Bogotá officially opened the XXIV Annual Congress of the Ibero-American Center for Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU, as per the acronym in Spanish), a network of cities that shares and promotes the culture of urban strategic thinking, through an assembly in which representatives of cities from all over Ibero-America participated.
The formal event was held in the Mayor's Office of Bogotá and was attended by the Spanish, Laura Pérez, General Secretary of CIDEU, from Barcelona; and the Minister of Economy, Innovation, and Employment of the Zaragoza City Council, Carmen Herrarte; as well as the Mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López.
To open the meeting, Secretary General Laura Pérez recognized the importance of having Bogotá as a CIDEU partner city and highlighted the work the District has done in terms of land use planning and public policies that it is now sharing with cities throughout the Ibero-American region.
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In the following tweet, Mayor Claudia López, refers to the opening of the congress and the importance of planning around care:
#EnVivo 🔴 Apertura oficial del XXIV Congreso del Centro Iberoamericano de Desarrollo Estratégico Urbano @CIDEU. Nos sentimos muy complacidos de recibir a representantes de diferentes países que coincidimos en la importancia del cuidado en la planeación. https://t.co/uYyzxRpur2
— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) July 12, 2022
“This is a great celebration for the Ibero-American community. This is a network in which we stop thinking about immediacy and are instead considering going deeper into the long term, which makes it so necessary for strategists and planners to do their homework. Today, for example, we were in Ciudad Bolivar taking note of the super Care Blocks, the POT (Land Use Plan), Bogotá’s regulatory framework, and how city planning is being conducted”, said the international official.
For her part, Carmen Herrarte, delegate from Zaragoza (Spain), the city that currently holds the CIDEU presidency, reported that like her city, many in the world have had to increase social budgets in a difficult challenge that they hope to overcome soon.
“I also dedicate myself to caring, particularly for small businesses and hoteliers in my city. I must highlight the work done by the CIDEU team that is hosting us in Bogotá. We are left with the thorn in our side of not being able to receive them in Zaragoza due to the pandemic, which made a visit impossible. We are in the best of hands now that Bogotá assumes the Presidency," said the Zaragoza City Council delegate.
For her part, Mayor López thanked participants for support provided by the network of cities gathered in Bogotá and reiterated the city's commitment to caring for people, democracy, and the planet. These aims are being worked on through initiatives such as the Care System and infrastructure projects such as Regiotram that are promoting sustainable development.
“In Bogotá, most jobs are created by small and medium-sized companies and in the pandemic that was a tragic social calamity. Nonetheless, I have had absolute confidence in our residents, which is why I have always said: we will not only come out of this well, but better” commented Bogotá’s representative.
After the assembly, a keynote session was held in which the renowned Spanish architect and urban planner Inés Sánchez de Madariaga participated in the conversation on development based on care policies in cities.
As part of the congress agenda, international guests participate in a series of exchange and learning sessions between cities with the aim of collectively building a common and innovative understanding of the role of care within urban strategic thinking, around its three axes: people, democracy, and the planet.
The activities will continue until tomorrow, Wednesday, July 13, when the congress will close with a discussion between male and female mayors together with the respective general assembly of CIDEU, the first face-to-face meeting to be held since the pandemic.
Here is a tweet in which Mayor Claudia López mentions talks about how these types of conferences are important to share experiences and find solutions to common problems:
Nadie entiende mejor los desafíos de las ciudades que los alcaldes, alcaldesas y planeadores locales que estamos reunidos aquí. Estos encuentros son una oportunidad de compartir experiencias y encontrar juntos soluciones a problemáticas comunes. De eso se trata el #CongresoCIDEU. pic.twitter.com/eSPbLaXqSC
— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) July 12, 2022
The international gaze is on Bogotá’s projects
Since last Monday, July 11, the delegation invited to the CIDEU congress arrived in the Colombian capital and participated in a guided tour through the Bronx sector to learn about the city's main commitments to urban renewal.
Representatives from more than 38 cities, accompanied by the director of the Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation (FUGA, as per the acronym in Spanish), Margarita Díaz, visited the different areas that make up the Bronx Creative District and witnessed in advance a sample of the work that Bogotá is carrying out from the care approach as the axis of economic, social, and cultural development.
As part of the congress agenda, the guests are getting to know the main strategic projects that the District is developing in the town of Ciudad Bolívar, such as the Care Blocks, the Museum of the Self-Constructed City, and the TransmiCable lines that are part of the multimodal and sustainable mobility.
Tour of Social Infrastructure in Ciudad Bolívar
Mayor López guided the special guests on a Transmicable tour of the city. They also visited the Self-Built City Museum, then the Manitas Care block, and finally the Tunal Happiness Center, which is one of the city's architectural icons. These are spaces in which the community can find a wide and varied recreational and cultural offer without discrimination due to economic capacity, age, or gender.
At the Manitas Women's Care Block in Ciudad Bolívar, Secretary Diana Rodríguez explained that this was the first care block created based on three main objectives: recognition of the care work of the people who carry it out, redistribution of care work between men and women, and the reduction of unpaid care work times for carers.
"We have facilities from Mirador del Paraíso to Portal Tunal, to provide care services to women caregivers, but also to care for those they care for, such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, while these caregivers enjoy respite activities, for example education or cultural transformation. There are also programs for other members of the family so that they learn to care, because caring is something you learn to do!" explained Mayor Claudia López.
"The system coordinates existing services -such as kindergartens or schools or in this case, Ciudad Bolívar, the CADE (Specialized District Service Center) -, but also new services, such as 'The art of caring for yourself', tomake childcare easier.
The three axes of CIDEU to which Bogotá adheres in terms of caring for people, democracy, and the planet, are central topics of discussion during the Congress. Regarding the care of people, this mean the opportunity to promote cities and prioritize public policies and decisions that guarantee the social well-being of those who inhabit cities, in order to achieve a fairer and more equal society.
With regards to the care of the planet, related actions are those that promote a more resilient and inclusive sustainable socioeconomic model, committed to mitigating the climate crisis. When it comes to caring for democracy, it is about guaranteeing the capacity for collective action that is required to face the social, economic, and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Here, the video of the transmission of the beginning of the XXIV Annual Congress of the Ibero-American Center for Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU):
