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This was the general consensus of
participants at a hugely successful
International Policy Dialogue on the “Challenges
of Slum Upgrading: Sharing São Paulo’s
Experience,” hosted by the city of São
Paulo from March 10th to 14, 2008.
Co-organised by the Cities Alliance and the
Municipality of São Paulo, the five-day
event brought together representatives of
the mega cities of the south such as Cairo,
Ekurhuleni, Lagos, Manila, Mumbai, their
counterparts from the host city of São Paulo
and from a third group of participants
designated ‘observers’ namely, La Paz,
Bolivia, Santiago, Chile, Sekondi-Takoradi
in Ghana to
share their |
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Billy Cobbett of Cities Alliance,
Orlando Almeida, São Paulo Housing
Secretary and Elisabete França,
Superintendent of São Paulo.
Courtesy: Ciete Silverio/Municipality
of Sao Paulo. |
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experiences on the challenges of slum upgrading.
These were joined also by representatives of
development organisations such as the World Bank,
the Asian Development Bank, United Cities and Local
Governments (UCLG), Metropolis, and UN-HABITAT.
Welcoming city delegations and other stakeholders to
the event, Mayor Gilberto Kassab of São Paulo
described the meeting as an “important opportunity
for exchange of ideas on the problems they encounter
on a regular basis.” He congratulated the organisers
of the event and all participants both for coming up
with the idea for the event and for successful
execution. Alain Lesaux of Metropolis, representing
the President of the organisation agreed with the
mayor. He elaborated on the Bank of Cities
initiative by Metropolis and UCLG and specially
thanked Elisabête França, Superintendent of São
Paulo Municipality and the city’s focal point for
the organisation of the international policy
dialogue for her work on the Metropolis’ Committee
for the Rehabilitation of Difficult Environments.
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Billy Cobbett and Gilberto Kassab,
Mayor of the city of São Paulo.
Courtesy: Ciete Silverio /
Municipality of São Paulo. |
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Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Sector Manager
for Urban elaborated the Bank’s extensive
engagement in the urban sector in Brazil and
in the city of São Paulo in particular. He
spoke of the need for cities to provide
affordable and reliable basic services for
their citizens. Billy Cobbett, Manager of
the Cities Alliance put the whole event into
perspective. He said this was the first time
Cities Alliance has organised such an event
where the main resource is a city. Why was
São Paulo chosen as venue for the event?
Factors enabling this include the city’s
transition to a successful urban economy;
scaling up, reflected in the fact that São
Paulo now takes a citywide approach to slum
upgrading and the lessons inherent in Cities
Alliance’ consistent and continuous
policy engagement with
São Paulo |
through three different mayors and administrations.
Cities Alliance’ new strategic thrust to provide
long term programmatic support to cities as captured
in its new Medium Term Strategy arose primarily from
its long and consistent engagement with the city of
São Paulo.
Participants also agreed that the structure of the
policy dialogue facilitated in-depth interaction
between participants and the host city stakeholders.
The first day was devoted to sharing São Paulo’s
urban upgrading experience. Presentations were made
on issues such as the “Municipality of São Paulo
Policy Guidelines and Strategic Plan for Housing,”
“The Contributions made by the Cities Alliance
technical Assistance Project to São Paulo Housing
Policy,” on “HABISP – the Information and
Prioritizing Intervention Systems” developed by the
city, the “Legal instruments: the Statute of the
City and Tenure Regularization in Slum Upgrading. “
The second day saw the invited cities sharing their
own unique experiences of slum upgrading, with each
providing some contextual background to the
challenges faced, followed by brief analyses of the
interventions and the policy framework guiding such.
On the third day participants were divided into five
different groups for site visits to specific sub-
municipalities of São Paulo where slum upgrading had
either taken place or is an ongoing activity. These
included – São Francisco, Manacias Iporanga, Vila
Nilo, Paraisopolis and Heliopolis. Groups spent the
whole day touring the areas, attending workshops
with local municipality staff and clients and
engaging with community residents who invariably
shared how the upgrading activities have impacted
their lives.
Deliberations returned to the Hotel Intercontinental
Venue of the event on the fourth day, where groups
shared their observations of what worked, what did
not, the lessons learned and recommendations for
future actions based on their interactions with and
feedback from the communities. On the fifth day city
participants were joined by a larger group of media
representatives, non-governmental organisations and
other civil society groups as invited cities shared
their general impressions of the event, what they
learned and what they will be taking away from the
international policy dialogue. All agreed on the
utility of such learning platforms and the
invaluable opportunities they afford for knowledge
sharing; they urged Cities Alliance to organise more
of these policy dialogues with other cities on a
regular basis.
The presentations made and other highlights of the
event will be posted on the Cities Alliance website
in the coming days.
Related Information:
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