Press - Bridging Grassroots Communities and Global Urban Expertise (WUF13)

Good afternoon.
Our event today under the topic of Bridging Crossroads, communities, and global Urban expertise.
International Union of Professionals Forum launching, the International Union of Professionals Forum, IOPF.
I would like to introduce myself.
I am doctor Monoray from Egypt.
I am the former Chairperson of the Habitat Professionals Forum.
And I also a partner constituency chair of the World Urban campaign until now, I would like to give the floor to each speaker to present himself.
And then after that, I would continue my presentation.
Doctor Ali.
My name is Alif.
I'm a professor of Architecture and Urban Planning.
I'm also a founding member of the International Urban Professionals Forum and head of the Center for Middle Eastern Architecture and Urbaners.
I'm so proud to be here.
Thank you.
Open the mic.
Okay.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Professor Dan Gopovich Marti.
I come from Serbia from Belgrade.
I'm a professor at University Union Nola Tesla.
And I'm working at the field of sustainable urbanisms strategic urban planning, ecology and environment, and the application of digital technologies and AI in city development.
In the same time, I'm a treasurer of IUPF.
My research and professional work focus on environmental regeneration, social inclusion, and sustainable mobility with comparator cities.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
My name is Rob Schutt.
I am the president of the International Urban Professionals Forum.
I chair the board and I represent our community.
I am originally from Bolivia and Germany.
I'm educated as architect and urban planner, and I'm very pleased to be here.
Thank you, dear speakers.
Good afternoon and welcome to the official launching of the International Urban Professionals Forum, IUPF at World Urban Forum 13.
Today, as we address the critical mandate of housing, The word, we must confront attract reality, over 3 million people currently live in inadequate housing or informal settlements, largely excluded from the formal profession discover.
The IUPF was founded to permanently disseminate this hierarchy.
We serve as a strategic counted at bridge translating slum level grassroots integrity into high level professional urban planning and global policy.
We are not here to talk about communities.
We're here to partner with them through a structural professional framework.
To provide this, we are proud to announce that in just the first 24 hours after launching our digital Istanbul 2050 grassroot coloration has officially gone global.
We have formalized zero risk solidarity MOUs with community networks spanning among others.
Partners with Nigeria, Bolivia, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, and all the way to Australia bringing their direct mandates into this room today.
This monuments ls directly to our first milestone, the 2026 Emerging Communities Forum hosted by Istanbul planning agency IPA.
This October from seven to ninth there, we will completely replace traditional academic abstracts with a living human library of urban stories.
Paired with intensive young urban professionals, workshop co organized with the university and Applied Science Salisburg in Australia.
I now give the floor to President Trap to represent the contents and the constitution and the strategic map for the launching of the IUPF.
President Trump, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Mounna.
It's a pleasure to be here with you all and thank you very much to the guys also doing the technology.
We were a bit late in delivering our presentation.
Sorry for this.
I will just talk very briefly about IUPF.
We are an international association.
We are based in Paris, but we are globally represented.
You will get the link to our website at the end of the presentation, just make a photo and you can visit our presence online.
I What we do, especially what we are hoping to achieve in our mission is concerning now housing, to make the global agenda understand that true resilience cannot be a cannot be acquired through top down policy alone.
There is not only a right to housing, but the missing link is what we want to get.
The voices of the ones who are excluded from the housing conversation, who never make it to Woof or to other global political agenda events.
So Which SDGs have inspired us? We can name SDG ten to reduce inequality and achieve inclusion as a method.
SDG 11, the sustainable settlements, we all know, and the need to provide safe and affordable housing.
As I said before, top down and bottom up and the SDG 17, the global Partnership for sustainability.
This is what we were just talking about, enhancing global partnership with the global South and the underrepresented regions in the world.
For that, I will talk just now about the grassroots coalition Mona was talking about.
This is our major event coming in October.
Basically, we were inspired by the wolf in Cairo and we have set up a We have set up a network with the Istanbul Planning Agency to celebrate our first emerging communities forum.
The link will get you to our platform.
What we want to achieve in this event, we want to be innovative, we want to use the new technologies.
We want to invite community leaders to share their stories.
And we want to have also activities to discover the city, to discover the groups, to meet actors and not just professionals and academics.
We want also to celebrate the diversity, and obviously we want also to look at the future.
