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To achieve gender equality and inclusion in urban development, UN-Habitat has partnered with several NGOs ahead of World Cities Day 2022, which takes place on 31 October. Women of all ages and backgrounds have come together across cities around the world to change their environment through the “Her City” project.
“Her City” is a joint urban development initiative of UN-Habitat (the United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and the independent think tank Global Utmaning. It is funded by the Swedish Innovation Agency (Vinnova) with contributions from various local partners in the participating cities.
This project is the result of the “Urban Girls Movement” launched in 2017 and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, with the aim of mapping effective methods and tools that contribute to increasing equality and inclusion in urban development. This involves proposing measures to local elected officials, who will then decide on their feasibility. Some cities have already been able to carry out various initiatives based on local fundraising.
Renovations of public spaces, security of the surroundings…
In the case of the municipality of Botkyrka, in Sweden, the women decided to revive old drug intersections by giving more color and shape: murals, playground installations, benches, increasing the brightness of streetlights, in order to better secure, among other things, the night outings of the inhabitants. To do this, each volunteer resident was able to develop ideas for design software, which were then proposed and discussed with local elected officials. This has allowed the Botkyrka district to become warmer for its inhabitants.
“Urbanization creates many challenges, especially in terms of gender inequalities“, explains Tove Alström, the director of Global Utmaning, partner of the project, in a video presenting the Her City 2022. “When cities are poorly built, there are glaring gaps between urban centers, outskirts and different social categories.“. Women would be the most vulnerable category in the face of the rapid urbanization of spaces, which is why it is necessary to include them in the development of cities according to the director of the NGO. By giving them importance in the decision-making process, the project aims to empower these women around the world.
Hope for slum dwellers in South Africa
In Johannesburg, South Africa, young girls from slums, like Diepsloot, had the opportunity to express different issues during an awareness march. They were able to talk about their daily insecurity in the face of gender-based violence and the rise in crime, but they also had the opportunity to point out the lack of water and sanitation infrastructure to the NGOs working on the spot.
During various workshops, the participants were able to imagine and design new models of the Diepsloot slum. Nancy Sethole, one of the participants in the “Her City Diepsloot” project, wants to make her neighborhood “a better place” and thinks that her “contribution can help” to make it a safer place for women: “I would like to see my plans and dreams come true in Diepsloot“. It will now be a question of convincing the local elected officials of the municipality.