primary management team
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aims
The Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) programme would like to share 4 years of research and capacity building in a conference that will run from Monday 7 – Thursday 10 February 2022.
The main aims of the KNOW Conference are to share the key findings that contribute to:
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shaping action pathways to urban equality at local, national and international scales;
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addressing theories and practices related to the cross-cutting challenges of resilience, prosperity and extreme poverty, and their relationship to urban equality;
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promoting the co-production of knowledge and the related ‘ethics of practice’ in applied research and capacity building across local and global agendas and collectively planned initiatives that seek to address urban equality.
Drawn from and across 12 cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the key findings will be presented for comment and discussion through 8 online webinars.
structure
Monday 07 – Thursday 10 February 2022
07 February 2022
12:00-13:30 GMT
Details & recording
Opening Plenary
The urban
equality agenda
07 February 2022
14:00-15:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 1
Exercising the right to housing,
water and sanitation
08 February 2022
12:00-13:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 2
Re-imagining
urban livelihoods
08 February 2022
14:00-15:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 3
Reframing multi-hazard risk
and local capacities for action
09 February 2022
12:00-13:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 4
Strengthening transformative urban governance
09 February 2022
14:00-15:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 5
Practicing ethics and critical
pedagogies for epistemic justice
10 February 2022
12:00-13:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 6
Actioning knowledge co-production
methodologies for urban equality
10 February 2022
14:00-15:30 GMT
Details & recording
Theme 7 & Final Plenary
Shaping pathways
to urban equality
opening plenary
The urban equality agenda
Time & Date
07 February 2022
12:00 – 13:30 GMT
Chair
Prof Sue Parnell
Chair in Human Geography, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Welcome
Prof Michael Walls
Professor of Development Politics and Economy and Director, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), UCL
Overview
This Opening Plenary will explore the definition and significance of the urban equality agenda, and what it is required to address this vision for cities and urban areas in the future.
The session examines the tensions between and within context-specific and universal definitions and practices of urban equality, and the local and global agendas that promote it. Drawing on the experience of the KNOW programme, it also explores the critical linkages between urban equality and the other global challenges of our time like the pandemic and climate change.
The sessions argues that urban equality is an urgent and essential vision for the future development and planning of cities and urban areas. Focusing on the leadership and networks of cities and local governments, the session proposes a way forward to address this aspiration and shape pathways to urban equality. This opening session frames the future of urban equality as a bold, radical and political agenda for collective action.
Keynotes
Prof Caren Levy
The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), UCL, & Principal Investigator, KNOW
Emilia Saiz Carrancedo
Secretary General, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)
Watch now
Theme 1
Exercising the right to housing,
water and sanitation
Time & Date
07 February 2022
14:00 – 15:30 GMT
Chair
Dr Catalina Ortiz
Associate Professor, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL
Commentators
Prof Daniel Inkoom
Professor, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Ruth McLeod
Senior Teaching Fellow, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL
Overview
Access to adequate shelter – that is “…adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate lighting and ventilation, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location with regard to work and basic facilities - all at a reasonable cost” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, adopted on 13 December 1991), researched, planned, designed, and delivered through co-produced methodologies with communities, local and national government, and academia.
This theme focuses on urban inequality in relation to housing, infrastructure and basic service provision across selected KNOW cities. While context specific in its manifestations, the theme also argues for co-produced methodologies between communities, the public sector, relevant private sector actors, and academia/research organisations related to research, policy and planning action that will contribute to more equal living conditions in urban areas. This theme not only talks to priorities in KNOW cities, but also to global targets in the SDG and NUA. In this sense, the theme is not a new topic. However, following the principle of epistemic justice, the way in which knowledge is co-produced and translated into practice offers new insights into the significance of these rights and into innovative approaches to an urban practice that shapes pathways to urban equality.
Watch now
Presentations
The ‘slow anatomy of change’: Urban knowledge trajectories towards an inclusive settlement upgrading agenda in Freetown
Dr Joseph Macarthy (Sierra Leone Research Centre - SLURC), Braima Koroma (SLURC), Dr Stephanie Butcher (Melbourne Centre for Cities, The University of Melbourne), Dr Camila Cociña (DPU, UCL), and Dr Alexandre Apsan Frediani (IIED)
Housing + : Tracing a community-led pathway to urban equality in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand
Dr Supreeya Wungpatcharapon (Kasetsart University) and Dr Barbara Lipietz (DPU, UCL)
Sanitation (in)equalities in Dar es Salaam: Simplified sewerage systems as an infrastructural proposition
Dr Christopher Yap (City University), Prof Colin McFarlane (Durham University), Tim Ndezi (Centre for Community Initiatives, Tanzania - CCI), and Festo D Makoba (CCI)
Collective infrastructures of care: Ollas Comunes defying food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Belén Desmaison, Lia Alarcón, Paola Córdova, Luciana Gallardo, and Kelly Jaime, (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru - PUCP)
This theme was followed by a launch of the GOLD VI Working Paper series
Theme 2
Re-imagining
urban livelihoods
Time & Date
08 February 2022
12:00 – 13:30 GMT
Chair
Prof Henrietta Moore
Chair in Culture Philosophy and Design and Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP), UCL
Commentators
Prof Alison Brown
Professor of Urban Planning & International Development
School of Geography & Planning, Cardiff University
Dr Anastasia Mirzoyants
Head of Knowledge &
Learning at Shujaaz
Overview
Re-imagining urban livelihoods through community-led research and capacity building on prosperity and collective enterprise development.
