From 17 to 20 January 2019 an international conference will be held, for all people who hold public office, young people and mere “dwellers” in our cities. About 500 people from around the world will get together in Castelgandolfo (Rome) to engage in dialogue, dig deeper into the current situation and learn: this gathering is called “Co-Governance, Co-responsibility in Cities”.

Practically everyone will be there: mayors, city councilors, officials, consultants, suppliers, cooperative and business managers, scholars, representatives from active-citizenship organizations, citizens and young people.

Today, cities are the place where 70% of the world’s population lives together. A massive number of people that points to the need to increasingly build networks “inside” and “between” cities, to recover positive experiences and take a better look at the challenges, tragedies and fears that people experience in small villages, as well as in large megalopolises.

The first challenge is understanding in what way cities should be governed today: are decision-making capacities enough? Or more efficient city managers or increasingly complex planning are needed? Or, perhaps, we should consider a more fundamental factor: like widespread co-reponsibility. That’s when we realize that we must learn to “co-govern” cities.

The Greek “polis” used to be the place where citizens made decisions together, stepping out of their private domain. And this happened in other ancient civilizations as well: in the Andes, in Africa, etc. This is how politics was born: in cities; therefore, cities are the original and privileged place of politics. If politics is going through a crisis today, what chances do cities have to revive it?

The conference will investigate all this: it will look at relations aimed at rebuilding cities’ political lives; daily, interpersonal relations between citizens; but mostly public and collective relations between people who govern cities and those who contribute to governance through the most varied activities.

The idea will be to develop thoughts and processes that are pervaded by “Co-Governance”, where “widespread knowledge” and “expert knowledge” become one single engine for cities. During the final session, a policy document will be adopted, that will reflect the concept of co-governance that has emerged during the conference.

The event is promoted by: New Humanity Movement , Associazione Città per la fraternità, Movement politics & policy for Unity, in collaboration with New Humanity International NGO.

Per informazioni e pre-iscrizioni

sito: co-covernance.org

mail: cogovernance2019@gmail.com

tel. +390694315635