World Habitat Day 2014 - Urbanisation and Culture

"There is a change in the world in general during the last three, four years, where one starts to realise that yes urbanisation is happening. [...] The combination [of art and culture and urbanisation] becomes extremely interesting. How can you achieve sustainability in cities and that has a lot to do with interaction with people. Now how can you interact with people? You must use a language which they understand. Art and culture. A fantastic way of actually engaging populations to talk about their city."

- Thomas Melin speaking at the European Development Days 2013.

Culture is increasingly becoming recognised as important for development, particularly for urbanisation. To mark World Habitat Day 2014, which focuses on Voices from Slums, we are publishing a selection of interesting interviews on culture and urbanisation. 

Mrs Mariam Lady Yunusa is the Project Leader for the Strengthening Partnerships for a New Africa Urban Agenda. In this first video, she explains how this project is uniting African governments with civil society to improve urbanisation in their countries, and what the EU can do to support this.

In a second interview Mrs Yunusa delves further into the link between culture and urbanisation, explaining how they can improve economic prosperity in cities.

Shipra Narang Suri is the Vice President for the International Society of City and Regional Planners. In the following video she looks at the challenges for urban planning in the developing world today and how these can be addressed from a planner's perspective.