Territorial Climate Action Forum

On February 3, the special session introduced the concept of a territorial approach to climate action and resilience and discussed how national and sub-national urban policies can accelerate climate action. The session identified the key roles, synergies, and trade-offs of cities and regions in mitigating and adapting to climate change, including urban planning and design, especially in light of the COVID-19 recovery. The session was initiated and hosted by the OECD and moderated by ISOCARP Secretary General Frank D’hondt. Speakers represented academia (Durham University), local governments (ICLEI), national governments (Mexico), civil society (Coalition for Urban Transitions) and international organisations (OECD). The session concluded with the collective engagement to jointly contribute to a more place-based COP26 climate action plan. For more, see the forthcoming Congress Recap and/or mail to secretarygeneral@isocarp.org.

Special General Meeting

On February 2, using the Virtual Meeting Place of the virtual Congress, ISOCARP President Martin Dubbeling welcomed the more than 100 members joining the Special General Meeting, less than 3 months after the Annual General Meeting at the start of the Congress. Secretary General Frank D’hondt presented the Board’s Strategic Plan 2021-2023, followed by a large approval of the revised budget for the current fiscal year. Members contributed with several ideas and motions that were all carried after voting – see the draft minutes for more details on www.isocarp.org.

ISOCARP World Café

On February 2, ISOCARP opened its very first virtual World Café, for both Congress participants and all ISOCARP members. The café hosted two warming up sessions before holding a special general assembly of ISOCARP members. The first session provided a Roundtable Debate with Previous General Rapporteurs of ISOCARP World Planning Congresses, moderated by Slawomir Ledwon, former ISOCARP Board Member & Congress Director (2013-2019). The panellists discussed the future of not only the ISOCARP World Planning Congress activities, but also the Planning Debate in general. The second Roundtable Debate focused on ISOCARP Awards Laureates. In 2021 ISOCARP celebrates 15 years of the Awards for Excellence and this roundtable looked back to three recent winning projects, moderated by Ana Peric, ISOCARP Board Member and Martin Dubbeling, ISOCARP President.

Urban Health Forum

The COVID-19 pandemic is for urban planners a crisis not to be wasted, but to accelerate bold thinking and support governments in developing urban health and wellbeing as a major policy area in the daily management and planning of cities. Integrating health in planning as well as planning for urban resilience, requires collaboration with health experts to bridge their strong science and evidence-based approach with the strong area-based instruments of urban planners. On January 13, “Urban Health Forum” offered a training workshop based on the publication Integrating Health in Urban & Territorial Planning, a Sourcebook (UN-Habitat/WHO), to make the participants familiar with the topic and move forward to the ways of integrating the topic of health in urban planning by using the case­­­ studies at various scales. ‘Health as input’ and ‘health as outcome’ were discussed in break-out groups. Elisabeth Belpaire and Rajendra Kumar (Co-Chairs), Jens Aerts (ISOCARP CoP Urban Health), Pamela Carbajal (UN-Habitat) and Thiago Herick de Sa (WHO) jointly organised and conducted the training. Participants indicated strong appetite for further follow-up to this training workshop.

Inclusive Placemaking Forum

On January 13, the 56th World Planning Congress kicked off by an excellent keynote presentation by Cliff Hague, Professor Emeritus in Planning and Spatial Development, Heriot-Watt University on “Why do we need inclusive placemaking, what are the obstacles, and how can they be overcome?”. The keynote was further explored at a special Inclusive Placemaking Forum, co-hosted by Planning Aid Scotland and Global Planning Aid. Moderated by Olga Chepelianskaia (UNICITI), three keynotes paved the way for a lively panel discussion to explore possible avenues to transfer basic placemaking and planning capacities to grassroots communities and their organisations, deemed as a critical condition to more successfully implement SDG11 and the related New Urban Agenda. The panel included renown representatives of IFHP, Placemaking X, UN-Habitat, UPSC and UEF. Cliff Hague concluded that the idea behind Global Planning Aid and its concept of citizen-led placemaking and barefoot-planning is gaining attraction and follow-ups, including a potential pilot project in Banjul/The Gambia. For more, see the forthcoming Congress Recap and/or mail to barefootplanning@isocarp.org.