Tag Archives: UN Habitat

Mind the Gap: Libraries combatting inequalities, within and between communities

Urban October 2022 – which started with World Habitat Day yesterday, and ends with World Cities Day at the end of the month, focuses on how we can realise the potential of cities and human settlements to be drivers of sustainable development.

Living together is a key human characteristic, creating possibilities to share, cooperate, and do more than we ever could on our own, or if we lived only in family groups. At the same time, urbanisation can concentrate problems of poverty, poor health and wellbeing, pollution and more.

There is therefore a heavy responsibility – but also opportunity – for leaders to shape cities for the better, maximising the benefits that proximity can bring for all.

The word ‘all’ is important here. As highlighted in the theme for World Habitat Day, we need to ‘mind the gap’, being aware of the divides and inequalities that exist between people and communities, and then to acting to reduce these.

So in this blog, we’ll run through just a few of the ways in which libraries contribute to ‘minding the gap’:

A universal service, close to citizens: in the case of public and community libraries in particular, libraries are perhaps the ‘model’ cross-cutting public service. As set out in our blog earlier this year on the concept of the 15-minute city, libraries are multifunctional and close to citizens, providing opportunities for interaction and have a clear focus on helping people improve their lives.

This universality is important – no member of the community should feel unwelcome in a library. Indeed, libraries arguably provide a valuable ‘low-intensive’ space where people engage with each other precisely because they come from the same area, rather than because they have a particular goal in mind.

Active outreach to all members of communities: linked to the above is the fact that not only are libraries open to all by default, but are also often charged with making proactive efforts to bring those at risk of exclusion back into the community.

Crucially, libraries are also about activation, with the UNESCO-IFLA Public Library Manifesto underlining the importance of knowledge creation alongside knowledge consumption. This is vital if we are to ensure that everyone’s voice can be heard, and everyone can enjoy their human rights, including their cultural rights.

A global knowledge network: the first two points here are very much focused on ‘minding the gap’ within communities. However, the fact of having a library – in particular one that is connected to the internet – does effectively give a community an entry-point to a global knowledge network.

This is, in part, about possibilities to access library networks in order to access a wider range of information, but also about the role of libraries in enabling a connection to global work around open government or citizen science for example. In the end, this also boosts countries’ – and the world’s – capacity for sustainable growth by making innovation itself more inclusive.

A pillar of regeneration efforts: as set out in our article released at the time of the World Urban Forum, libraries can be key players in efforts to revitalise communities which face decline or other problems. Drawing on the urban development literature, the article underlines the different ways in which libraries can make a difference, when involved appropriately.

Crucially, this work does note that there is perhaps not enough consideration of libraries at the moment in regeneration planning, and that much more could be done in order to realise this potential.

A foundation of evidence-based policy-making: while Development Information Day, also celebrated this month, is not formally part of Urban October, the value of knowledge and data gathering, curation, and access cannot be forgotten. With little room for manoeuvre left if we are to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda, decisions at all levels need to be taken on the basis of the best possible evidence.

Libraries are of course essential to this, acting as the backbone of research infrastructures focused on positive policy change. Obviously, in order to support use of research outputs, open access and broader open scholarship principles are essential, as set out in UNESCO’s own Open Science Recommendation. There are interesting questions, of course, around how the benefits of library and research services – as already exist at the national level – can be better brought to local and regional government.

 

There’ll be plenty of other examples which you may be aware of – do share these in the comments box below, or on social media using the #UrbanOctober hashtag!

Libraries in the Post-Pandemic Future of Cities

Cities and Pandemics: towards a more just, green and healthy future - front cover of reportUN HABITAT, the United Nations Programme for Human Settlements, recently released Cities and Pandemics: Towards a More Just, Green and Healthy Future.

Drawing both on the organisations’ long experience of supporting sustainable urban development – most notably through delivering on the New Urban Agenda – and lessons learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic so far, the report aims to  provide recommendations for the future of cities.

This blog highlights some of the key points made by the report, and their relevance for libraries.

 

A critical issue

From the start, and the foreword provided by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres, the report is clear that the way that humans live has had a major impact on the spread of COVID.

From broader questions about the impacts of putting pressure on natural ecosystems (leading to risks of animal diseases getting into humans), to the more rapid spread of the virus among people living in cramped conditions, the need to reflect on how we organise our cities, towns and villages is clear.

