Dr. Josephine Malonza reports on the Webinar Series 'Human Mobility across the Urban-Rural Continuum in the time of COVID-19', Session 2 on 21st July 2020

Josephine summarized the speakers’ presentations with an analogy of ‘opening the box’ in three ways, and gave thought-provoking and inspiring ways to frame and to address the mobility challenges during this global pandemic:

Opening the city to the world - For areas confronted with the choice to welcome migrant communities vis a vis the acceptability by the native communities based on the sensitivities around migration. Dalia Abulfotuh had presented the challenges of living through massive forced displacements in Cucuta, Colombia where the rural area was increasingly becoming a battlefield for politics.
Opening the countryside - The risk of urban-rural migration, be it voluntary or by forced means moves the virus form cities to rural areas. Lockdown policies make people feel trapped in cities and as soon as these restrictions are lifted or eases, we witness a huge exodus of people to the countryside. Charles Obila had underlined in the context of Africa, where mobility is a means of survival and S. Irudaya Rajan had shared the social and economic impacts of lockdowns emphasizing the stigma and mental health impacts.
Opening the focus of urbanization studies more to exploring the interrelations urbanization has with health and education. Santino Severoni has introduced the concept of Healthy Cities. Josephine introduced the PASCAL Learning Cities Network [1] and highlighted the interesting work of the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities [2] (SHLC), based in the University of Glasgow, which is doing international research to address urban, health and education challenges in neighbourhoods across fast-growing cities in Africa and Asia.

Josephine shared the LCN and SHLC websites with the over 150 participants to this webinar.

21 July 2020 - UN-Habitat's Policy, Legislation and Governance Webinar Series

On 19 September 2016, Heads of State and Government came together at the UN General Assembly for the first time ever to discuss issues related to migration and refugees. In December 2018, following two years of intergovernmental consultations and negotiations, in December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The Global Compact for Migration is the first inter-governmentally negotiated agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations and led by IOM, covering all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner. It presents a significant opportunity to improve the governance of migration, to address the challenges associated with today’s migration, and to strengthen the contribution of migrants and migration to sustainable development.

In an effort to acknowledge the wealth and contribution implied by human mobility and approach to migration and migrants from a human rights perspective, in December 2018 local governments committed in the Marrakech Mayoral Declaration to fulfill the Global Compacts for Migration (GCM) and on Refugees (GCR) in coordination with all levels of government and with all the actors engaged, building upon whole-of-government and whole-of-society principles in both compacts.

In February 2020, UN-Habitat introduced the agency’s flagship initiative on “Inclusive cities: Enhancing the positive impact of urban migration” at the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi. The flagship will advance UN-Habitat’s work on urban migration, in both development and crisis contexts, within UN-Habitat’s strategic workstream on “Urban preparedness and response” (Domain of Change-DoC 4), but also linked to DoC 2, “Enhanced shared prosperity of cities and regions”.

In the face of Covid-19, the Urban-Rural Linkages Guiding Principles (URL-GP), such as Locally Grounded Interventions, Integrated Governance, Balanced Partnerships, Human Rights-Based, Provide Social Protection and Do No Harm, along with other principles and actions from the URL-GP Framework of Action, such as the recommendation to apply “whole-of-government approaches”- have become even more relevant in orienting the actions of national, local, and other actors to respond to the new challenges that have emerged from the pandemic and ensure an inclusive post-Covid-19 recovery.

The objectives of this session were to:

Understand the human mobility impacts of Covid-19 on the spread of the pandemic across the urban-rural continuum and resulting new connectivity between cities, neighbouring communities and sub-regions.
Develop a deeper understanding of territorial responses that can be adopted in light of new migration patterns.
Learn how integrated urban-rural policies can have a positive impact for migrants and their families regarding livelihood generation, living conditions and access to services;

SPEAKERS

Santino Severoni, Director Health and Migration Programme, WHO
Jaime Pumarejo Heins, Mayor of Barranquilla, Colombia
S. Irudaya Rajan, Professor, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) Research Unit on International Migration, Centre for Development Studies
Dalia Abulfotuh, Agricultural Officer, FAO
Elisa Montoya, Postconflict and Culture of Peace Secretary, Cucuta´s Mayor’s Office, Colombia
Charles Obila, Migration Officer, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Secretariat-Djibouti

DISCUSSANTS

Stineke Oenema, UNSCN Coordinator
Josephine Mwongeli, Lecturer in the school of architecture at the University of Rwanda

MODERATOR

Stephanie Loose, Programme Manager / Human Settlements Officer, UN-Habitat

Learn more about UN-Habitat's Policy, Legislation and Governance Webinar Series here [3]

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