Additionally, we are launching a program for capacity development.
It will be the first Yap workshop, young urban professionals in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg in Austria.
The goal is to produce innovative urban proposals that breach the hardware and the software of Istanbul's future.
Our coalition that was launched and after 24 hours had already met the target of more than ten partners shows also how much we need to connect with institutions, with people with communities who cannot afford to come to Wolf.
You see the messages they are on our website also they are in Arabic, they are in Spanish, in French, in Hindi, and they represent also organizations in the developed world.
Um, to finalize this introduction, our aspiration is to foster the fight of the peoples and to make them inspire not only the global political agenda, but also inspire other communities, other peoples in brotherhoods in similar regions with reduced representation.
Thank you, Mona.
Thank you, dear President.
Now, I would like to ask the panelists some questions.
I think we have different varieties of speakers.
We have an architect, we have an urban planner, we have also a professor, academia.
I would like to target my first question to professor doctor Ali.
Regarding the human library and urban narratives.
In our campaign, banners highlight the dense life textile of urban fabrics.
When we design for the future, why must we move beyond mere infrastructure to elevate culture identity, and living stories as core architecture buyers? How do we design a physical space to function as the human library? My question is concerning the human library and an urban narrative.
The floor is yours, doctor Ali.
Thank you, doctor Ronna.
This sounds like a PhD.
Very, very sophisticated, but I will try to give a good answer for that.
But if you allow me also, I want to shed some light on the notion of the establishment of IUBF because I think it's an essential question to ask why we have to form one more society, one more institution, one more form.
There are plenty of those all over the world.
I asked this question even to myself and to my colleagues when we started establishing this.
I would argue that I was able to join them because of the very well founded answer that they came up with.
I want to share this with you.
Number one, this is a forum that it's really emphasizing the importance of the young generation.
This is a forum that it's for the people who would be the decision makers of the future.
So the presence of the young people and young planners are an essential component of this forum.
The second important point is that we are moving from the typical hierarchical process to a grassroot to a sort of a platform where we are all equal.
Members are fundamentally important, and their input is the most crucial contribution in the vitality and the vibrancy of this institution.
Then the third point, which is to me fundamentally important also, is the authenticity of multidisciplinary approach to planning.
Everybody's talking about multidisciplinary approach, and we end up with some planners talking to each other.
We want to have economist, we want to have social scientists, we want to have politicians, we're going to have every single member that can join us, and this is why we called it urban professionals rather than only urban planners to suggest this level of inclusivity.
We want this forum to be truly global in the sense that it is not European based, it is not an American based.
It is for the people of this Mother Earth.
So we are so proud that the majority of our members now are coming from Africa rather than from Europe, and we are dwelling on that to extend it to Latin America and Asia and so on and so forth.
In other words, we want this forum to be a real true manifestation of globality and globalization.
The very final point which is so much related to what doctor Mona said, is the idea of that this form is about changing the mindset.
That we don't go to other communities in Asia or Africa or Latin America to impose on them what to do.
They have plenty of knowledge, they have plenty of wisdom, they have accumulated knowledge, they have accumulated narratives in the chat different chapters of their cities and communities.
And therefore, we are calling for a more positive dialogue, a forum nature of a dialogue rather than the typical monologue that we saw it in different places.
And just to shed some light on the excellent question of doctor Rama, I would argue, and this is something that I truly believe in that we have to look at the notion of the city culture, the city identity, very similar to a novel, a novel of different chapters.
And therefore, what they have done, their past, their heritage is a fundamentally important chapter.
But then what is happening now is a continuation of this.
I truly believe in the dynamic understanding of the notion of identity in the sense that heritage is important, local culture is important, but also the contemporary aspiration and how to deal with contemporary challenge is also important.
And therefore, adding chapters, adding connected chapters in a harmonious way to me is the name of the game.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Professor Ali.
I just want to comment on doctor Ali's answer.
Our forum is targeting the professionals individually.
We're not targeting organizations.
I was since 2018 to 2024, among the lead of the UN Habitat Professionals Forum.
I was targeting professionals, I was targeting organizations and institutes.
Every organization and every institutes has a strategy, has its mission, has its constitution, has its aim.
That they are leading inside the professionals.
Our organization, it will transfer the sound of the individual professionals to the community of the professionals.
They will not listen or target by their organization or their institutes.
