UNESCO – UN-HABITAT - SPA International Workshop on Social and Sustainable Revitalization of Historical Urban Areas

The international workshop is being jointly organized with the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) and UNESCO Chair on Social and Sustainable Revitalisation of Historical Districts (SSHD) and will be held at SPA on 30 September 2009. The main objective of the workshop is to test UNESCO – UN-HABITAT Guide for city professionals entitled Historic Districts for All: A Social and Human Approach to Sustainable Revitalization – A Guide for Urban Actors in India.

The workshop will also include a field visit to explore the galis of Ballimaran area in Old Delhi to cover a wide range of specificities (political, social, cultural and economic) linked to sustainable urban revitalization, and at the same time will test the relevance of the Guide.

The Guide aims at building capacity of local stakeholders and decision makers so that the challenging tasks of urban revitalization in old historical areas can be better addressed and new forms of social cohesion in cities better designed. The Guide is an offshoot of a global version launched in 2008 in Nanjing, China, during the 4th World Urban Forum. A partial draft was first analyzed during a peer-review meeting, organized at the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi in February 2009, where eminent Indian urban professionals contributed to enhance the version that is going to be tested during the current workshop.

The Guide and its brochure, it is hoped will make up a useful toolkit for Indian municipalities to become aware of the role of political will and the need to preserve the socio-economic fabric of historic areas in the implementation of urban regeneration programmes. Through the Guide, it is expected that the local authorities and decision makers, would be in a better position to:

Ensure a sustainable and integrated approach to revitalise historic districts in their own city;

Understand the importance of building new forms of social cohesion in cities through people-centred urban projects;

Manage to keep a balance between economic competitiveness and harmonious urban development.

All over the world cities, redevelopment is facing major trends, such as increased urban poverty, complexity of migration flows due to the international economic and financial crisis, and the unplanned impacts of climate change. Since 1996, UNESCO has been promoting the flagship principle of "Humanizing the City" in close cooperation with UN-HABITAT Global Urban Governance Campaign in view of jointly contributing to the Copenhagen Social Summit of 1995 on Inclusive Societies, the Istanbul Declaration on Human settlements ratified in 1996 by United Nations member states, as well as the Millennium Development Goals.

Within the framework of the UN Human Rights Approach proposed in September 2005 by the UN General Secretary, UNESCO Urban Development Programme has contributed to create urban public policies which respect, protect and promote inclusiveness, social cohesion and local democracy. This work is based on the development of multi-disciplinary knowledge and comparative research, and on capacity-building of urban professionals and civil society while focusing of national and local governments awareness rising.

For Workshop Agenda click here


For further information, please contact:

Marina Faetanini
Tel. : (91) 11 267 13000 ext. 304

Rekha Beri
Tel. : (91) 11 267 13000 ext. 105

• Source:UNESCO New Delhi
• 23-09-2009