ONE UN - Regenerating historic settlements for adequate housing: traditional techniques, value chains, resilient homes (WUF13)

So, dear guests, dear colleagues, dear partners, dear participants, good afternoon. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to this one UN session at the 13th session of the World Urban Forum, titled Regenerating Historic Settlements for Adequate Housing, Traditional Techniques, Valuations, and Resilient Homes. Allow me to introduce myself first. My name is Soukaina Ait El Kadi and I'm program management officer at UNHABITAT Morocco office. And first of all, welcome to our guests. So today, discussion comes at a particularly important moment around the world. Historic settlements, whether ksour, kasbahs, medinas, villages, or traditional neighborhoods, are facing growing pressures from climate change, rapid urbanization, economic vulnerability, and the loss of traditional knowledge. Yet, these places are not only remains of the past. They are a living environments, repositories of cultural identity, social cohesion, local craftsmanship, and climate-adapted construction techniques that can contribute directly to the future of adequate, resilient, and sustainable Today, the exchange also reflects the spirit of the One UN, different UN agencies, governments, academia, and international experts to foster integrated and people-centered urban regeneration strategies. We are honored today to be joined by an outstanding panel of speakers representing diverse countries and institutions, including Morocco, Egypt, Georgia, UNESCO, UNDP, and academia. They will bring rich, complementary perspectives, drawing on practical field experience. policy leadership, research, and international cooperation. Before we begin, I would like to briefly introduce our distinguished speakers. I will start with Mr. Abdellah Hashimi, who is a PhD holder in geography and spatial planning with extensive experience in sustainable territorial developments in Morocco. He currently serves as a national director of the program Ksour and Kasbahs. at the Ministry of Urban Planning, Housing and City Policy. And he has previously held senior positions in city policy, rural tourism, and heritage-led development, contributing to national strategy and program on urban upgrading, territorial planning, and the promotion of ecotourism and sustainable development. Mr. Hashimi, welcome. I would like also to introduce Mr. Yassine Benabdellahoui, who is an environmental science and sustainable development expert with 25 years of experience in Morocco, currently a head of program at UNDP Morocco. He oversee projects related to environment, governance, human rights, territorial development, and heritage preservation with expertise in strategic management and sustainable development policies. Welcome, CSIR. We are really pleased also today to have Miss Elena Panova, who is a development and management expert with over 23 years of experience across Europe and Central Asia. She is currently the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Egypt, leading one of the largest UN country teams globally. Throughout her career with United Nations Development Programme and the UN system, she has held senior leadership roles in program management and regional coordination, partnership building, financing for development, and SDG mainstreaming, with particular expertise in climate change, migration, digitalization, and inclusive development. Welcome so much, Ms. Panova. We have also within this panel, academia, with the participation of Mr. Giulio Verdini, who is an associate professor in urban planning and director of global engagement at the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster. He is also director of the MA International Planning and Sustainable Development. His research and professional practice focus on heritage, led regeneration and post-disaster urban resilience, particularly in the global South. He is currently leading reports on governance for resilience, urban and heritage for the European Commission. And he has also advised many organization, including Union for the Mediterranean, the King's Foundation, Cities Alliance, ECOMOS, UNESCO and UN Tourism. Welcome, Ms. Vardanyan. Happy also to have a speaker from Georgia. Welcome, Ms. Anna Tsakokia, who is an urban planner at SUDA in Georgia, specializing in spatial planning, urban regeneration, and public administration. She holds advanced degrees in urban planning, public administration, and law with interdisciplinary focus on governance and sustainable developments. Her work and the research focus on inclusive regeneration and cultural heritage integration, particularly in small settlements such as Barisaku, Roshka, and Hada Valley. I hope-- I'm sorry for the pronunciation-- So our last but not least speaker, I'm happy to also welcome my colleague Elsa Sattout, who is joining us online. Ms. Sattout is an environmental expert with over 28 years of experience in sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity conservation, and natural heritage management across the Arab region. She currently leads the natural science programs at UNESCO, regional office for the Maghreb, and coordinates UNESCO's disaster risk reduction portfolio in the Arab region. Throughout her career, she has worked with international organization, governments, and resource institution on environmental governance, climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable development initiative. Welcome, Ms. Sato. I hope you are here and you can hear us from online. So without further delay, and once again, welcome to you all. I would like to invite our speaker, Mr. Abdellah Hashimi, National Director of Sustainable Development Program for Morocco, Ksour and Kasbah. He will present the Morocco experience in regenerating Ksour and Kasbahs with a particular focus on traditional construction techniques, resilience housing, and key lesson learned. So the floor is yours.