Transferring also the idea of the professional to be participating in the decision making of their planner and their plans and their strategy.
They are not controlled by their organizations.
We need to hear the sound of the individual professionals around the continent.
I am inviting everybody as the continuity of the answering of Professor Ali, that we need to hear the sound of the professionals among the world.
Now, we're targeting Africa We're targeting other continents, South America, Asia.
We need to listen to these young professionals everywhere.
Now my second questions will be to President Trump.
Young urban planners, workshop focused on vertical vernaculars, challenging young professionals to bring social software of all neighborhood into rigid standard mass housing blocks like Turkey two I KI structure.
The question, now, massive produce social housing successfully provide safe hardware against systematic risk, but it often creates social distract of erasing community software.
How can the next generation of urban planners pragmatically hack existing rigid high risk concerns structure to restore human centric neighboring connections? Professor, President, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much Muna.
Yes, we were looking at talks.
These are the massive and investments by the Turkish government to provide housing.
We were asking also ourselves, is this a solution to their right to housing or is it just the obligation of delivering the housing solution to communities? Because we think sometimes we forget that despite the informality, millions around the world have already been delivering and building their solutions.
But they have especially been shaping their communities.
So what I think the question is talking about is you can buy people a house, but you cannot buy a community.
And this is what we are expecting to elaborate because the money can build, but it is the human energy that creates the community.
So what we want to do in this workshop is to look at how we can hack that process and to build a bridge between the estate and the missing community that gates gets broken when you reinstate informal housing estates into formalized blocks.
I don't really have an answer to the question, but I hope we will deliver answers with the young professionals.
That my comment that we need to hear the sound of the young professionals, their aims, their plans, their imaginations, what is in the forum that is targeting the young professionals, that is our main target.
Professor Dara, I would like to focus on the hardware and software integration.
The alliance between IPA and FH, Salisburg aims to produce innovative urban proposal balancing energy resides with social mechanisms.
Professor, engineering is utilized the discipline that builds the physical hardware of our cities.
However, our forum claims that true urban resilience cannot be achieved through top down engineering alone.
How do we see the relationship between rigid infrastructure and flexible social software evolving as we look forward toward 2015? Thank you for the question.
True urban resilience is created with physical infrastructure and social life work together.
It is very important that we know that engineering provides the essential hardware, safe buildings, reliable systems, mobility, water, energy, and protection from the z.
But this hardware cannot success without if it ignores software of the city, people's habits, culture, community ties, informal knowledge, and daily needs.
Looking forward to 2015, I believe engineers must work together more closely with communities, planners, architect, and local institutions.
Infrastructure should become more adaptable, participatory, and human centered.
The goal is not only to build strong structure, but to create places where community can live safely, cooperative, and develop over time.
In that sense, resilience is not only technical, it is also social.
Thank you, Professor Dara.
I now would like to take questions or comments from the floor.
There is no questions.
Now I can ask the question to the floor and I wish to participate and they could participate in answering it.
As a panel, we represent Italy, Egypt, Serbia, Bolivia.
Your bridge different geographic really is in one sentence, what is the single between lessons the global North must learn from the grassroots integrity of Global South if we are to truly achieve SDG 11 by 2050.
Yes, if you want to answer.
Yes.
One of the biggest lesson the global nerve North must learn from the global South is not resilience.
Resilience is not created only through technology or large investments, but through community capacity, adaptivity, and social solidarity.
Many communities with limited resources have developed highly efficient way of sharing space, support neighborhoods, and responding to crisis collectively.
Uh huh.
Any command? Okay.
I Yes.
I think what we can learn from us professionals in the north, from the South is that the new urban agenda, the SDG agenda, the 2030 agenda in general, I think we have made it too complicated.
I think we have evolved into too many regulations and paragraphs, motivated them nationally.
I think we need to go back to basics and to make sustainable housing not just participative, but also really inclusive.
If you allow me just to add a small idea, doctor Ramona, given the fact that I see wonderful African faces and Middle Eastern faces around, I am hoping that we change the narrative.
We change the narrative in terms of even the way the question is structured, is suggesting that we in the Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia, we are listening to what is happening coming from the north.
As opposed to, and this is actually one of the major objectives that we are aspiring for, is that this planning, this knowledge about creating communities and good places for people and just cities should be emerged also from the South, should be emerged from Africa, from the Middle East, from Latin America.