As an extension of the unequal distribution of material living conditions in urban areas, this theme focuses specifically on urban livelihoods. It seeks to shift the traditional economic focus in four ways: first by arguing for a shift from traditional economic definitions to a broader notion of prosperity as flourishing; second, by exploring the collective development and potential of social enterprises, linked to emerging urban sectors and/or addressing pressing urban problems; third, by exploring the potential of social enterprises based on recycling; and finally, by proposing alternative methodologies for co-producing knowledge and practice in across the previous sub-themes.
Watch now
Presentations
Transformative Pathways to Equality: Women’s Experiences in Participatory Upgrading of Basic Infrastructure in Informal Settlements
Dr Tatu Mtwangi-Limbumba, (Ardhi University)
Livelihood security as the foundation of prosperity: lessons from community-led research in Dar es Salaam
Dr Saffron Woodcraft, (IGP, UCL), Festo D Makoba, (CCI Tanzania)
‘Citizenship collaborations for long term urban sustainability: Lessons from Kampala KNOW’
Hafisa Namuli (Makerere University, Kampala)
Danang fishing villages: Preserving cultural heritages to improve livelihood in response to rapid urbanisation
Phan Trần Kiều Trang (Da Nang Architecture University)
Theme 3
Reframing multi-hazard risk
and local capacities for action
Time & Date
08 February 2022
14:00 – 15:30 GMT
Overview
Reframing multi-hazard risk and local capacities for action through knowledge co-production addressing vulnerability, resilience and climate adaptation, and inequality.
This theme focuses on multi-hazard urban risk and makes the argument that without the reframing of the understandings of risk and resilience generated through knowledge co-produced methodologies, socio-economic and political vulnerabilities and inequalities will be increased in urban areas, and the challenge of climate adaptation will not be addressed. This theme not only talks to learning across KNOW cities and regions, but also to global targets such as in the SDG, NUA, COP and the Sendai Framework.
Chair
Prof Cassidy Johnson
The Bartlett Development Unit, UCL
Commentators
Andrew Maskrey
Former Head of Knowledge Management at UNDRR
Dr Mtafu Manda
Associate Professor, Mzuzu University, Malawi
Watch now
Presentations
Urban disaster risk, resilience and inequality: evidence from three LAC cities, informed by experiences with the COVID 19 pandemic
Allan Lavell (FLACSO Costa Rica), in collaboration with: Marina Martinez and Celene Milanes (University of the Coast, Barranquilla, Colombia), Angel Chavez (GRACC consultants, Lima, Peru), and Gustavo Jimenez (FLACSO Costa Rica)
Co-producing knowledge to address disaster risks in informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: trajectories toward urban equality
Prof Cassidy Johnson (DPU, UCL), Dr Emmanuel Osuteye (DPU, UCL), Tim Ndezi (CCI) & Festo D Makoba (CCI)
Co-producing integrative risk governance in rapidly growing urban Africa: lessons from informal settlements in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Dr Emmanuel Osuteye (DPU, UCL), Prof Cassidy Johnson (DPU, UCL), Braima Koroma and Dr Joseph Macarthy (SLURC)
Understanding the impact of shocks, poverty and inequality in Kampala
Judith Mbabazi (Urban Action Lab Makerere University)
Theme 4
Strengthening transformative urban governance
Time & Date
09 February 2022
12:00 – 13:30 GMT
Chair
Dr Barbara Lipietz
Associate Professor The Bartlett Development Unit, UCL
Commentator
Iromi Perera
Director, Colombo
Urban Lab
Prof Oren Yiftachel
Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Chair of Urban Studies, Geography Dept. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba & UCL (Hon.)
Overview
Strengthening urban governance through the co-construction of urban networks and urban platforms to strengthen institutional capabilities, bi-lateral aid and policy and plan-making in governance pathways to urban equality.
