Governing futures: Multilevel governance for urban equality

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As a planetary scale disruption, COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing inequality patterns and became a major governance challenge requiring intersectoral coordination. In thiscontext, Development Planning is pivotal to navigate collectively uncertainty and re-shape multi actoral relationships to strive for socio-environmental justice. In this event, we will be discussing on the tensions the pandemic has brought to the localization of global agendas; multi-actor and multiscale alliances and partnerships; grassroots mobilization and informal settlement upgrading initiatives; urban conflict and security regimes; and how the digital divide and use of technologies have been used for intersectoral coordination.

We will be joined by Professor Caren Levy who will draw insights from the KNOW project that focuses on the co-production of knowledge for urban equality with local academic and community-based partners in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Tanzania in Africa; in Cuba, Peru, Costa Rica, and Colombia in Latin America; and in India and Sri Lanka in South Asia. We will be also joined by Dr. Jadeep Gupte who will draw from his reasearch on Smart cities and COVID-19 in India, governing the ungovernable on the space - violence nexus in Nepal and the ARISE hub that focuses on responsiveness in Informal Urban Settlements for Equity in Health and Well-being across Kenya, India, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone.

Chaired by:  

Dr Catalina Ortiz, Associate Professor and leader of the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL. 

Speakers: 

Prof Caren Levy, Principal Investigator at Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW), and Professor of Transformative Urban Planning at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL. 

Dr Jaideep Gupte, Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies and leader of the Cities Cluster. Currently seconded to lead the Cities and Sustainable Infrastructure portfolio of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), UKRI. 

Prof Michael Walls, Director of the DPU

About the (Post)Pandemic Planning in the South(s) series

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new imperatives for the field of Development Planning. As a response, last year DPU proposed a webinar and blog series around ‘Post COVID-19 Urban Futures' as an outward facing space for reflection with scholars, practitioners, students, and alumni on the impacts the pandemic is having on the cities in all spheres of life. The question we used to connect all the sessions and written contributions revolved around: Are we ready to imagine a better post COVID world?  

Find out more on the series webpage.