And therefore, it's not about those wonderful territories waiting for solutions.
They should be proud of their solutions and also use the opportunities and the platforms to share knowledge about it.
We are calling also for a different mechanism of communication regarding planning knowledge.
Thank you.
Thank you, Professor Ali.
Yes, please.
I just wanted to add an observation.
I work for over 50 countries in the world and what I can say is that energy is in the global South.
This is where the energy is, and I think that the global north just has to get used to that fact.
Then that really supports everything that you were saying that the global South doesn't have to be listening, but should be acting because I think that the energy is in the South.
Because if we are looking through Baku here, we see that the energy is here.
If we are going to the Middle East, we see that the energy is there.
If we are going to China, we will see that the energy is there.
That's it.
That's the new state of the world, and I think that we can see it here in the World Urban Forum as well.
I think that this is the start.
By the way, I'm from Serbia.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm an urban planner from Abuja Nigeria and I have a very important question to ask maybe the professor.
Please, how can global urban expert ensure that community voices, especially in Africa, are not only consulted, but genuinely reflected in final urban policies and projects? That's my question.
Well, this is a profound question and needs a honest answer.
And I would argue that as an urban planner in Nigeria, excuse me for that.
You have to believe in yourself.
You have to believe in your community.
I saw a lot of experiences and a lot of workshops where local planners, they have sense of surrender to what is delivered.
And then when you have a side discussion with them, as you rightly said, you see the energy, you see the knowledge, you see the accumulated heritage and the accumulated observations and sensitivity to the locality.
Whoever the best planner or the best urban designer or the best architect in the world, once you put him in a new context, I would argue he's 50% knowledgeable, 50% ignorant and there is the opportunity for you to speak up.
My advice, in my opinion, is that the wonderful urban planner society in Nigeria and everywhere else, they should have this confidence and speak up and deal with whoever is coming from the west as sort of a partner.
This is the notion of dialogue that I'm calling for.
Thank you, sir.
I would like to reply to you also.
That 2050 strategy, UN strategy or elsewhere, we are targeting to localize our decision making through the participatory context, to force the government that we should share in the decision making.
That is what now we are through the UN are calling as professionals.
I think that this is what I was explaining in the beginning of the presentation that we're looking for the sound of the individual professionals.
We're not looking for institutes or organizations because they have their targets, but individual planners or professionals, they will seek their ideas from their mind, from their needs, from the local communities, the needs of local communities.
That is our target.
We're localizing the professional sounds.
We need to hear them.
We need to add you to our forum so we can listen to new ideas from your communities, from your cities, from your countries.
We have to force the communities.
We have to force the policymakers to listen to us.
Because this is our needs.
We don't need to go through their strategy, their policies, their needs.
We need to hear our sounds.
We need everybody to listen to our individual sounds, not to listen to their strategies, that our target in our forum, that we want you to be part of us.
Thank you again for joining us.
Anyone wants to do any comment.
Thank you for being with us.
You want to Yes, please.
Thank you.
I thought I should speak up as a young planner.
For us, I think the future is all about partnership.
I mean, as a Tatar born from Crimea, living in Romania, educated in Germany, working or had work experience in Istanbul, for example.
For me and for young planners or for young professionals, everything is about partnership.
We are all over the world.
So I think it's not about south, east, west and anything else.
I think for us, it's about just being a professional.
Sharing, collaborating, having the same values and the same excitement wherever we are in the world.
I want to continue.
So, I will continue on that.
You want to partnership partnerships with your own conditions, with all your needs.
You don't need to be forced to partnership according to others obligations or other plan or other strategy.
That's why we're talking about the global south that we go in partnership with others, but through our needs, through our sounds, through our strategy.
Exactly.
Yes, that you want to speak.
Sorry, I am a treasurer of IUPF and on this way, I would like to call.
We would like to establish a fund for young professionals from Africa, South America, Asia, and we would like to have possibilities to support them through our forums and to give them opportunity to learn to be part of us.
Integrating the professionals, community and society.
Yes.
Thank you, Mona.
Thank you again.
I would like to call the participants to have a group photo.
Now we're finished, I want to thank the translators and I want to thank all the people from the press conference room for supporting us and listening to us.
Can we go for the group photo, please? Thank you.