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Hammamet, Tunisia

The meeting "Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Cities in the Arab Region: A Human Rights Approach" will be held in Tunis, Tunisia, from 4 to 5 April 2017. It aims to build a broad-based partnership to enhance the capacities of local authorities and key stakeholders to integrate human rights and gender equality considerations in policies, services and programmes with the goal of building inclusive and sustainable cities within the context of rapid social transformations in the Arab region.

Jointly organized by UNESCO and the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC Graz), in collaboration with the Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR), the meeting will gather key stakeholders from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, namely representatives of local governments (including ICCAR member cities), national human rights institutions, and civil society.

The specific objectives of the meeting are the following:

1) map the priorities for the Arab Region based on the global agendas;

2) identify opportunities, challenges, gaps and ways forward, including good practices, for developing joint initiatives and building partnerships; and

3) develop a short-term roadmap which proposes a methodology and a set of interventions for the upcoming 24 months, leveraging the platform Coalition of Arab Cities against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance and other key partners.