Cities Alliance Annual Report 2018

Promoting the
Urban Crisis
Response was by
itself a new concept
that provoked a rich
debate on targeting
mechanisms in
cities and the need
to apply innovative
approaches.
Tarek,
Project Manager for
the Migration
Impact Profiling for
Lebanese Cities project
Through UN-Habitat, city profiles for Beirut, Saida, Tripoli, and Tyre provided spatial
information on crisis impact across sectors and identified specific neighbourhoods
in need of support. This information is being compiled into a State of Lebanese
Cities Report, which will provide valuable analysis for the government, humanitarian
actors and other stakeholders in prioritising and better coordinating their efforts.
The data is updated frequently and will provided the basis for city strategies.
Sanctuary in the City: Beirut
The influx of Syrian refugees since 2011 has had significant demographic,
economic, security and political implications for Lebanon’s cities. Limited data on
the location of refugees within cities has made it difficult to formulate a coherent
response to the crisis.
The project explored, documented and analysed the experiences, challenges
and priorities of refugees and municipalities coping with the displacement crisis
in Greater Beirut. Syrian refugees are now spread all around the six governorates
of Lebanon in 980 localities. Despite the initial positive humanitarian posture of
the Lebanese authorities, municipalities and local authorities in Greater Beirut
do not share a common policy toward the Syrian residents. Some have attributed
differences in dealing with the crisis and the newly arrived Syrian inhabitants in front
of the country’s diverse political affiliations.
The project was managed by the Habitat International Coalition and the Amal
Association, with support from UCLG’s Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory
Democracy and Human Rights. It engaged civil society partners to apply human
rights criteria in the urban context, drawing on the experiences of other selfacclaimed
human rights cities.
The project was
the first organised
effort to introduce
the ‘right to the city,’
the ‘human rights
city’ and related
concepts in the
Middle East/North
Africa region. It
produced the first
right-to-the-city
charter in
the region.
- Joseph,
Project Manager
for the Sanctuary in
the City project
Through workshops, focus groups,
consultations, interviews, institutional
mapping and an extensive literature
review, the project partners produced
two outcome documents as a basis for
further efforts to advocate participatory
local governance. The first is a model
charter, titled The Right to the City
Charter of Greater Beirut. 2
The second is a report on The Right
to the City in Greater Beirut, 3 a
corresponding context assessment
of current migration and governance
challenges and actionable human
rights-based recommendations. The
report concludes with a comprehensive
set of recommendations made to the
local governments of Greater Beirut,
the national government, civil society
organisations, private sector, and the
international community.
2
The Beirut Charter on the Right to the City is accessible at https://www.hlrn.org/img/documents/Beirut_
Charter_FINAL_EN.pdf
3
The The Right to the City in Greater Beirut is accessible at http://www.hlrn.org/img/publications/
Assessment_FINAL_EN_web.pdf
26 Cities Alliance