Greece, 28 March 2008 – Athens hosted the 6th forum of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, from 26-28 March 2008, coinciding with the 2500th anniversary of the birth of Athenian democracy. More than 1000 representatives of municipal authorities from across the world joined UN agencies, non-governmental groups and experts to discuss how local democracy can help reduce poverty and to adopt concrete measures to turn their words into actions.
See the Roadmap of commitments adopted by mayors across the world.
The President of Greece, Karolos Papoulias, launched the conference with a stark reminder of the scale and persistence of poverty across the world:
“Walking through any major city today, one quickly realizes that beyond the shop windows on the major commercial thoroughfares, which reflect wealth, another world exists. It is the world of the socially excluded and marginalized, the victims of flexible labour relations, unregistered migrant workers, unemployed youth, low-income pensioners and the uninsured. A world of desolation, desperation and darkness: the world of poverty.
“A large proportion of humanity, whose number exceeds 1.3 billion, lives in absolute poverty and faces deprivation on a daily basis … while 850 million people throughout the world are illiterate … Hunger and malnutrition, long-term poverty and the degradation of millions of people constitute an insult for humanity and a conspicuous violation of basic human rights.”
The World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, WACAP, is a network set up by UNDP to help cities face the challenge. This meeting is a response by UNDP to the call of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to intensify efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The coordinator of WACAP, Mohand Cherifi, explained that the theme of local democracy came out of reflection on previous Forums:
“We reached the conclusion that, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we would have to address the causes of social regression via the participation of populations and competent agencies. [While progress toward MDGs has been made] delays are occurring which, in part, are due to the lack of democracy in the evaluation of needs, distribution of resources and administration of programmes and works.”
These Forums, held every two years, allow a structured sharing of experiences between cities to improve their abilities to reduce poverty. One concrete outcome of the meeting in Athens will be the adoption of local ‘roadmaps’ with quantified, time-bound targets on many facets of poverty. In line with MDG 8 – building a global partnership for development – richer cities will commit to city-to-city cooperation.
As was stated by the mayor of Athens, Nikitas Kaklamanis:
“If we – the international community – turn a blind eye to obvious problems, this cannot be considered a high level of civic-mindedness. And today, we can no longer feign ignorance. Because we know very well that next to the world of progress, development and affluence, there exists a world which is almost totally unprotected and trapped in a deadlock. It is a world of intolerance, poverty and misery. And in a society of abundance, this makes us all a great deal poorer.”
Attendees included over 1000 individuals from the municipal authorities of 300 cities in 100 countries, alongside UN institutions such as UNDP, UN Habitat, UNCDF, UNESCO, FAO, UNEP, ILO, WHO, UNITAR, the World Bank, and other major development institutions. The Millennium Campaign was present, as was the Millennium Cities Initiative of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. The main global and regional associations of municipalities were present (CGLU, Metropolis, Eurocities, CCRE, the Commonwealth association of local authorities), as were a number of national associations (ANCI, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities, AIMF, Cités Unies France, associations from Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Greece, Mali, Niger, Serbia, Sweden).
For more information, including a programme, see the conference site.
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