Thank you very much. I will first of all thank you for giving us the opportunity of presenting this program.

In the room, please, if you can just take your device so you can follow the French speakers. Okay, now.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to thank UN-Habitat. I thank you also for inviting us for this session. And we are happy to present our program. It's a program prepared by the Ministry of Urbanism of the city. It is a program which is implemented with our partners within the United Nations as well. And now we, it was just, just, we just completed the pilot phase, which was launched in 2014, from 2014 to 2025. So the first years, and so we are in the first phase. First of all, I'd like to talk to you about why the ksour-ksaaba. These are historic settlements adapted to the oasis environment and the local climate, and adapted also to the climate and to the construction systems for zero emission imprints. and a mechanism of social cohesion. So we are in an oasis area in Morocco where we have a growing oasis that hosts hundreds of ksour. They have not been all registered. We have more than 4,000 ksour and kasbah. over 1000, over 3000 have been saved. So we have work that is being done. We started first with a pilot phase and now we are in this process. So how can we preserve settlements by ensuring adequate housing and socioeconomic inclusion, climate resilience, and territorial attractiveness of this ancient fabric, which carries its own identic civilization and identity of our country and of humanity in general? Because they have a history. Here are some pictures showing a site that has been regenerated. As you can see here, how these are organized, how they are set up, the program, and what is the approach of the program. We have a fundamental vision which has been transformed for Kasbah that are a vulnerable heritage. and they are attractive sites. We have to shed the light on remote area of the kingdom that have this human capital, universal capital, which is the construction that is vernacular construction. So these are resilient housing. This is the goal. So what are the main objectives? Improve living conditions, of course, preserving and revitalizing architectural heritage, support local economies, strengthen social cohesion. What are the key conceptual shift? Habitat approach rather than a simple housing approach, meaning we have to create a social economic dynamic around this topic of rehabilitation of buildings, we have to create an ecosystem accompanying this thematic. The approach, as we said, is a physical approach, meaning we have to restore housing, public spaces, alleys, walls, drainage, and basic infrastructure, and bring it back to its original structure by special works. We also have in the approach, we wanted to have a social inclusion aspect, which is a key dynamic with activities with lots of fallouts, which will allow people to come back to the ksar and live in the ksar. The ksar is a number of housing around a wall with towers and entry gates. So this is how it is structured. We In the approach, we also have included a capacity building. We say that we have to train artisans, youth, apprenticeships, architects. So everyone should support. We support the training and also people, strengthening local technical expertise and transmission of earth and construction know-how. So it's training at several levels. There are several national and international partners, and there are also with us the UN program and other partners. The historical sites are considered as territories and not as sites. We wanted to create this type of dynamic. Here are some other pictures showing the activities that have been deployed in terms of income generating activities. So what are the... the traditional techniques on which we want to focus. Well, the program is focused on the ecosystem, but it also wants to revitalize all the traditional techniques, that is to strengthen the resilience. So this is a work that we are in the process of doing, as it is time to resume these type of ancient traditional techniques. What are the results? Here are some other pictures showing how the works are proceeding in terms of revitalization, renovation, in terms of training, showing you the artisans working and the craftsmen working. You see here how they have been restoring these towers. Other pictures of the before and after. And here as well, this was a gate, very interesting to see, Xar. So what are the results, the outcomes of this phase one, 2015, 2024? We have 22 Sur Kasbah have been rehabilitated. or restored in the areas and about over 23,000 inhabitants with improved living conditions. We generated over 26 income generating projects supported. We also generated about 1,000, even more than 1,000 of direct beneficiary of economic projects. We organized 450 and plus women directly benefited from these works and the phase one extends from 2015 to 2024. So what are the lessons learned from this experience? Well, first of all, the preservation is not sufficient by itself. We need the preservation should be supported by this type of work that I've just mentioned, strengthen the ecosystem in terms of enterprises, training, and also in terms of, from a legal point of view, we need different permits required. Participation of the involvement of the population has been a key and the know-how has the studying, documenting, and providing youth with this augmentation so that they can perpetuate this earth-based construction was very important to maintain and disseminate this historical knowledge in construction. As here are some other pictures. youth training. I mentioned earlier, we organize workshops, apprenticeship on this type of construction techniques, ancient construction techniques. These are some of the pictures. I go back to the remaining challenges of this program. First of all, we have the land issue, the land tenure complexity. the ecosystem has not reached the ambitions we have set for ourselves. We are still working on local materials, and so we also have to work on the new phase from 2025-2029 on 100 XR. