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Gwangju’s Human Rights Forum Co-organized by UCLG Contributed by the UCLG-CSIPDHR Secretariat
FEATURE
T
he UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy, and Human Rights (UCLG-CSIPDHR) is a global platform to advance local government networking on human rights and the right to the city. It has been a proud co-organizer of Gwangju’s World Human Rights Cities Forum (WHRCF) throughout almost all of the Forum’s ten editions. This partnership made it possible to connect the meaningful discussions held in Gwangju’s Forum to the global movement of human rights cities as well as to the work plan of the world organization of local and regional governments: United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). This article aims to inform the Gwangju News’ audience on the work of this historical partner of the WHRCF and the city of Gwangju (indeed, its metropolitan government
is one of the Committee’s co-chairs and a leading city for its human rights agenda and action plan). To this aim, the article summarizes the UCLG-CSIPDHR’s background and current priorities, and what makes its action plan quite unique: its thematic focus and diverse environment of partners.
Two decades promoting transformative local and global agendas
The origins of the UCLG-CSIPDHR can be traced to the early 2000s, within the framework of various city networking initiatives launched during the World Social Forums (WSF) held in Brazil. This initial group of cities, known as FAL (Forum of Local Authorities), was created with a view to foster debates on social inclusion and participatory democracy policies with global civil society in the context of the WSF process – a landmark in the
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2020
▼ The UCLG-CSIPDHR Executive Secretariat team with partners from the GPR2C Platform (Bangalore, 2020).
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