Red Dot Foundation: Inclusive Cities
Red Dot Foundation: Inclusive Cities

It’s hard to believe that just two months ago we were in Abu Dhabi for the World Urban Forum, exchanging ideas and learning
In response, my colleague Prathima Manohar who is the Founder of The Urban Vision and myself commenced a series of fireside chats with urban experts to discuss the topic of “inclusive cities”. Clearly, policy making in current times have left millions of people behind and probably did not even factor their needs into the equation when deciding on the course of action. To help us understand the current scenario and plan for a more inclusive world we embarked on these online fire side chats. At the time of this post, we interviewed Jagan Shah from DFID, Pedro Ortiz ex-Deputy Mayor of Madrid and Juma Assiago from UN Habitat Safer Cities Program.
The discussion has been fascinating. Clearly, the exodus of informal workers during the lockdown has shown all of us how unequal our cities are. It forces us to reflect and relook at how we plan our cities, our urban commons, the definition of “inclusiveness” and “local” and empathy in the design of our cities. It is in times of crisis and disasters like COVID19 when we can see the glaring inequality and the inability of our current cities to meet the needs of all its residents including the informal labour.
As we continue to search for answers we hope that we can use the framework of The New Urban Agenda to ensure that all citizens have a "right to the City”. Do join us every Wednesday and Friday at 6 pm IST /0830 am EST on the live cast of “Inclusive Cities”.
Article by ElsaMarie DSilva