The Three Questions: A human rights perspective

[Robert]

1. What are the main needs for local authorities to lead a strategic
planning process?
When starting a strategic planning process it is essential to have a
universally agreed on starting point. In countries that have ratified
human rights Covenants and Conventions, based on, or in part on the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they have the human rights
framework as a comprehensive guideline for the planning and
development of the city. As a first step it is essential that the
inhabitants of the city or town (women and men alike) learn, know and
own human rights as a way of life so that they are able to
participate in the decisions that determine their lives. As people
learn their human rights, the relevance to their lives becomes clear
and they then can map the violations and realizations impacting the
future development of their city. 20 cities, using sound human rights
principals and utilizing the Universal Declaration of human rights as
a foundation for development are currently in development around the
world.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Unofficial Summary)
Adopted by the United Nations on December 10th 1948:

Article 1 All human beings are born free and equal.
Article 2 Everyone is entitled to the same rights without
discrimination of any kind.
Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security.
Article 4 No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.
Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel or degrading
treatment or punishment.
Article 6 Everyone has the right to be recognized everywhere as a
person before the law.
Article 7 Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal
protection of the law.
Article 8 Everyone has the right to justice.
Article 9 No one shall be arrested, detained, or exiled arbitrarily.
Article 10 Everyone has the right to a fair trial.
Article 11 Everyone has the right to be presumed innocent until proven
guilty.
Article 12 Everyone has the right to privacy.
Article 13 Everyone has—right to freedom of movement to leave and
return to one's country
Article 14 Everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution.
Article 15 Everyone has the right to a nationality.
Article 16 All adults have the right to marry and found a family.
Women and men have equal
rights to marry, within marriage, and at its dissolution.
Article 17 Everyone has the right to own property.
Article 18 Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion.
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression.
Article 20 Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and
association.
Article 21 Everyone has the right to take part in government of one's
country.
Article 22 Everyone has the right to social security and to the
realization of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable
for dignity.
Article 23 Everyone has the right to work, to just conditions of work,
to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, to
sufficient pay to ensure a dignified existence for one's self and
one's family, and the right to join a trade union.
Article 24 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure.
Article 25 Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for
health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care
and necessary social services.
Article 26 Everyone has the right to education.
Article 27 Everyone has the right to participate freely in the
cultural life of the community.
Article 28 Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in
which these rights can be realized fully.
Article 29 Everyone has duties to the community.
Article 30 No person, group or government has the right to destroy any
of these human rights.
No one human right can violate another.!

2. How do you consider the concept of Urbanism is changing,
integrating other spheres than technical and physical planning, and
can this be successful?
Accelerated Urbanization is changing urbanization, which has become
unavoidable in this time of expanded economic globalization. Extreme
poverty has become a byproduct of this change and cannot be
successfully eradicated, nor will cities be peaceful if the city’s
poor have to exchange their equality for survival. This ‘”exchange for
survival” leads to unrest and crime as they see no other option
available to them. Thus the integration of dialogue and the learning
about human Rights, as relevant to people’s daily lives, is a first
step in bringing positive and transformative opportunities to these
new urban environments. By making human rights the foundation,
impacting law, rules of doing business and putting this powerful tool
in the hands of people is a sustained stabilizing force that makes
conflict resolution possible and a reality. Furthermore, it enables
technical and physical planning to flourish when all can see a better
future in equality with no discrimination ..-- they will know and see
that the technical planning is guided by a moral ethical vision and
be willing to be productive partners in the process…moving charity to
dignity.

3. Strategies rely very much on support of stakeholders and being
communicated well. What is the role of the local government regarding
participation in planning processes?
Please see he page that describes what Human Rights Cities are!! : --
full participation of all Stakeholders. Not “top down” or “down up”
but across in a horizontal way where the people know and own human
rights as a way of life and act upon it in a positive, proactive AND
CREATIVE way.
SEE WHAT HUAMN RIGHTS CITES ARE:

-To re imagine, redraft and recast human rights as a way of life
through leaning, dialogue and action at the community level.

