Geneva Cities Hub goes to the World Urban Forum 2022

This year, Geneva Cities Hub will go to Katowice to participate in the World Urban Forum (WUF), in collaboration with UN-HABITAT.

Hybrid Participation
All participants need to register to WUF 11 to be able to participate virtually via the WUF11 Mobile or web App

Ensuring resilient urban services: The Rio de Janeiro’s experience

29 June 2022, 16h30 – 18h00 CEST

Urban violence is affecting many cities worldwide, thereby disrupting the provision of essential services for affected communities. Armed violence causes schools and health clinics or other core public service facilities to shut down. The event will showcase how the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, has managed to enhance urban resilience by ensuring access to its essential services, in close collaboration with the ICRC, through the Safer Access for Essential Services Program. The event aims to highlight this methodology which has been developed to reduce, mitigate and respond to the consequences of exposure to armed violence settings. It will also underline the role that cities play in federating actors to address a common challenge and how local solutions can be scaled up to enhance urban resilience and help achieve the objectives of the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs. The hope is that Rio de Janeiro’s good experience could be replicated in other cities which face similar challenges.

The objectives of this session are to:

• Highlight the impact of urban violence on people’s everyday lives, with a focus on access to essential services and encourage closer collaboration between humanitarian actors and municipal actors that provide essential services.
• Highlight that urban violence constitutes a challenge to achieving SDGs: inadequate essential service provision in urban violence contexts is a development challenge, as well as a humanitarian challenge.
• Share practical approaches to strengthen urban resilience: provide the audience with insight into the Safer Access for Essential Services Program in Brazil – how it works, its successes and challenges, in the hope that the approach of Rio de Janeiro’s can be adapted and used by other cities.

Speakers

• Mr. Eduardo Paes, Mayor, City of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Mr. Gilles Carbonnier, Vice-President, ICRC, Switzerland
• Ms. Ana Christian Thomé Veneno Batista, Undersecretary for network, articulation and integration, Municipal Secretariat for Education, Sports and Recreation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Ms. Renata Costa de Oliveira, Preventive Education Team leader, School Protection Management Unit, Municipal Secretariat for Education, Sports and Recreation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Mr. Adriano Rosa de Souza, Director (School Principal), CIEP Hélio Smidt, Brazil
• Mr. Eduardo Ubierna Beguin, ICRC Operations Coordinator for the Americas, ICRC, Switzerland
• Ms. Karen Evelice Cerqueira Fernandez, Acesso Mais Seguro ICRC Programme Manager, ICRC, Brazil

Moderation: Ms. Anh Thu Duong, Co-Director, Geneva Cities Hub

Download the flyer.

Registration here.

Tackling Urban Health Challenges in a Changing World

28 June 2022, 16h00 – 18h00 CEST

Re-thinking urban space is thus important to tackle health issues both in re-designing the existing cities and towns, and also for the many urban areas yet-to-be built. By “designing-out” illness, we can ensure that significant gains in health can be maintained. Healthy environments go hand-in-hand with good urban design. This is equally important in cities in the global South and North.

This session will present a range of health challenges faced by city leaders and some of the new approaches to managing disease, including tracking and prevention through improved urban design.

Moderation: Ms. Kamelia Kemileva, Co-Director, Geneva Cities Hub and Mr. Graham Alabaster, Chief of the Geneva Office, UN-Habitat

Download the flyer.

Download the full programme.

More information on the event. 

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