Urban Social Forum - World Urban Forum 2010

Following the success of the World Zero Evictions Days, preparations for the World Assembly of Inhabitants (WAI) continue. The WAI will be held at the Dakar WSF in 2011. Several Promotor Committees have already been set up in various countries, with further committees currently taking shape on every continent: in particular, there are plans to set up committees during this year’s Social Forums.
These preparations make the Rio de Janeiro step (22-26 March 2010) a major event. It will include the Urban Social Forum (USF), organized by local urban social movements and international housing rights networks, and the World Urban Forum 5 (WUF5), organized by UN-Habitat.

Social Movements and Organizations of Rio de Janeiro invite to Social Urban Forum 2010 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 22-26, 2010): fighting for the right to the city, democracy and urban justice in neighborhoods and in the world.

Currently we consist of 341 individuals from 41 countries, all continents, to have signed the Call for World Assembly of Inhabitants (WAI) (WSF Dakar, 2011). Be it neighbourhood associations, pressure groups against bad housing and homelessness, social centres and community cooperatives, tenants unions - all are in agreement that the time has come to make our voice heard, and combine our intelligence and strength at the global level.

We are the ones who have signed and who have primary responsibility for the WAI construction process, and the time has come to collectively assess the situation and to prepare for the last stage before Dakar.

Therefore, this is a special invitation for all men and women to come to Rio de Janeiro (22-26 March 2010) for the Urban Social Forum (USF) organised by the social movements and the international networks for housing rights, in parallel with the World Urban Forum 5 (WUF 5) organised by UN habitat.

Face the emergency that the Haitian crisis represents from the point of view of inhabitants

The solidarity mission of the social movements including the IAI, arrived in Haiti immediately after the January 12th earthquake, and was also able to verify to what extent the existing social organisations were hard hit. Made up mostly of NGOs that develop activities in the fields of public intervention, inexistant for the most part, the post earthquake situation underlines the importance of their action, but also of their limitation in the participative reconstruction procedure context.
Therefore, the first emergency that should be resolved consists of building a solid and collaborative foundation in order to channel the solidarity "people to people" in consolidating a procedure aimed at making the idea that "another Haiti is possible".