UN-Habitat WUF (12th) - Session "Spatial Co-Visioning and Stakeholder Engagement in the Urban-Rural Interface"

It was my pleasure to participate in the Urban-Rural Assembly project's training session "Spatial Co-Visioning and Stakeholder Engagement in the Urban-Rural Interface: Methods, Tools, and Processes" (06 November 2024) during the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum (12th version) in Cairo. The training session is part of the Urban-Rural Assembly project, collaborating with the Towards Green(er) Egyptian Cities project and the UN-Habitat Urban Policy Platform.

This event aimed to provide a practical co-visioning approach that engages diverse stakeholders - including policymakers, academics, planners, and civil society initiatives - toward the sustainable transformation of urban-rural regions. I gained valuable insights into the methodology and participated in a simulated interactive workshop setting facilitated by expert trainers.

The session's objectives included understanding procedures, methods, and tools for collaborative spatial visioning; applying selected interactive tools in multi-stakeholder workshops; and familiarizing participants with strategies for the green transformation of urban-rural regions. Additionally, attendees will gain insights into best practice co-visioning processes and explore approaches to multi-stakeholder engagement, thereby expanding their expertise on the relationship between urban and rural areas. The Urban-Rural Assembly team looks forward to engaging with international experts and participants, inviting everyone to this format that approaches a resilient and inclusive urban-rural interface.

Our fourth group was facilitated by Parisa Kloss (Resilient Urban Planning and Development (RUPD) and Tino Imsirovic (Bauhaus Earth).

Step 1: Identifying Local Urban-Rural Linkages in the Giza-Qaliubya area. These were then clustered to select three particularly relevant linkages for the following steps. The identified linkages included water supply and irrigation, housing and land use, mobility, connectivity and transport, food supply, and social services.

Step 2: Mapping Spaces, Actors, Flows, Relations, infrastructures and actors associated with the rural-urban linkages. This enabled participants to visualize the rural-urban linkages and identify interrelationships.

Step 3: Defining Urban-Rural Development Goals .. local sustainability goals were defined for the selected rural-urban linkages. These goals were derived from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which the participants of the World Urban Forum were already familiar with.

Step 4: Discussing Strategies and Actions to help achieve the formulated sustainability goals were discussed. After the training sessions, facilitators and participants presented the results of their groups.