Inhabitants of the world united for the right to the city!This was determined in the Call, approved by the plenary Urban Social Forum of Rio [1], summarizing the deep sense which invigorated the participation of thousands of people, social leaders, inhabitants organizations, tenants, homeless, cooperatives and communities in dozens of meetings, seminars and workshops which brought this unitary space to life.

From Rio to Dakar, WAI’s Promotional Unitary Committees Crossing Social Forums

Leaving aside the pursuit of market principles and rhythms of the World Urban Forum, this first USF has chosen to open the doors to the efficiency of the follow-up, especially in engaging everyone in the process of building the World Assembly of Inhabitants (WAI), essential to creating more participation which would contribute to winning the fight.

As the Promotional Unitary Global Committee constitutes the WAI, the goal is to encourage the development of this solid, multicultural space in respect to the diversity. This is following Madrid’s Appeal of which the World Social Forum and the main international networks for the right to housing are among its more than 350 members. The next steps will be to see National and Regional Unitary Committees being set up everywhere, especially on the occasion of the Social Forums which will take place by the time of the WAI (WSF Dakar 2011): United States Social Forum (Detroit, US June 22-24); European Social Forum (Istanbul, Turkey, July 1-4); Americas Social Forum (Asuncion, Paraguay, August 11-15). Without forgetting the proposals in March: Social Forum of Housing in Russia, National Forum of Housing in Nigeria, Workshop of the Inhabitants of Anglophone Africa, South Africa, and elsewhere. This includes the initiative that you are invited to promote at your level.

The choice was made to broaden the convocation to other inhabitant organizations, urban social movements and networks in order to institute an international platform for exchanging experiences, sharing strategies, developing solidarity, defending the set of rights which make up the right to live, beginning with the right to housing and to not be evicted.

Constituent elements will be the support of Rio’s Call which updates the fundamental principles rooting the WAI: for all, those of the World Social Forum and the Charter of Salvador which mark an evolution in comparison to the first World Assembly of the Pobladores (Mexico DF, 2000).

Systematizing knowledge to build the intelligence of g-local inhabitants

To do this, the Promotional Unitary Global Committees are called to define the mechanisms of coordination, information, and communication allowing the development of this democratic process that aims for the emergence of a completely new collective being, the g-local inhabitant, firmly fixed in the local social fabric, and well aware of the challenges that the neo-liberal globalization crisis presents on human settlements.

For these reasons, the systematization of the knowledge produced by inhabitant organizations is essential to filling exchanges with content, taking useful lessons from them, and basic unitary intelligence shared in building. There is the realization of multimedia forms, tested together by the Urban Popular University and the Museu da Pessoa during the World Urban Forum, presenting video interviews with world urban social leaders from several countries and integrated through texts which facilitate the cross-reading of different experiences. Co-production of knowledge, therefore, with free visual and reading in the platforms that were until then subscribed to the WAI process (www.habitants.org, www.museudapessoa.net, www.coredem.info, www.powos.org), open to other collaborations thanks to the possibilities offered by the interoperability of the databases.

Autonomy, Partnerships and Alliances: The Step from Dakar Towards the Via Urbana

Recognizing and reinforcing the autonomy of inhabitant organizations and to make their voice emerge, is the solid basis to establish partnerships and alliances with NGO’s, academic institutions, foundations, local authorities, and democratic governments across the world. This is a recognizable journey that can not be ignored in order to meet the challenges.

In fact, it is a matter of building a solid and maintainable dynamic which should bring to Dakar hundreds of inhabitant organizations from all over the world for a series of initiatives (exchanges of experiences , cultural, social and political) over a period of several days. Not a solemn mass nor a workshop nor an axis of debate in addition to the World Social Forum, but a proper space to inhabitant organizations of which the size is decided by the Promotional Unitary Committee based on the dynamic developed on all levels.

The WAI will in fact only be a step of a journey aiming for the construction of the Via Urbana, unitary space, of sharing principles and of attack, to found a new Social Urban Pact brought by the inhabitants as builders of cities, no longer as clients of exploited territories nor users without responsibilities.

The last station to check out the process is the meeting of the Promotional Unitary Committee in Bobigny, France in the fall during the International Days for the Right to Housing.

To begin, it’s up to you and all of us to sign, uphold, and circulate the Call from Rio, supporting the WAI on all levels, in the direction of the Dakar World Social Forum (6-11 February 2011).