Berlin/Mannheim.
It is the greatest challenge facing cities since the end of the Second World War: the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and other regions afflicted by civil war. The city of Mannheim in the state of Baden-Württemberg is currently home to approximately 11,000 refugees, who have been given accommodation in several barracks formerly used by the US Army. This is making severe demands on the resources of the local authorities – financially, logistically, and socially. “The real challenge, however, still lies before us,” says the Lord Mayor of the city, Dr. Peter Kurz, going on to state, “a large proportion of today’s refugees will be the fellow citizens of tomorrow. The success of the processes to integrate these people will have a decisive impact on the social and economic future of our cities.”
Finding ways to help these processes to succeed – this is the agenda of the international Urban Thinkers Campus “Urban Citizenship in a Nomadic World” in the context of the partnership with the World Urban Campaign of the UN-Habitat initiative, the programme run by the United Nations for the future development of human settlements. The thematic focus of the conference, which will be held in Mannheim from 17 thru 19 February, will be on the current international migration situation and its impact on life in cities. The Mannheim Urban Thinkers Campus is one of a total of 28 events being held worldwide to establish a common contribution of non-governmental partners for the Habitat III Conference of the United Nations. It will be the only such congress on this issue to take place in Germany, alongside six others – in Paris, Stockholm, Barcelona, Geneva, Alghero, and Palermo – in Europe. The elaboration of a common position on “The City We Need” – a document that describes the city of the future – will form the basis for the presentation of the results of the Mannheim event for direct integration into the “New Urban Agenda” of the United Nations. Starting in October 2016, this New Urban Agenda will serve as a political guideline for the development of urban settlements over the coming twenty years. The Mannheim congress will focus in depth on the specific challenges and consequences of the refugee situation, culminating in the elaboration of guidelines for the ways how cities shall deal with refugees in the future.
The Urban Thinkers Campuses are based on an initiative of the UN-Habitat programme. UN-Habitat pursues the aim of promoting sustainable urban development. The Urban Thinkers Campuses serve as open venues for the innovative exchange of ideas and experiences among urban actors, providing input for ongoing social development. The events themselves deal with the challenges of urban life today and in the future, developing solution models that can be globally translated to other cities. The central assignment of each Urban Thinkers Campus is to advance and further develop the position paper titled “The City We Need”, which sets forth nine aspects to define the most important criteria for sustainable life in urban spaces.
Some 450 participants are expected to attend the congress in Mannheim, which looks forward to playing host to some of the most important urban planners of our time. Keynote speakers will include Benjamin Barber, formerly an advisor to the Ex-President of the United States, Bill Clinton; Charles Landry, a leading urban planner and inventor of the “Creative Cities” concept; and Ana Lisa Boni, Secretary General of EUROCITIES. As a measure to ensure that the refugees are not only the subject of the discussions but instead also actively shape them, it is also planned to organize a refugee parliament that will actively participate in tackling the current migration issues and concepts for the future. Christine Auclair, Coordinator of the World Urban Campaign for UN-Habitat, hopes that the Mannheim congress will provide additional impulses for the “New Urban Agenda” of the United Nations, which is scheduled to be passed in Quito/Ecuador in October 2016. Together with the Urban Thinkers Campus in Alghero, Italy from 18-20 February, Mannheim is the last stage of the path to the Quito conference, which is why such particular importance is attached to the congress by the United Nations.
MEDIA CONTACT
Dr. Stephan Wolf
Stadtmarketing Mannheim GmbH
+49 (0) 621 / 15667322
+49 (0) 160 / 90923822
s.wolf@stadtmarketing-mannheim.de
E 4, 6 | 68159 Mannheim
Urban Thinkers Campus,, Mannheim
The Urban Thinkers Campuses are based on an initiative of the UN-Habitat programme. UN-Habitat pursues the aim of promoting sustainable urban development. The Urban Thinkers Campuses serve as open venues for the innovative exchange of ideas and experiences among urban actors, providing input for ongoing social development. The Urban Thinkers Campus in Mannheim to take place from 17 thru 19 February 2016 is sponsored by the companies BASF, Fuchs Petrolub, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the “Communities in One World” Service Agency.
