The multi-stakeholder event also featuring representatives of international institutions, Egyptian civil servants and diplomatic missions to Egypt was attended by academics and PhD students from European and African universities with background in the social sciences and architecture. One of the keynote lecturers, Dr. Youssef Nassef (Climate Adaptation Director with UNFCCC) mentioned the detrimental effect of “nonsensical publishing”, denialism and “escapist” tendencies (aka climate adaptation) that hamper efforts to tackle the climate crisis. About a dozen PhD students whose theses focus on various aspects of resilience exhibited by urban communities presented their research projects. These projects referred to issues like the circle economy, urban planning, measures to mitigate urban floods and urban fires, the quality of indoor air for academic performance, the water energy food nexus, but also domestic violence, digitalisation of philanthropy, students’ self-organisation, etc.
Conference participants had the unique opportunity to visit two Egyptian non-profits supporting slums’ residents in Cairo: the Association for the Protection of the Environment “APE” (est. 1984), an Egyptian NGO working in the waste collector’s community to promote recycling and the empowerment of women and children, and Tawasol Egypt (est. 2008), an NGO registered with the Ministry of Social Solidarity to serve the low-income communities in three of Cairo’s informal slum areas. Special thanks to the hosts and specifically Prof. Dr. Ali Awni (AUC) for organising these memorable visits and making possible for us to witness results of these social enterprises’ efforts to empower vulnerable and marginalised urban communities.
The program can be found here: