Celebrating Wuf12 Public Space Revitalization for Impact Initiative

Salma Yousry

Moderator

November 5, 2024 | 13:00 - 14:30

Multipurpose room 05

UDF - Urban Development Fund

Egypt

English

Reference:

NE 05-01

WUF12

Networking Events

Summary

The World Urban Forum's legacy projects aim to showcase sustainable urbanization initiatives through knowledge exchange and incubation of scalable ideas. Despite their hopeful intentions, their long-term impact remains uncertain. The upcoming event in Cairo will revisit past initiatives to share valuable lessons learned.
In Cairo, public open spaces are contested, with per-capita shares ranging from 0.1 m2 to 10.9 m2, highlighting the urgent need for innovative, inclusive solutions. Public spaces are vital for city growth and citizen well-being, enhancing livability, safety, and social cohesion. However, mismanagement and lack of community engagement led to their erosion.
Revitalizing underutilized public spaces in mature neighborhoods can foster inclusive communities, using innovative engagement methods and partnerships. Bottom-up planning ensures spaces meet local needs and garners community support. Collaboration with stakeholders can alleviate the burden on municipal budgets.
The Egyptian Urban Development Fund (UDF) prioritizes inclusive urban regeneration, focusing on socially cohesive communities and accessible public spaces. A joint initiative with the Technical University Berlin aims to celebrate WUF's legacy public space intervention in Cairo, showcasing participatory practices for replication in other Arab countries.

Objectives

1. Showcase previous WUF legacy projects and discuss the key lessons learned to identify strengths and improvements to support global events leave an inclusive sustainable impact behind.
2. Mobilize partnerships and resources to support the institutionalization and mainstreaming of participatory practice in designing inclusive public spaces across the public and private sectors.
3. Initiate a collective knowledge sharing platform to celebrate best practices and lessons learnt on availing public spaces to local communities through social inclusion and co-creation and sustainable business models in 7 Arab countries and previous WUF legacy projects.
4. An enhanced understanding of the linkage between participatory designed inclusive public spaces and sustainable urban regeneration and local economic development.
5. Expose local governments to a different array of participatory mechanisms to address public space-poor areas and to sustainably plan for revitalizing abandoned public spaces with the aim of increasing the share per-capita of public spaces in cities especially in Cairo in occasion of WUF’s public space legacy project in the city.
6. Advocate for participatory designing inclusive public spaces in densely populated mega cities and their return on investment to local governments.