A city safe for women is safe for all: Women’s voices lead at World Urban Forum in Cairo

As the twelfth edition of the Forum (WUF12) continued in the Egyptian capital, speakers at a Women’s Roundtable weighed in on issues such as finance, housing, and exploring ways to ensure adequate housing and build partnerships for empowering women at the local level.

These themes were viewed through the lens of the Beijing Platform for Action, the landmark global agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment adopted in 1995 by United Nations Member States, and whose aims echo some of the key issues before this year’s Forum, including women and poverty and women and environment.

‘It all starts at home’

Speaking to UN News after she addressed the roundtable, Maimuna Mohd Sharif, Mayor of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia’s Special Envoy for Sustainable Urbanization, said that while women constitute 50 per cent of the world’s population, “we are not at the table in decision-making” even regarding issues like climate change which hit them the hardest

“[Yet] the role of women is very important when we start ‘at home and localization,’ to address their needs…leaders at all levels should sincerely involve women in decision-making,” stated Ms. Sharif, who is also a former head of UN-Habitat, the agency that convenes the biennial Forum.

‘Software and hardware’

Ms. Sharif went on to stress the need to adopt a holistic approach to society to fulfill the goal “of leaving no one behind and no place behind.”

There are two things involved in supporting women’s participation, she said: “the software and the hardware.”

The “software” in this context is moral support, which could open “accessibility for women to education, to public services, to employment, and then for…housing,” she added.

As for “hardware”, Ms. Sharif referred to governance and decision-making in Kuala Lumpur and wider Malaysia, which included not only women’s participation in strategies but in actual policymaking.

‘Women can lead’

Sarah Syed, a 20-year-old climate justice activist from Toronto, Canada, told UN News she believed that so far, WUF12 “is [off to a] strong start.”

Ms. Syed, who was rushing between panel discussions, and is part of the UN-Habitat Youth Advisory Board.

“We should keep up this momentum moving forward and ensure that, towards the end of the World Urban Forum, we have a solid idea of how to engage young people,” Sarah added.

She stressed that, “we need to invest in young girls’ education, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math. We need to invest in young girls and women's startups as well as businesses and entrepreneurship, ensuring they have the funding and accessible funding to scale their own ideas.”

Leadership is key too, continued Ms. Syed, who stressed that women should be able to lead within their indigenous communities, local governments, and on urban planning councils.

“Women…have the ability to lead,” she stated.

Safe spaces in Afghanistan

Wednesday’s Roundtable considered the opportunities and challenges facing women in cities and towns, with a focus on local-level action.

According to Stephanie Loose, Country Program Manager, UN-Habitat Afghanistan Country Office, the discussion highlighted strategies for enhancing women’s access to essential services, which can have a huge impact on their lives.

“It’s very important to make sure that women can still have some public spaces, but it's also specifically important that their access to adequate housing is ensured, because if you spend a lot of time at home, that is one of the things where you need to feel secure, where you need to feel safe,” Ms. Loose told UN News.

She spoke specifically about UN-Habitat's work on the ground in Afghanistan, where the authorities have issued laws excluding women from public life.

Ms. Loose highlighted the agency’s work with the communities, which included “having consultations to see what is actually possible and how we can create spaces that are accepted culturally in the current environment, but which also provide a space where women can still meet.”

Such spaces can be public, specifically created to ensure that women can still meet outside and have some way to leave the house.

Ms. Loose gave an example of how UN-Habitat worked closely with the communities on a public space project in one of the informal settlements in the capital, Kabul.

The settlement is informal and located on a very steep hillside. It’s not planned, so there is no access road and no considerations for disaster risk resilience.

She added that UN-Habitat worked closely with the community leaders and, in consultation with both men and women, “to decide what could be done to create a public space that is gender-sensitive and allows women to also use this space”.

She further noted: “There have also been arrangements with the authorities for special settings and timelines where women can use the space.”

‘Zero waste’ cities

Some of the other key issues being raised by the participants are empowerment, equal opportunities and inclusion, according to Ghanaian-born Betty Osei Bonsu, the Country Manager of Green Africa Youth Organization in Uganda.

She told UN News that her organization's project is centered on three key areas: climate change, disaster risk reduction, and circular economy.

We came to promote our greatest project, the Zero Waste Cities project,” she stated enthusiastically.

Empowering women and girls is crucial to their work, and one example is a project to enable women and girls in mining areas to grow mushrooms and use cocoa husks to produce soap locally.

They also empower women and girls through beehive farming and by delivering locally green manufactured products.

“We empowered more than 120 women and young people within these communities to convert this waste to resources. They were able to generate revenues for themselves,” Ms. Bonsu added.

She believes “resilience is female because women are at the forefront of issues.”

The Forum will continue until Friday, 8 November. UN News is on location in Cairo covering all the action.