatives of Bobigny, Barcelona, Geneva, Ljubljana, Nantes, San Sebastián, Saint-Denis, Plaine Commune, Tuzla and the CSIPD Secretariat participated in the meeting.
Progress was made on defining the programme, and pairs of cities were established for the organisation of each of the three plenary committees, which will cover social cohesion, quality services public and protection of the environment. The next preparatory meeting is scheduled for Tuzla on 29 and 30 April.
After the last Conference on the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which took place in Geneva in 2008, the CSIPD was entrusted with the task of co-ordinating the promotion of the Charter and supporting the organisation of biennial conferences.
The photomontage produced by the ETCS Co-operative (Barcelona) of the working seminar involving the CSIPD member cities at the 2009 Annual ......
The photomontage produced by the ETCS Co-operative (Barcelona) of the working seminar involving the CSIPD member cities at the 2009 Annual Meeting, which took place in Reggio Emilia (Italy) on 21 November 2009 as part of the IX IOPD Annual Conference, is now available on the Committee´s website.
The meeting was attended by 33 people representing 17 cities and institutions from Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Mexico.
Between 25 and 27 April 2010, the city of Chicago will host the next UCLG Executive Bureau and an Extraordinary General Assembly in order to review the statutes of the international organisation. On the same dates, there will also be a Global Forum of Local Governments in which various cities twinned with Chicago will be participating.
Among ......
Between 25 and 27 April 2010, the city of Chicago will host the next UCLG Executive Bureau and an Extraordinary General Assembly in order to review the statutes of the international organisation. On the same dates, there will also be a Global Forum of Local Governments in which various cities twinned with Chicago will be participating.
Among other items, the agenda of the Executive Bureau includes the organisation of the next UCLG World Congress, which will be called the World Summit of Local and Regional Governments, and will be held in Mexico City from 16 to 20 November 2010.
After the earthquake in Haiti last January, many cities and local government associations have mobilised in support of the country´s reconstruction process. UCLG has created a space on its website ......
After the earthquake in Haiti last January, many cities and local government associations have mobilised in support of the country´s reconstruction process. UCLG has created a space on its website featuring all the initiatives promoted by local governments in solidarity with Haiti.
The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy Committee (CISDP) took place in Reggio Emilia (Italy) on 21 November 2009. Unlike other years, in 2009 the CISDP only met in full on one occasion, and to do so, it chose a particularly symbolic setting: the 9th Conference of the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD). ......
The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy Committee (CISDP) took place in Reggio Emilia (Italy) on 21 November 2009. Unlike other years, in 2009 the CISDP only met in full on one occasion, and to do so, it chose a particularly symbolic setting: the 9th Conference of the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD).
The meeting was attended by 33 people representing 17 cities and institutions from Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Mexico.
The meeting included two debates which were guided by a participatory methodology, ensuring collective work of the highest quality. The first debate covered the production of a document on a common position on participation and defined the expectations of participants, the cornerstones of the document and the production process. The objective of the second debate was to produce contributions to the draft World Charter-Agenda on Human Rights in the City.
The meeting also considered various areas which the CISDP is currently working on: the creation of an International Observatory on Local Social Inclusion Policies, which will be possible thanks to support from Barcelona City Council, Barcelona Provincial Council, the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia, Malaga Provincial Council, FAMSI and Plaine Commune; the organisation of a Summit of Local Governments for the Eradication of Poverty (2011); and the promotion of the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, the high point of which will be the 7th Conference of the Charter (7 - 9 October 2010, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina).
All the details of the meeting, and the conclusions of the two debates, are available in the following document:
Around 500 representatives of local and regional authorities, and their partners - international institutions and some national representatives - visited Guangzhou (China) between 10 and 13 November 2009 for the meetings of the Executive Bureau and the World Council of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).
A total of 30 meetings took place, including the sessions involving the majority of the 18 UCLG Committees and Working Groups. The meetings of the Executive Bureau and World Council were chaired by the President of UCLG, Bertrand Delanöe, the Mayor of Paris, and by the organisation´s Co-presidents, Amos Masondo, the Mayor of Johannesburg, and Kadir Topbas, the Mayor of Istanbul.
The members of the World Council elected the new Mayor of Quito, Augusto Barrera, as Co-president of the UCLG, and accepted the invitation from the Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, to host the meeting of the UCLG Executive Bureau in that city in April 2010. Chicago will be the venue for the coming statutory meetings of the world organisation. 2010 will also see the next UCLG World Congress, which will be held in Mexico City from 16 to 20 November.
The next Conference on the European Charter on Human Rights in the City will take place in Tuzla (Bosnia - Herzegovina) between 7 and 9 October 2010. After the Conferences in Barcelona (1998), Saint-Denis (2000), Venice (2004), Lyon (2006) and Geneva (2008), the Charter celebrates 10 years of existence in a country with a recent past that calls for greater efforts to be made towards peace and the guarantee of human rights.
The CISDP has been working on promoting the European Charter on Human Rights in the City since the Conference in Geneva (2008), in order to provide it with a permanent structure that consolidates its ability to influence the design of local public policies.