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Hashimi, for the insightful presentation and for highlighting how traditional construction techniques and heritage preservation can contribute to the resilience and adequate housing solutions, and also how it can also support resilience developments. I would now like to invite Mr. Yasir bin Abdallah, who will be sharing actually a perspective on local developments with the community participation and the role of regeneration initiative in sustaining local valuations and economic opportunities. Mr. Yassir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Soukaina. In fact, my presentation follow Hashimi's ones. Mr. Hashimi present the projects the results of the project, the outcomes, and my presentation will stress an important point, how Morocco's CSUR and CASPA program is as the heart of the World Urban Forum 13, at the heart of the core value and core principles in the World Urban Forum 13. that's housing the world safe and resilient communities. First, I will start by saying that the project is a result of a huge collaboration between UNDP Morocco and the government of Morocco. These 10 years were really fruitful and helped us to achieve a lot of interesting outcomes, outputs, results, and also lessons learned. As Mr. Hashemi said, why Sora Kasba matters. First, we can say that the ksour and the kasbah in Morocco has a history and they are a huge part, important part in the Moroccan history and the Moroccan evolution. Nearly 4,000 ksour and kasbah are across Morocco. They are home to significant share of the population in the western regions. They are also iconic features of Morocco arid southeast wasteland area, historic settlement adapted to arid climate and climate change. They play an important role in tourism in the region and they are collective living heritage systems with strong social, economic, and cultural functions. Before starting our projects 10 years ago, what was the challenges? The first one was the fact that a large number of Morocco's ksour and kasbah have fallen into ruin. Many no longer provide decent and dignified living conditions. Their deterioration contribute to rural exodus and population migration. So there is a progressive loss of traditional knowledge, cultural identity, and social cohesion. And the project comes with a new vision. And it considers heritage as a development driver. As my colleague said, a habitat approach, not only a housing approach. Integrated territorial regeneration, the approach of the project is very take into account integrated approach, social, settlement, construction, economic, etc. So it can facilitate inclusion, resilience and local development. The project also contributes to the hard core of the World Urban Forum 13 by safety, when we speak about safe housing. So how the project has helped to make safe living. First, by the rehabilitation of houses and public spaces that was dangerous before and risky. improvements of drainage and infrastructure to make live better in the settlements. They are also trying to limit the risk of climate change by promoting adaptation and resilience restoration practices. The project also contributes to the climate changes progress and action. Why? Because earthen architecture provides natural thermal regulation. As you know, the settlements are in arid regions. During the summer, it's very hot, and during the winter, it's very cold. And the construction itself helps thermal regulation. Like, when we live in Aqsa or in Kasbah, we did not climatization at all. They use also local low carbon materials. They are earth near the ksar. So they promote adaptation in the region, in the region like arid region and semi-arid climates. And we can speak also about the notion of circular construction. It's material that we use and we can reuse many times without speed, energy and things like that. The project also play, one of the particularity of the project that it's not only a construction project. They take into account also the social issues and the economic issues in this region. Because we can't construct only the walls without construction human in these walls. So, we have developed a lot of activities, economic activities, like supporting local crafts, promoting eco-tourism and cultural economies. Also, the Ksouri Kasbah and being in the Ksouri Kasbah is affordable and inclusive housing solution, specifically for the more vulnerable population or the poor population. We also try to revitalize a local value chain and to promote some agricultural activities in the region that really evaluate them. And also, all this action help us to strengthen social cohesion and community participation. You have seen all that is really a human-centered approach. As I have already said, in the first phase of the project that started in 2016 until now, 22 Ksor and Kaspa was rehabilitated. More than 23,000 inhabitants benefited during this first phase. Now we are preparing the second phase and we will work on more than 100,000 inhabitants. and with a budget that will go beyond $100 million. That's improve dignity, belonging, and hope for this population. So behind every rehabilitated structure, there is a community, and we believe on that. Another slide that I think is really interesting and is important, and it was one of our lessons learned. What are the steps for restoring dignity for the community that live in Dakhla? As you may know, in Dakhla, they become sometimes and before like slums. population who was living in the Ksour and the Kasbah, they consider it as a slum and they are here because they are poor and they can't afford a house outside the Ksour and Kasbah. And what's bring our project first, we have tried to raise awareness among local communities to value and take pride