The emphasis of this theme is on urban governance, exploring ways that urban governance institutions can be reframed and extended through the creation of new institutional structures, supported by policy and plan-making that ensure active community engagement with local and central government actors. This includes a critique and reformulation of traditional instruments and funding processes in urban governance. This theme will also talk to the SDGs, the NUA, the UCLG Pact for the Future and other global agendas.
Watch now
Presentations
Making room to manoeuvre at the municipal level: Planning and quest for urban equality and prosperity in Havana
Prof Jorge Peña Díaz, Dr Joiselen Cazanave Macías, Ángel Junior Santana Caraballo, Dachelis Dobal Fonseca, Dayané Proenza, Adrian González González (Polytechnic José Antonio Echeverría, - CUJAE)
Exploring the make-up of local resources for partnerships in urban governance
Prof Wilbard Kombe, Prof Alphonce Kyessi, Dr Tatu Mtwangi Limbumba (Ardhi University)
Learning for and from participation: Reflections from engaging with citizens on Master Plans in India
Geetika Anand, Ruchika Lall, Rashee Mehra, (Indian Institute for Human Settlements - IIHS)
Assessing the impact of UK aid on the governance and planning of urban development: a historical perspective
Dr Christopher Yap (City University), Prof Colin Marx (DPU, UCL), and Prof Caren Levy (DPU, UCL)
Theme 5
Practising ethics and critical pedagogies for epistemic justice
Time & Date
09 February 2022
14:00 – 15:30 GMT
Chair
Prof Adriana Allen
Professor of Development Planning and Urban Sustainability, Bartlett DPU, UCL
Commentators
Henrique Frota
Executive Director of Pólis Institute
Dr Rachel Tolhurst
Research Director of the ARISE Hub, LSTM
Dr Surekha Garimella
The George Institute for Global Health
Overview
Practicing a situated ethics approach that supports knowledge co-production and the recognition and strengthening of diverse urban practitioners and their knowledges through co-learning processes to advance epistemic justice.
The focus of this theme is on advancing epistemic justice through situated ethics of care and reflexivity, and critical urban pedagogies. This theme is predicated on deconstructing the multifaceted relations between planning pedagogies, ethics and urban equality, and recognising their capacities to contest, or reproduce, epistemic injustices.
The theme postulates that ethical tensions occur through the relational processes encountered in the enactment of knowledge co-production. Rather than focusing on institutional ethics as a reference point, practicing ethics is a living process of intersubjective exchanges, in which relational and potentially transformational processes can allow for recognition and respect for culturally different knowledges and value systems.
As urban practitioners and urban practices straddle civil society, the public and the private sectors, and academia, the theme also highlights the need to recognise the myriad formal and informal learning processes that mark the trajectories of city-makers. Making visible, consolidating and expanding the power of existing critical pedagogies that generate pathways to epistemic justice is therefore fundamental for strengthening emancipatory capacities for strategic urban practice.
Watch now
Presentations
Part 1 - Activating/building the agency of urban practitioners
Alumni experiences in Planning Education and Beyond: Making sense of the ideals of Equality/Equity
Vikas John and Priya Singh, (The Indian Institute for Human Settlements - IIHS)
Practising Ethics: Knowledge, Reflection, and Action
Winner of the RIBA President’s Awards for Research
Prof Jane Rendell and Dr Yael Padan (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL)
Part 2 - Crafting collective institutional pathways
One amongst many: Higher education institutions in an ecosystem of urban knowledges
Geetika Anand (IIHS), Ruchika Lall (IIHS), Dr Julia Wesely (DPU, UCL) and Prof Adriana Allen (DPU, UCL)
Know-Mobilise-Claim-Change: Crafting urban equality through emancipatory pedagogies
Prof Adriana Allen and Dr Julia Wesely (DPU, UCL) in collaboration with Mariana Enet (Independent Advisor), Rosario Fassina (ACIJ), Rodrigo Faria G. Iacovini (Instituto POLIS), Graciela Medina (Instituto POLIS), Florencia Brandolini (CISCSA), Bahía Flores Pacheco (CISCSA), Silsa Pineda (FUNDASAL), Luz Amparo Sánchez Medina (Corporación Región), Alejandro Muniz (FUCVAM), Juan Xavier (FUCVAM)
Theme 6
Actioning knowledge co-production methodologies for urban equality
Time & Date
10 February 2022
12:00 – 13:30 GMT
Chair
Prof Vanesa Castán Broto,
Urban Institute, University of Sheffield
Commentators
Dr Philipp Horn
Senior Lecturer, Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield
Prof Zarina Patel
Associate Professor, Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town
Overview
Critically exploring the range of co-production methodologies and the opportunities they create for widening the room for manoeuvre for shaping pathways to urban equality.