Yet the report is also hopeful – cities can play a key role in the recovery from COVID, drawing on the knowledge and policy tools at their disposal. Indeed, in the past, it has been cities that have led the way in key public health advances, for example around sanitation or the promotion of open spaces.

In short, the Pandemic provides a basis both for reflection, but also optimism.

 

Key themes for a recovery

In setting an agenda for the future, the report sets out four key priorities:

  • Rethinking the form and function of the city, including reform to planning in order to support inclusion and productivity
  • Addressing systemic poverty and inequality, including both targeted support now, and work on longer-term solutions
  • Rebuilding a new normal, including efforts to promote wider changes seen as desirable (innovation, climate action, delivery of other public goods)
  • Clarifying urban legislation and governance, including greater freedoms for cities to respond to crises.

Across this, the report calls for a new social contract, addressing discrimination, ensuring participation, expanding capabilities, promoting redistribution, and adopting a rights-based approach in line with the UN 2030 Agenda.

This builds on the ability, already highlighted, of city governments to get closer to citizens than national authorities can, by developing place-based policies.

This opens up new possibilities to provide more targeted interventions which reflect local circumstances, cultures and needs, as well as to encourage behavioural changes. Clearly, as at any level of decision-making, this potential is only realised through effective and responsible governance.

Library and information workers reading this will already see a huge potential for libraries to engage in this work, both through their work to give individuals the information and skills they need to thrive, and as social and democratic spaces.

Libraries are, arguably, a microcosm of the wider work of local government, looking to find the most effective way of improving the lives of the communities they serve. They are well placed to support behavioural change in particular, through the provision of information, something that will be essential for climate action and improved health and wellbeing.

Beyond these broad points, there are two particular elements of the report which are valuable for our institutions, both in our own reflection, and in our advocacy.

 

Rediscovering the local

The report underlines the degree to which the Pandemic has obliged people to become more familiar with their local areas.

Both through restrictions on movement beyond a certain distance, and with many more people working from home, city centres have become emptier, while the suburbs, and suburban centres, have become livelier.

Beyond this, the report suggests that we may even see a resurgence in smaller cities, with people just as able to work from there as from anywhere else.

In practical terms, the lesson has been that more needs to be done to ensure that people can access key services and meet their daily needs locally, for example within a 15 minute walk.

For libraries, this can be a case for denser networks and/or (as the report also suggests) a greater emphasis on working outside of the walls, while also working to build comfort in a post-COVID world.

Of course, this is not a new issue. Many libraries already had active programmes of outreach to those unable to come to them, due to distance or personal circumstances. Many more have developed such services as a result of the pandemic.

However, as we move beyond the pandemic, the value of ensuring balanced and well-distributed urban services is a useful argument for our institutions, with an emphasis on flexible design that allows both for adaptation to future events, and the provision of a wider variety of services.

 

Digital inclusion as a priority

Another major area of focus in the report is digital inclusion, given how starkly the pandemic has underlined the costs of not being connected.

UN HABITAT strongly underlines the value of public WiFi provision, noting its installation in transport locations in India as a means of allowing more people to get online. It also calls for wider efforts to promote broadband connectivity, especially in marginalised areas such as informal settlements.

Significantly, the report does not stop at pure connectivity, but highlights that this should be accompanied by efforts to build skills and offer wider support. It calls for accessible digital inclusion and training programmes, with an emphasis on disproportionately excluded groups (women, persons with disabilities, the elderly and others), in order to help them use new applications and tools.

These are, of course, also areas of obvious library strength. Even in the best connected countries, public internet access in libraries plays an essential role in allowing people to get online, either as the only option, or as a complement to other means (such as a shared home connection, or a mobile device).

During the pandemic, there have been many positive stories of libraries turning their WiFi towards the outside, allowing people to access the internet from car parks, while others have lent WiFi hotspots.

Just as important, however, is the work in many libraries to build digital skills, from basic know-how (turning a device on, using e-mail etc) to media and information literacy. This can come through anything from informal support to formal classes, and of course be targeted, for example towards building health literacy.

Even when other options exist, libraries have unique characteristics – their reputation, their space, their staff (if trained themselves), their focus on providing a universal service. Crucially, they also allow people to get online together, promoting a more social experience of the internet.

