Call For Abstracts: International Workshop on Sustainable Urban Development

Sustainable Places Research Fellow, Dr Abid Mehmood is to be part of an expert group supporting the conference workshop on "Community development, land tenure and social innovation under conditions of rapid urban transformation: Issues and Strategies” in Quito, Ecuador in October.

Questions of land tenure have been of major interest to urban development policy makers and practitioners in cities of the South. Many communities, and particularly the urban poor communities fell victim to eviction, displacement, lack of tenure rights and exclusion from urban services (drainage, water supply, waste collection, maintenance, etc.). In the last 50 years, approaches to these problems have evolved from outright negative attitudes or neglect by public agencies and urban professionals to a more empathic and constructive approach looking for potentially more positive solutions.

This Conference Workshop seeks to bring together about 50 action-researchers and policy analysts from all continents working in the area of land tenure and urban development, together with key experts and practitioners and other interested stakeholders to share state-of the-art knowledge and to set the agenda for future research, policy and practice in this area. The workshop set-up explicitly allows for flexible approaches to actively stimulate exchange between the academic world and policy makers and practitioners.

The event is being organised by KU Leuven, University of Quito and other organisations in collaboration with UN-Habitat. The event will coincide with UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) 17-20 October 2016.

Paper abstracts are due by 15 February 2016.