مشاركة نجوى سليم الغزال في A better quality of life for all in an urbanizing world

مشروع برنامج الأمم المتحدة للمستوطنات البشرية UN-Habitat حول النزوح والهجرة
الممول عبر حساب التنمية للأمم المتحدة – لجنة التنسيق المحلية المجتمعية
الإطار المرجعي وخطة العمل
كممثلة عن لبنان

العرض التفصيلي الذي قدمته كممثل عن لبنان لواقع المناطق الحدودية المستضيفة للنزوح ضمن مشروع برنامج الأمم المتحدة للمستوطنات البشرية UN-Habitat حول النزوح والهجرة
الممول عبر حساب التنمية للأمم المتحدة – لجنة التنسيق المحلية المجتمعية
الإطار المرجعي وخطة العمل 2022

لبلدتيحق_علي

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Side event: Mapping Resilient Communities: Collecting Stories and Experiences on Ccommunity-led Public Space and Top-down Sustainable and Resilient Urban Design

29 June 2022

UN-Habitat Lebanon Presentation
Inclusive Public Spaces for Social and Economic Inclusion of Migrants in Border Cities Across the Humanitarian and Development Nexus (UN-Habitat Brazil and Lebanon)

Najwa El Ghazal (8 minutes)

Slide 2:
Good afternoon, everyone.

It is a great honour to participate in this WUF event today and share with you about a UN-Habitat project that aims to enhance social and economic inclusion of migrants in border cities, through safe and accessible public spaces, in Latin America and Western Asia.

Slide 3:
The main objective of this project is to enhance the capacity of local authorities and communities to apply urban planning for inclusion of migrants in border cities. The project also aims to increase cross-regional knowledge exchange at local, regional and global levels across the humanitarian-development nexus.

To this end, the project:
• First, aims to strengthen the capacity of local governments on inclusive and COVID-19-responsive public spaces:
o through capacity-development workshops for local authorities and community representatives for each of the targeted areas on tools, best practices and strategies for inclusive, safe and healthy public spaces; and
o through the organization of regional and cross-regional learning exchanges for local authorities and international experts on urban planning, local economic development, and migration.
• Second, the project aims to improve policies, strategies and plans for the design and management of safe and inclusive public spaces through community engagement and participatory approaches to public space assessment, planning and design
• Third, it aims to give the opportunity to the UN-Habitat team, local authorities and community representatives in all targeted locations to exchange experiences, lessons learned and best practices at global, regional and country levels.

Slide 4:
The project covers border areas of Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay in Latin America and of Lebanon in Western Asia. In this presentation, I will focus on the Lebanese context, but similar components are also being implemented in targeted locations in Latin America.

Slide 5:
Over the past decades, Lebanon has been affected by several migration waves. It is estimated that the country hosts around 6 million people, including around 1.5 million Syrian refugees and over 200,000 Palestine refugees, along with other migrant groups. The country has the highest number of displaced people per capita in the world: around 1 in 4.

Slide 6:
Lebanon is a highly urbanized country, and its urban population has increased over the years due to a number of factors, including rural-urban migration and the influx of refugees and other migrants that I mentioned before.

Within this context, public spaces are decreasing and poorly managed across the country, due to the 15-year civil war, private and uncontrolled development, the lack of proper urban planning rules and regulations, and the increase of people living in cities.

It has been increasingly difficult to respond effectively to these issues because of the multiple crises the country has been going through, especially the ongoing acute economic crisis, as well as the limited capacity of local authorities to address these challenges. This situation has contributed to increased tensions between host and refugee communities, among other challenges.

Small towns close to the country’s borders are particularly prone to these challenges, as they have received a huge influx of Syrian refugees in recent years. Through this public space project, UN-Habitat is targeting two such towns in Lebanon, Abdeh in the North and Bar Elias in the East.

Slide 7:
I will zoom into Bar Elias, the town I come from. Located in the Bekaa Governorate, Bar Elias is home to the largest concentration of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, where Syrians and Palestinians together make up 60 per cent of the governorate’s total population.

The majority of refugees live in makeshift tents or in poor and overcrowded urban areas, and they suffer from lack of job opportunities, as well as educational and social exclusion.

Slide 8:
As you can see in the pictures, public spaces in Bar Elias have taken many forms. Some of them have occasionally been used to host events for the entire community, bringing together the different community groups. However, there are still multiple challenges related to public spaces, including the lack of maintenance and management, the poor safety and security measures, the lack of inclusivity for different community groups, the weak accessibility and connectivity, and even pollution.

To help address these challenges, UN-Habitat’s approach in this project is to carry out capacity-building workshops for local authorities and community representatives on safe, inclusive and resilient public space planning and design, and to engage the community using participatory approaches for assessing and designing public spaces. The project will also involve the community in developing a strategy that can provide a clearer vison of the integrated network of public spaces within the city. As a community representative, I believe this approach will help enhance community relations, including host-refugee ones, in turn strengthening urban resilience.

Slide 9:
In line with this participatory approach, UN-Habitat has recently set up a local committee in each of the two targeted areas in Lebanon to support the different phases of the project implementation. I have the pleasure to be a member of the Bar Elias committee.

This local committee:
• will provide advice through participatory processes;
• will participate in the public space assessment, planning and design processes using UN-Habitat’s methodology and tools;
• will ensure the collaboration and coordination among the different stakeholders; and
• will support in community mobilization and participation to enhance the inclusivity of public spaces, including from the perspective of the social and economic inclusion of refugees.

Slide 10:
Thank you for your attention.