 

As highlighted earlier in this piece, there is a lot in UN HABITAT’s work that will resonate strongly with libraries – a strong shared focus on inclusion, excellent service provision, and on finding solutions at the local level.

The emphasis on providing services close to people, and on the urgency of digital inclusion (both in terms of connectivity and skills) provide a useful support for efforts to promote strong library networks, with well-supported staff and effective outreach to communities.

As city governments look to take on board the recommendations made by UN HABITAT, they can gain a lot by including libraries in their reflection. In doing so, they will be better able to harness a powerful resource in achieving the goal of a more just, green and healthier future.

Towards Safe Housing in Supportive Communities: The Contribution of Libraries

Today marks World Habitat Day, created in 1985 in order to draw attention to the importance of safe and adequate housing, located in a place that enables residents to access public green and open spaces, employment opportunities, health-care services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities.

This is a key issue. Those who do not have access to safe housing too often struggle to obtain formal work or much needed social benefits, and find it difficult to enjoy other rights, such as to health (a point made painfully clear during the COVID-19 pandemic).

Critically, it is also too often a hidden problem, with those experiencing homelessness or inadequate housing confined to parts of cities and towns which are rarely visited by others, or actively trying to hide their status out of embarrassment.

We are a long way from solving this problem too, not only in countries which still have high levels of informal housing, but even in richer ones where high housing prices and difficult rules around accessing benefits may risk excluding many.

As institutions strongly embedded in communities, and with a mission to respond to their needs, libraries both experience, and are active in looking to respond to this situation.

In order to mark World Habitat Day 2020, we highlight three ways in which they are helping:

 

A Refuge from the Street: clearly any long-term solution to poor quality or insufficient housing is investment in building or renovation. This is outside of the mandate of libraries.

However, as IFLA’s Guidelines on Library Services to Persons Experiencing Homelessness underline, a home is not just somewhere to go at night, but also to go during the day. Indeed, it may be possible to be less conspicuous in a library than on the street, providing a moment of privacy.

Realising this potential is not necessarily a given, and libraries themselves are likely to need to make an effort in order to ensure that they provide the space and support users experiencing homelessness (including temporary or unstable housing) may need.

Rules, practices and behaviours (and even design) can risk inadvertently leaving users feeling unwelcomed, in particular when users experiencing homeless also have other characteristics that leave them at risk of marginalisation. The Guidelines provide excellent tools for addressing this.

 

A Stepping-Stone to Support: libraries in many countries have a well-established role not just as a provider of information and services, but also as a portal to those offered by others. Indeed, people may feel less stigma coming to a library to apply for social payments or join support schemes than walking through the door of a benefits office or job centre.

Many libraries are already providing access to such possibilities even without making a special effort. Yet there are also examples of more intense collaborations, where libraries partner with other organisations addressing homelessness to realise this potential most effectively, or alternatively hire social workers or invite representatives of other organisations to come into the library.

Clearly, library services can also be specifically focused on communities experiencing insecure housing, with the public library in Kibera, one of the biggest informal settlements in Africa playing a key role in supporting education, while libraries in shelters in Indonesia and Malaysia to provide skills support and training.

 

From a District to a Community – Libraries as Hub: as set out at the beginning of this blog, quality housing is not just about the rooves, walls, plumbing and cables, but also access to local services. As set out in the Declaration of this year’s World Urban Forum, libraries are one of the core cultural services to which communities should have access.

This sense of library as part of the social infrastructure of any community (an idea most recently associated with the work of Eric Klinenberg), or as a third place or community living room is a well-established one. As set out in a recent World Bank report, libraries can indeed be at the heart of inclusive regeneration policies.

 

Many of the examples given here of course date from before the COVID-19 pandemic. The obligation to stop in-person services has certainly seriously restricted possibilities to support. Nonetheless, there are strong examples of libraries helping by distributing computer equipment to shelters, providing sanitisers or hygiene facilities, or supporting food banks, alongside more general efforts to leave the WiFi to help people get online.

While it remains unclear when a full return to physical service provision will be possible, it is likely that the crisis we are currently facing will leave many more people facing challenges associated with poor or insecure housing. Libraries can be part of the response.