in their heritage habitat rather than perceive it as a slum. First step. And after that, we try to rehabilitate the slum to provide the essential standards and services required for dignified living condition. having a kitchen, having a bathroom, having water, having electricity, having sanitation, and so on. So we try to demonstrate that living in the Xolwixasba, we can also provide the minimum infrastructure that need modern living. In parallel, will promote social economic activities inside the Ksar and for the population living in the Ksar. And that's after all this work that helped us to make living in Ksar a positive and valuable valued lifestyle choice. It's a live in the Ksar by choice rather than a condition driven by the lack of alternative. And this is the examples of the Medina of Morocco. In the Medina, there are the old cities in Morocco. In the past, it was also only the poor population that lived there. But after huge programs made by the government of Morocco, they really revitalized all the old cities in Morocco. And they become really, we all know, for instance, the riads in the medina, they become attractive for a new style of life in the medina. So the last message is for the global agenda to say through our experience and through our presentation that innovation is not always about high technology, that traditional knowledge is also a strategic infrastructure, that heritage can contribute to sustainable urban agenda. So historic settlements are also a laboratory Thank you very much and thank you for your attention.

Thank you so much, Mr. Benabdellah for emphasizing the importance of local ownership and community participation in ensuring actually the sustainability and inclusiveness of regeneration processes. We now move to another important experience for inter-agency collaboration and integrated regeneration approaches. And it's my great pleasure to, again, to welcome Ms. Elena Panova, the UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt. My question for you, Ms. Panova, is if possible to present the joint UNDP and UN-Habitat initiative in Egypt on historic settlement regeneration and share how this collaboration has supported a more integrated approach, what have been its key success factors in ensuring effective coordination with national partners, and what are actually the lessons could be drawn for other countries seeking to implement similar joint initiative. The floor is yours, Ms. Panova.

Thank you very much, Soukaina, and thank you very much for the opportunity to share with all of you the experience coming from Egypt. But before I start, two things. First, I want to congratulate Dr. Hishami and the UNDP colleagues with an amazing program. I think the results that you showed us are really impressive, so congratulations. I would like to also acknowledge the presence in the room of Ahmed Resk. Ahmed, please, who is our country director of UN-Habitat in Egypt. And the program that I will be presenting is basically led by UN-Habitat and UNDP. And it is indeed an interagency approach to look into the issues of regenerating historic settlements. So I will be talking about Dendera Integrated Revitalization Plan. And that initiative starts from a very simple premise. And I'm glad to hear that the colleagues from Morocco also underlined this. And this is that historic settlements are not museum spaces frozen in time. Their living places shaped by the pressures of housing, employment, infrastructure, climate exposure, and social change. So that thinking is fully aligned with our cooperation framework. Cooperation framework is the five-year program which the United Nations signs with any government where we work, which sets basically the parameters of the cooperation between the United Nations and the government. And in our cooperation framework, urban generation is placed within a wider national development trajectory, rather than treating heritage as a standalone sector. Our framework also creates space for genuinely integrated UN support. UN-Habitat leads on urban planning, housing, space and spatial upgrading. UNDP focuses on local economies, value chains, entrepreneurship, and private sector engagement. And I will add also UNESCO here, a very important agency in this equation. And UNESCO contributes its heritage expertise, while we have other UN agencies that support livelihoods, inclusion, and also resilience. What gives this approach value is not the presence of all these agencies, but the fact that they are jointly working around one shared geography and one shared development challenge. So back now to Dendera revitalization plan. So what is Dendera and where is Dendera? Dendera is located in Qena governorate in Egypt, in Upper Egypt. on the west bank of the Nile, and it is home of one of the world's most important temple complexes. Frankly, it's my favorite, the Dendera temple. So I will also invite you to go and visit Dendera, beautiful, beautiful temple complex. Dendera receives thousands of visitors annually. but yet functions largely as a transit stop, regretfully, with significant economic leakage and limited community benefit. Therefore, the initiative that I am presenting to you today responds to a central contradiction that we see. that a globally significant heritage site is surrounded by communities that benefit far too little from the value that is created around them. And the poverty levels in these communities are very high. So what does the revitalization plan offer? And what did this initiative offer to the local community? So the revitalization plan focuses on four connected priorities. First, and it was talked also in your project about this, this is integration, integration approach. Integration that brings together the physical, economic, environmental, and also the cultural dimensions of the settlement. Second, unlocking the development potential of Dendera heritage assets, including traditional crafts, agricultural