14 cities and institutions from Spain, France, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina attended the meeting of the CISDP "Human Rights and Local Governments" Working Group on 11 December 2009 in Barcelona. This Working Group will be the framework used to promote the Charter in the future. The meeting agreed on a Working Plan for 2010 - 2011 for the Group, and approved the plan for the conference presented by the mayor of Tuzla, Mr. Jasmin Imamovic. The conference will be entitled "Local authorities providers of quality of life and individual welfare" and will include 3 round tables for debate on harmonious diversity, high quality public services and sustainable development.
The next meeting of this Working Group will take place on 19 February in Saint-Denis, the city that was the setting for the production of the Charter 10 years ago, and which continues to play a key role in its promotion. This meeting is open to all cities wishing to become involved in the organisation collective process of the 7th Conference.
At a time when half of the world´s population lives in cities, the challenges faced by local governments are rapidly increasing. The dynamics of growth of the major cities means that the most vulnerable sectors of the population are being pushed towards the edges of cities. As a result, local government bodies located on the outskirts of large cities today have major difficulties when dealing with increasing social challenges. In order to promote international networking among suburban cities, the 1st World Forum for Peripheral Local Authorities (FALP) was convened in Nanterre (France) in 2006. Among the issues discussed were the risks of social, spatial and environmental fragmentation in large cities, the potential for participatory democracy in the construction of the inclusive metropolises and the right to mobility. The second FALP will take place in Getafe (Spain) between 10 and 12 June 2010. For more information on the 2nd FALP, please see: http://falp.getafe.es/.
After the last WSF, which took place in January 2009 in the Brazilian town of Belém do Pará, several decentralised forums are planned this year in countries such as Brazil, Spain, the United States, Japan, Mexico, the Czech Republic and Turkey. The city of Dakar (Senegal) will host the 11th WSF in 2011.
From September 9 to September 12 the municipality of São Bras de Alportel (Algarve, Portugal) hosted the Summer Course "Governation and participation challenging the crisis". This activity stemmed from the three-side cooperation between a civil society organisation, the In Loco Association; a research centre, the Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) from the University of Coimbra; and the Committee on Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy (CSIPD) of UCLG, as a network of local governments.
The course was attended by around 50 people from different backgrounds: Master´s and PhD students, researchers and staff from the Portuguese local administrations. During the four days of the Summer Course, the issues covered were: citizen participation and re-building trust in institutions; the right to the city as a key point to re-assert the feeling of belonging to a territory; new social imagery based on re-incorporating social issues into the economic sphere (solidarity-based economics). And finally, the role of local governments in building a new public culture.
The CSIPD was in charge of this last topic and organised a round-table with elected representatives from São Brás de Alportel (Portugal), the Diputación de Málaga / Malaga Provincial Council (Spain), San Sebastián(Spain) and Aubagne (France). The aim of this debate was to show, from the experience of concrete policies, the potential of local governments to strengthen democracy and empower citizens. Starting from an approach of "participatory governance", the most innovative practices and / or policies put in place by local governments were introduced, from very different areas such as youth, the environment, territorial articulation, mobility and gender.
The debate started with a presentation on the "Challenges for a new public culture", by Professor João Arriscado Nunes (CES), aiming at setting a context for the debate between representatives from local governments.
The programme for the Summer Course is available at:
On 19 February, Saint-Denis hosted a preparatory meeting for the 7th Conference on the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which will take place from 7 - 9 October 2010 in Tuzla (Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Between 25 and 27 April 2010, the city of Chicago will host the next UCLG Executive Bureau and an Extraordinary General Assembly in order to review the statutes of the international organisation. On the same dates, there will also be a Global Forum of Local Governments in which various cities twinned with Chicago will be participating. 
After the earthquake in Haiti last January, many cities and local government associations have mobilised in support of the country´s reconstruction process. UCLG has created a space on its 
The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy Committee (CISDP) took place in Reggio Emilia (Italy) on 21 November 2009. Unlike other years, in 2009 the CISDP only met in full on one occasion, and to do so, it chose a particularly symbolic setting: the 9th Conference of the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD). ......
At a time when half of the world´s population lives in cities, the challenges faced by local governments are rapidly increasing. The dynamics of growth of the major cities means that the most vulnerable sectors of the population are being pushed towards the edges of cities. As a result, local government bodies located on the outskirts of large cities today have major difficulties when dealing with increasing social challenges.
After the last WSF, which took place in January 2009 in the Brazilian town of Belém do Pará, several decentralised forums are planned this year in countries such as Brazil, Spain, the United States, Japan, Mexico, the Czech Republic and Turkey. The city of Dakar (Senegal) will host the 11th WSF in 2011. 
From September 9 to September 12 the municipality of São Bras de Alportel (Algarve, Portugal) hosted the Summer Course "Governation and participation challenging the crisis". This activity stemmed from the three-side cooperation between a civil society organisation, the In Loco Association; a research centre, the Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) from the University of Coimbra; and the Committee on Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy (CSIPD) of UCLG, as a network of local governments.