About Us

Decentralization in urban governance has proven to be one important factor for enhancing the quality of urban life. Local authorities in many MENA countries suffer from a lack of finances and resources, as well as from having less control over decision-making, which often occurs at the national level through a centralized structure. The human resource capacity is typically limited and lacks adequate skills for local urban government. To achieve the SDGs, particularly SDGs 5 and 11, and to ensure the application of NUA principles, especially Leave No One Behind, participation must be embedded as a core mechanism. However, owing to centralized governance (top-down) decision making, which holds that local actors are not capable of making the right decisions, which may be valid, participation of local stakeholders is typically not considered in a suitable efficient way. The power of the central government is not always controlling the local urban governance level, which leads to the lack of coordination, and the increase of informality. Culture is the set of values and norms that controls behavior and defines what is accepted and what is not within a certain group of people in a society. The notion of participation in urban governance, in management, and in planning processes is something that needs to be changed. 

Public space, in its different types and functions (e.g., public parks or gardens, kids’ areas, street markets, etc.…), is one of the most important areas for urban governance and has a great role in shaping the urban forms and functions of a city. Further, it plays an important role, socially, economically, environmentally as well as politically, which is eventually a possible reason for conflict creation amongst actors. This project will compare cases from different partner countries along the Arab region and analyze the participation factors and levels that could enhance local urban governance. It will investigate the relations of power, politics, and representations of citizenship, mapping stakeholders’ participation; through exchange between different partner countries; Germany, Tunisia, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, in addition to more Arab countries that would join the network, represented by academic and non-academic actors. This cooperation is built on the Habitat Unit’s previous long successful cooperation experience with the partner countries (Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt). Based on prior DAAD cooperation projects, Tunisia showed commitment to democracy and empowerment of local urban actors through integrated planning. Egypt and Jordan achieved some steps towards local governance, but they suffer from the lack of trust between the local communities, and the government. While Sudan suffers from too much decentralization that leads to different visions on different planning levels, fragmentation of power, acquisition/squatting of public space. Iraq has different features because of its post-war reconstruction, informal settlements, and refugees’ situation. In Lebanon, centralization sets local administrations’ priorities and available funding. The state is still merely involved in urban planning, regardless of the numerous national actors involved.