systems, irrigation networks, and also local identity. Very important. Third, supporting micro and small enterprises, local value chains, rural entrepreneurship through inclusive and very much gender responsive approaches. And fourth, positioning Dendera as a center for rural innovation, sustainable agriculture and community-led development with a stronger, again, territorial identity. Identity matters a lot. So what makes this collaboration particularly important? This is the fact that it avoids a pattern that has undermined many heritage regeneration efforts for years. Too often, conservation focuses on restoring monuments while the communities surrounding them remain excluded from the economic value generated around these sites. At the same time, development initiatives frequently ignore the cultural and historic fabric that already gives these places their identity and their potential. So, Dendera moves away from that divide. It approaches heritage as part of a wider development landscape shaped by housing, livelihoods, climate pressures, tourism, infrastructure, and local economic activity. The partnership between UN-Habitat and UNDP has been essential in translating that thinking into practice. Once again, your habitat leads on the spatial and environmental dimensions, including conservation analysis, infrastructure planning, mobility, public space revitalization, and environmental upgrading of the canal corridor to protect the temple foundations from rising saline groundwaters. So strictly speaking to the mandate of habitat, and then comes UNDP, which complements this by strengthening the surrounding economic ecosystem through MSME support, agricultural value chains, agritourism, women and youth economic empowerment, and territorial branding. The branding is also very important. So a few success factors, and then I will move to the lessons learned. first success factor and one of the most important in our view was the genuine participation from the onset of this initiative. Not consultations added at the end as we usually do, some colleagues would know that we prepare and then we consult, right? But co-creation was built into the project itself from the beginning through stakeholder dialogues, focus group discussions, cognitive mapping exercises, and community sessions. So local authorities were involved, civil society, MSMEs, women, youth, and elderly residents because they know the past of that place that helped shape the plan. So that mattered because the implementation ultimately happens, and you will hear me repeat this a few times, the implementation happens at the local level. Kenya governorate and the Dendera village council were not simply consulted, they became co-owners of the initiative. Second success factor was the development of shared diagnostics across institutions. UN-Habitat and UNDP did not approach Ndera through separate agency lenses or parallel assessments. They worked from a single integrated analysis, spanning urban, environmental, economic, and also cultural dimensions. And this reflects a broader reality. Communities do not experience development challenges in separate institutional categories. They experience development challenges all at once, and our responses need to reflect that complexity. A fourth success factor, in our view, was that the initiative recognizes that the communities themselves are the long-term custodians of that heritage. In a governorate where poverty remains significant, conservation cannot succeed if local residents do not see the benefit of that conservation. It becomes sustainable only when regeneration creates livelihoods, economic opportunity, and the strongest sense of ownership through agritourism, MSMEs, crafts, and value-added agriculture. Because ultimately, when communities see heritage creating opportunities for their own families, then they become the strongest protectors of that heritage. So lessons learned, a few. One important lesson is that historic settlement regeneration is ultimately won or lost at local level. National frameworks can provide direction, but implementation depends on governors, village councils, technical units and communities themselves. Co-design and very important local authorities is therefore not just a procedural exercise. It is the foundation that determines whether projects take root beyond the planning stage. And that's also what we saw, you know, in your 10 year project is my understanding. Second lesson learned is that the private sector cannot enter the conservation only once funding gaps appear, right? Only when you, you know, don't have funding. In our project, investment pathways were built into the initiative from the beginning through public-private partnership opportunities, blended finance, and investment-ready environmental upgrading components. If regeneration efforts are expected to move beyond the pilot scale, financing logic must be embedded into the design itself, and this is where the role of private sector is extremely important. Third, lessons learned. Regeneration plans need to be designed with a longer horizon in mind. The real value of Dendera will not be measured by completion of the planning document. but by whether it mobilizes sustained investment over time from government, development partners, climate finance mechanisms, and private investors. And fourth, and perhaps the most important lessons is this. We often speak about heritage conservation and adequate housing as though they belong to two separate policy worlds. In reality, they are deeply connected. When heritage, housing, livelihoods, and climate resilience are approached together, regeneration becomes more durable, more inclusive, and far more capable of sustaining communities over time. And this is the central lesson from the Dendera revitalization initiative. And this is the experience that Egypt brings to this discussion today. Thank you for the opportunity once again.

