Planning Workshop on the Coalition of Arab Cities against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance
UNESCO, in partnership with the Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR),heldfrom April 06 to April 07, 2017 in Tunis, a planning workshop for the Coalition of Arab Cities against Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia.
The workshop was attended by UCLGAfrica, representedby the Director of the African Local Government Academy (ALGA), Dr Najat Zarrouk.
The Coalition of Arab Cities, whichwas founded andofficiallylaunchedon June 25, 2008in Casablanca (Morocco),has 19 member cities,buthas so far struggled to take off because of the profound changes experienced bythe Region (Arab Spring in particular).
The goal of the Tunis workshop wastorevitalize the Coalition and the theme adopted for that purpose was: “In the Face of Social Transformations: Inclusive and Sustainable Cities“.
- brainstormed and madethe following recommendations :
1- A call for expressions of interest for the City wishing to be the Lead City of the Coalition was launched with a deadline which is May 31, 2017, being underlined the fact that the cities of Essaouira (Morocco), Saida (Tunisia) and Nouakchott (Mauritania) expressed their interest in this direction ;
2- The participants agreed on a short-term action by April 2018 on three priorities, namely :
a) The conducting of;
b) The establishment of a database of members of the Arab;
c) The organization of information and awareness-raising activities.
3- The discussion and validation of the terms of reference of the Lead City of the Coalition of Arab Cities ;
4- The drafting and validation of a Tunis Declaration.
5- The Tunis Declaration states that training and capacity-building activities will be carried out by IADH and UCLG Africa among other Organizations ;
6- Proposal forthe organization of a Joint Congress of the Coalition of Arab Cities and African Cities by the end of 2017or early 2018.
The full report is available in French.