Themes to be included towards a paradigm shift in the current system, reporting rights violations and offering alternatives and tools to impact public policies.
– The inhabitants of today’s neoliberal cities (in the context of the private sector, deregulation, privatization, foreclosures, mega events and projects, the criminalization of the poor).
– The ability to resist and fight forced evictions.
– Developing strategies that encourage identity and belonging to a place as well as permitting inhabitants to remain in that place and elaborate proposals in the effort to improve the city. These proposals are informed by a gender perspective, citizenship participation, cultural diversity, and the criminalization of social movements.
– A rights focus: Legal frameworks at the local, national and international levels; the responsibility of the state regarding access to land, housing, water and sanitation; public policies and the mobilization of resources, and the rights of immigrants (in the context of African migration to European cities)
Methodology. Since WAI in Mexico (2000), the urban convergences have been articulated in the World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre (2001-2005), Nairobi (2007), Belem (2009) and this year in Rio de Janeiro (USF, March 2010). Ten years after its first expression, the WSF is still the main altermondiste reference. Therefore the WAI for the Right to the City has to be anchored in WSF 2011 in Dakar.
The development of the Urban Social Forum (USF) is more related to the peoples’ neighborhoods (in Rio and in Dakar), rather than to the University. It is therefore important to link the WAI for the Right to the City to different places in Dakar from February the 6th to the 11 during WSF 2011.
The expressions of the WAI for the Right to the City are the following:
– The mobilization or “big meeting-concert”, related to the march on the 6 February, with the participation of 3,000 bidonvillois of Dakar.
– Self-managed activities base on the themes (see above); Tuesday 8 February in the WSF and Wednesday 9 February in a neighborhood, for example coordinated with the Radio Oxy-Jeunes (suggestion of AMARC)
– The closure on Thursday 10 February, as part of the Convergences Day
– Cultural and sport activities from 6 to 11 February in different places of Dakar,