Thank you very much, Ms. Panova, for presenting Dandara projects, but also for sharing this very inspiring example of collaboration across UN agencies and the national institutions. and also for underlining the importance of integrated approach in urban regeneration. We will now move to Ms. Anna Psachykia, who will explore how to balance demands for housing infrastructure, economic development, and the quality of life with safeguarding of historic environments and cultural identity. Ms. Anna, the floor is yours.

Hello. Oh, well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, panelists, for your presentations. They were quite interesting. I'm from Georgia, and hello is in our language. And our language is actually intangible heritage, and I will show you how it looks like. But can we switch the presentation? This one? Yeah, well, I tried to split my presentation into four segments. First, I would like to talk about cultural heritage layers in Georgia, and maybe we can find some differences or similarities with other countries. Then I would like to present two important projects for us. One is Khada Valley development plan, and That was quite interesting because the massive construction infrastructure and massive challenge tackled with cultural heritage. And there was push and pull case. So we will talk about that. And then Upper Svaneti, that's Georgian diamond, let's say, a very beautiful country. And my colleague is from Svaneti. She is local. So there is a world heritage, cultural heritage listed under UNESCO site. So that's actually challenging and I have a question to the audience at the end of my presentation and then challenges. Well, Here it looks like, like Gamarjoba. We are at the crossroad of Europe and Asia. Probably you know about us. By the way, there is another Georgia in USA, but we are from Europe. Of course, as everywhere in Georgia, there are cultural heritage, like tangible and intangible. From a tangible perspective, our country lays under the Caucasus Mountains, quite difficult terrain and topography, so our built environment is actually integrated in this quite harsh topography and the style and identity and cultural heritage is also reflecting that one. And on the other hand, intangible heritage, which is reflecting our, of course, natural and cultural identity of the nation. This is a map of Georgia, and as you see, these dots are representing tangible cultural heritage sites. They are more than 7,500, and all over, scattered all over the country, including occupied territories of Georgia. Four of them, we have four tangible World Heritage Sites. Tskheta, we have the concept that Tskheta is the second Jerusalem, so hopefully this concept will be approved by UNESCO. The second one, Gelati Monastery, the beautiful one, and Upper Swaneti, we will talk about it later, and the Colchic Rainforest and Wetlands. Kind of of Amazon jungle wipe it gives you. So if you decide to visit Georgia, I strongly recommend to visit this coffee crime forest. And when you met of national significance for sure and other monuments, I think it's taking a lot along. And what about intangible cultural, cultural heritage? Our alphabet is among 14 alphabets of human world. The first one, what you see on the upper line, it's used currently and others are also used in a religious dimension and so on. And can you guess what's on the second picture? The second picture is clay vessels buried in the ground. We are so proud that winemaking history started in Georgia and that's well preserved and actually well branded, I think, but we have to, of course, enhance this branding and to deliver this diamond to the other world. and other also intangible heritages like polyphonic singing, which is already sent in the universe, and wheat culture and chitauoba, the Georgian wrestling. So the question which I'm trying to answer, but I think it would be difficult without you and my colleagues and Bob skilled professionals in this area, how can we enhance the livability of heritage sites and integrate them into contemporary everyday life? Well, It's really difficult to answer this question, but heritage sites should not be as a museum, right? When you go to the other areas and we see these old ruins or churches or temples or other fortification buildings, they look like a museum. Can we imagine ourselves to live there? Because they were built centuries ago, like 10 or 15 or maybe more. Their needs, people's needs, that time was really different. Nowadays, we need absolutely other things. We are depending on the gadget. Electricity is so important, internet and stuff. But later, back then, this was not an issue, right? So the living area conditions were completely different. And in that extent, we will talk about a personality case. But first, I would like to introduce Hadavali project. The red