Focusing on the linkages between the deployment of co-production methodologies and the goal of delivering urban equality, this theme reflects on the diversity of co-production methodologies deployed during KNOW and their adaptability to different contexts of action. In particular, the role that actors in different institutional positions play in delivering co-production is explored, whether from communities, the private sector, different levels of government, the charity sector, or academia.
The diverse experiences of co-production methodologies in KNOW suggest that there are significant barriers to challenge the structural drivers of urban inequality, including the divergent agendas between communities and the public sector and the impact of political economy processes on urban life. The potential of co-production methodologies lies in the extent to which they challenge existing processes of urban governance, and foreground communities’ interests and points of view. In doing so, co-production methodologies challenge the deficit of credibility faced by disadvantaged communities, what philosopher Miranda Fricker has called ‘epistemic injustice.’ In this vein, this theme explores the potential for co-production methodologies to advance urban dwellers’ interests, and, in doing so, challenge the structural drivers of urban inequality.
The recording from this session will be available soon
Presentations
Part 1 - Introduction
An overview of co-production methodologies in the project KNOW
Prof Vanesa Castán Broto (Urban Institute, University of Sheffield)
Part 2 - KNOW Practice
How co-production impacts on the trajectories to urban equality: Lessons from Dar es Salaam
Prof Wilbard Kombe, Prof Alphonce Kyessi, and Dr Tatu Mtwangi Limbumba (Ardhi University)
Activating the community for the provision of urban services in Dar es Salaam
Tim Ndezi (CCI)
Theme 7
& final plenary
pathways to urban equality
Time & Date
10 February 2022
14:00 – 15:30 GMT
Facilitators
Dr Alexandre Apsan Frediani, Principal researcher, Human Settlements, The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Dr Camila Cociña, Research Fellow, DPU, UCL
Overview
Urgent action to shape pathways to urban equality: galvanising institutional capacities to
re-construct policy, planning and design processes.
This theme focused on shaping pathways to urban equality, exploring the emerging lessons from its collective construction across the KNOW programme. In so doing, it explores alternative ways of ‘doing’ policy, planning and design practice in the context of a transformative approach to urban governance.
This will be an interactive session across the KNOW Conference themes, which will include an introduction to the notions of pathways and institutional frameworks, and group discussions to identify collective lessons and challenges to build pathways to urban equality.
Watch now
Presentations
Part 1 - Introduction
What are pathways? An introduction
Dr Alexandre Apsan Frediani (IIED) and Dr Camila Cociña (DPU, UCL)
Introduction to institutional framework
Prof Caren Levy (DPU, UCL)
Part 2 - Group discussion
How to create enabling environments for advancing urban equality pathways? Lessons, challenges and limitations
Group discussion facilitated by Prof Colin Marx (DPU, UCL), Prof Colin McFarlane (Durham University), Dr Alexandre Apsan Frediani (IIED) and Dr Camila Cociña (DPU, UCL)
Part 3 - Sharing lessons and closing remarks
Conference close
Facilitated by Prof Caren Levy (DPU, UCL)
launch
GOLD VI Working Paper Series: Pathways to Urban and Territorial Equality
Time & Date
07 February
15:45 – 16:30 GMT
Overview
Join members of the GOLD VI Steering Committee and contributors, to discuss the process behind the next GOLD Report, and celebrate the launch of the second batch of the GOLD VI Working Paper Series
The sixth edition of the GOLD report, “Pathways to Urban and Territorial Equality: Addressing inequalities through local transformation strategies” (October 2022), is being produced by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and part of the KNOW team.
The GOLD VI report has been produced through a large-scale international co-production process, bringing together over a hundred representatives of local and regional governments, academics and civil society organisations. In this event, we will launch the first 13 documents of the GOLD VI Working Paper Series, as a first outcome of this process. The launch will include short presentations and discussions from the UCLG and KNOW teams, as well as responses from participants of the GOLD process.
Chairs
Dr Alexandre Apsan Frediani
Principal researcher, Human Settlements, The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Watch now
Presentations
Introduction to GOLD VI: Pathways to Urban and Territorial Equality
Edgardo Bilsky (UCLG) and Dr Camila Cociña (DPU, UCL)
Reflections from contributors
Prof Adriana Allen (DPU, UCL), Rodrigo Faria Iacovini (Polis), Prof Wilbard Kombe (Ardhi University)
Final remarks
Facilitated by Prof Caren Levy (DPU, UCL)
CITY EVENTS
celebrating know city partners' methods of co-production, research, collaborations & urban learning hubs
Overview
As part of the KNOW Final Conference, each of the KNOW City Partners will be holding an end of programme event, exhibition, and/or conference. These will be help over the weeks prior to the conference and celebrate and share research outcomes in-city.
Outcomes and outputs from these various events will be shared and showcased here and during the conference itself by each City Partner team.
