From November 3rd to 6th 2008 a PDP delegation attended the Fourth World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China. The meeting, organised by UNHABITAT is a bi-yearly international event that aims to bring together urban development experts, representatives of national and local government, NGOs, as well as participants from the private sector, organisations, researchers and consultants.
The theme of this year’s forum was “Harmonious Urbanisation: The Challenge of Balanced Territorial Development”. Over 3,000 participants from 170 countries took part in the gathering. Over the four days, a diverse program of three plenary sessions, six dialogues, 73 networking events, 70 Habitat Seminars and 23 training sessions ensured that participants had extensive opportunity to launch global reports, present best practice measures, discuss and evaluate news, policies, research and innovation in urban development, and to introduce new tools and methods in urban policy development.
The International Symposium on “Exchanging Global and Egyptian Experiences in Dealing with Informal Areas within the Wider Urban Management Context” was held by the Participatory Development Programme (PDP) of the GIZ and several Egyptian partners in Cairo from 14th to 15th October 2008.
The main focus of the symposium was to exchange international and Egyptian experiences of scaling up best practices in dealing with informal areas to a city-wide management approach. More than 230 interested guests from a broad scope including the public and private sector, international organisations and NGOs attended the opening words of the Governor of Cairo Dr. Abdel Azeem Wazir and Hazem El-Kuweidy, Governor of Helwan, Bernd Erbel, Ambassador of Germany in Cairo, Dr. Roland Steurer, Country Director of GIZ in Egypt, Mr. Jörg-Werner Haas, Division Head “State and Democracy” in GIZ headquarters and Marion Fischer, Programme Manager of PDP.