World Urban Forum (3) - Closing Ceremonies and Wrap-Up

The World Urban Forum wrapped up yesterday with a morning session of networking and dialogue sessions, followed by the usual round of speeches and a tribute to Nanjing, China, where the next (fourth) session will take place. My biggest beef with this forum was that so many of the events (all of them, really) took place during the daytime. And although that's really my problem, I think it's one that many of the locals who signed up to participate must have faced as well. Thankfully it was not a problem for the thousands of dedicated government, NGO's, delegates, citizens, media and others who took this week to try and address the rapid urbanization of the world's cities. The theme was to move ideas into action and on the last day, this point was reiterated often, in the hopes that everyone there would take something away with them and do it.

With an eye to this a report on the forum's actionable items was produced and distributed. It mentions the need for all urban players to work together instead of transferring their responsibility to others, empasizes municipal leadership and stressed the importance of transparency and accountability.

The report states that "urban population of developing countries is set to double from 2 to 4 billion in the next 30 years. Ensuring that these people do not end up in slums requires the planning, financing and servicing of the equivalent of a new city of 1 million people every week during the same period." That means that there is some serious action to be done and if there was one thing I realized at this event, it's that that action will happen at the ground level. There were so many beautiful, strong, hopeful people there, people who have a vested interested in getting things changed *now*, and that is truly inspiring.

During the "The Future of Cities" session Friday morning, various analysts and government officials spoke eloquently about the state of the world's urban centres, but it was Rose Molokane of the South African Homeless People's Federation and Shack Dwellers International that really moved the room. Getting up to speak she mentioned that she was unprepared because she had no laptop, but she spoke beautifully regardless. She asked who the cities belonged to and then proceeded to answer her own question, saying that it was the slum dwellers who owned the cities because they are the ones who clean it and make it beauitful, they are the ones who fill the busses instead of the rich people who drive around alone in their vehicles, and when the business people get tired of going to work they just stay home and open the laptop and it is the slum dwellers, the poor, who are left to deal with the city. "We are the gatekeepers of your policies," she said passionately, and it is unmistakeable that Molokane will take what she learned at the world urban forum home with her and put it directly to good use. .

Similarly in the closing ceremonies, Ana Lucy Bengochea of the Garifuna Emergency Committee of Honduras easily captured the audience's attention far more than the respected officials could. Speaking in Spanish with her translator falling down over her eyes each time she pumped her hand in the air, she emphasized that if the people on the ground level, and in particular the women (she was representing women's issues in this forum), were listened to and given the resources that they needed, they would not dissapoint. These are the people who will go back into communities and make them better. Hopefully their influence and passion spread around the room to everyone.