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Urban Movements - Network for Building Good Cities

Join us to learn how grassroots organizations are changing cities and towns!

Marta Jaskulska

Moderator

date June 27, 2022 | 14:30 - 16:00
place
Multifunction Hall Room 14
organization
Congress of Urban Movements
country
Poland
language
English
theme
Integrated Governance in Spatial Planning for a More Just, Green, and Healthy Urban Future
Reference: 
NE 14

Summary

The Congress of Urban Movements is a long-term, grassroots and voluntary agreement of over 50 local social organizations from over twenty Polish cities. We act together for over 10 years.

We have our manifesto – Urban Thesis, our common values and goals (more: https://kongresruchowmiejskich.pl/urban-theses). We are the only association of this type in Poland and one of the few in Europe. We work for the good life in the city, a green, democratically managed and fair city. What our cities are and can be does not depend only on the actions of local authorities and residents. In many areas, it is national legal regulations, policies, functioning institutions that hinder the sustainable development of cities, pro-social and fair. So we organized ourselves to overcome such barriers together.

We want to start a discussion on the creation of a European network of urban movements, which will be a place for the exchange of experiences and good practices, and an organization acting for the sake of urban policies on a transnational scale. We want to conduct an networking event on developing the most important challenges for cities from the perspective of urban activists. We want to start by presenting the history of the Congress, the challenges and problems we encountered. And then, in the form of a workshop, work with the participants of the event to find challenges and ways we can overcome them as a representatives of civil society to different kinds of towns and cities.

We’d like to focus on local (eg. citizens participation in creating urban spaces), national (eg. National Urban Policy) and European level (eg. Cohesion policy). Representatives of member organizations of the Congress of Urban Movements and scientists associated with the Congress will be invited to co-conduct the workshops.

Objectives

  1. To start a transnational partnership of grassrots organisations and local activists to fight for better cities and promote the role of cities in fast changing world.
  2. To create an alliance to lobby for good urban policies and solutions.
  3. To share experiences and good practicies on urban planning and governance from perspective of grassrots organisations and local activists.
  4. To promotes long-term programmatic approaches that support grassrots organisations and local activists to develop appropriate policy frameworks, strengthen local skills and capacity.
  5. To create a platform for dialogue and communication for grassrots organisations and local activists.

Session speakers

Speaker
Role
Organization
Country
Ms. Marta Jaskulska
president
Congress of Urban Movements
Mr. Paweł Górny
member of the board
Congress of Urban Movements
Mr. Piotr Kempisty
member of the board
Congress of Urban Movements
Ms. Grażyna Czajkowska
member of the audit committee
Congress of Urban Movements
Mr. Witold Gawda
member of the audit committee
Congress of Urban Movements