The Human Rights Cities Program
Imagine living in a society where all citizens pledge to build a
community based on equality and nondiscrimination; --where all women
and men are actively participating in the decisions that affect their
daily lives guided by the human rights framework; where people work to
overcome fear and impoverishment, a society that provides human
security, access to food, clean water, housing, education, healthcare
and work at livable wages, sharing these resources with all citizens—
not as a gift, but as a realization of human rights. Such a city is a
practical viable model that demonstrates that living in such a society
is possible!

PDHRE, People's Movement for Human Rights Learning, works to develop,
facilitate and implement the Human Rights Cities Program by, for, and
with the inhabitants of the city and the local authorities, through
learning, dialogue and discussions that lead to action. Human Rights
Cities, as developed by partnerships from around the world, are based
on the premise that all people wish and hope for social and economic
justice, to move from charity to dignity. It stands on the conviction
and the rich experience of the last 20 years that for human rights to
be effective, all women, men, youth, and children must know, own and
internalize the holistic vision and practical mission of the human
rights. In a dynamic way they realize, human rights as a way of life,
as relevant to their daily concerns.
A steering committee is formed in the city to represent all sectors
of society, they learn about a new vision of human rights as a way of
life, and develop learning programs for various audiences. The plan
includes the examination, with a gender perspective, of laws,
policies, resource allocation and relationships that prevail in the
city, creating a vertical and horizontal progressive learning process.
Step by step, neighborhoods, schools, political, economic and social
institutions, and NGOs, examine the human rights framework relating it
to their traditional beliefs, collective memory and aspirations
regarding environmental, economic and social justice issues. As agents
of change people learn to mentor/monitor, and identify, analyze, and
document their needs. The most important action is developing an
alternative participatory budget, to implementing the MDGs, with a
special focus on women, poverty alleviation, and the environment.

Strategies and methodologies are designed to have governing bodies,
law enforcement agencies, public sector employees, religious groups,
NGOs and community groups, those working on the issues of women,
children, workers, indigenous peoples, poverty, education, food,
water, housing, healthcare, environment and conflict resolution, and
non-affiliated inhabitants, join in the learning and reflecting about
human rights as significant to the decision-making process.
The city, its institutions and residents, as a complex
social economic and political entity, become a model for citizen's
participation in their planning the development of the city within a
human rights framework. This process leads to the mapping and analysis
of causes and symptoms of violations such poverty and the designing of
ways to achieve well being in their city. Appropriate conflict
resolution is an inevitable consequence of the learning process as
women and men work to secure the sustainability of their community as
a viable, creative, caring society.
The United Nations Resolution A/RES/63/173 The International Year of
Human Rights Learning, recognizes the need for all people to know
human rights, which the PDHRE network will move forward with the year
as a process to develop beyond the 20 existing Human Rights Cities, an
additional 30 such cities.
Human Rights Learning highlights the normative and empirical power of
human rights as a tool in individual and collective efforts to address
inequalities, injustices and abuses at home, in the work place, in the
streets, prisons, courts, and more. Even in "democratic" societies,
citizens and policy-makers must learn to understand human rights and
the obligations and the responsibilities that they entail in a
holistic and comprehensive way. They must learn to enforce human
rights effectively and efficiently. This is the promise and
responsibility their governments have undertaken when ratifying
various human rights instruments.
It is important to note the following:
-Two billion people live in cities today. Cities are a microcosm of a
state.
-Four billion people will live in cities in 15 to 20 years.
-With the multitudes of people and issues interacting and
interrelating there is no inherent knowledge, support systems, or
guidance of how to live with one another and how to practically abide
by moral values in today's fast changing world.

For more information:
Robert Kesten and Shulamith Koenig
PDHRE
People's Movement for Human Rights Learning
526 West 111th Street, Suite 4E
New York, NY 10025 USA
Tel: 1-212-749-3156 * Fax: 1-212-666-6325
Email: pd...@igc.org ; rtk....@igc.org
Award winning website: http://www.pdhre.org/