line, what you see on the second picture, that's the route of the road, which is supposed to be built in this magical valley area. So can you imagine the highway there? So it will somehow ruin this beauty. And of course, the noise pollution and some environmental impact should be there. But, you know, connectivity is really important. We are not in the era when we are using horses or some stuff to go from here to there. So we need contemporary and modern infrastructure. So where is this trade off? What we should forget or what we should maintain and enhance? So the battle was among strategic connectivity and economic development versus protection of historic cultural landscape. In this extent, Yeah, this is the map. And these red and blue dots are cultural heritage sites. As you see, they are a lot, like 80 cultural heritage monuments, and really beautiful. And they look like-- well, how can I go back? This way? Some of them have maintained their old appearance. Some of them are unfortunately ruined, but whatever. We made a historical cultural reference plan, and that was the basement to identify where we can do and what. And the plan itself had three major dimensions. For sure, that's not something innovative for you, community, cultural heritage, and landscape. What we did is that-- Of course, we touch different dimensions like transport infrastructure, social infrastructure, education, tourism, community. But as I heard my colleagues, they also touch this topic. So in this plan, they are all together integrated. But most important, I think, is the person, the role of the community. Because I will come back to this one. or maybe I'll talk it right now. So this was the landscape interventions. For instance, the road should go on that way. And you see on the upper picture, right, some starting stuff of road making and to make a green what is called, a green element to cover this thing and to make it more attractive. That was kind of landscape intervention. Other was to build some, for instance, they did I mean, the group who finalized this project, they did this few corridors to identify what areas should be more sensitive for this project, for this highway to build, and what they should cover and what they have to renovate. But still, one of the important thing, that's also another picture, but we are running out of time, so I'll skip this one. The most important is the role of the community. They should understand that cultural heritage is not something which is leaving them behind, and no one left us behind, you know, this motto. What should we do? What is important? To make the tourism as a tool. as a tool to somehow make these cultural heritage monuments alive. I know that tourism is really hard topic and everyone is striving to incorporate this in their plans, but on the other hand, COVID-19 showed us that tourism is quite fragile. area. However, in this regard, when cultural heritage should be maintained on the one hand, I think that, and we think that, tourists can boost this one and also boosting the local materials, and you already talked about that, so I won't touch it. So the people should have the feeling that they are part of this cultural heritage, because without it should not be there and it would be all ruined. So in this case, the focus of this plan was raising awareness of the population. They made some tours abroad as well and they showed other case studies. So people in this area had nowadays feeling that they should stay there and make this area more livable to contribute on that regard, not to escape and not to out-migrate because they saw that this cultural heritage is their asset, and that's very important to them to realize. And about the second thing, second case study, Upper Svaneti, that's UNESCO World Heritage site. You see the picture below. It's of course placed in the Caucasus Mountains, really, really beautiful area. It's one of my favorite. You should visit it. That's the second one. First, you go to the coffee and then you go to the Sunneti to visit this area. So these towers are merged. They are residential complex. They are merged with the livestock. I mean, people in back then, from 9th to 13th century, were living together and These high towers were for defensive purposes and the lower one for residential with their livestock and so on. Actually, this plan is conservative in nature, but as you highlighted, conservative approach, you are not in favor of, kind of. I agree totally in that. But what we should do? On the one hand, that's UNESCO World Heritage, and there are really strict regulations, right? So we have to maintain this appearance only in cases when there's a really damaged and we can renovate it in the the same way, but in this region, for instance, in Svaneti, tourism is really boosting, and unlike other regions, people are coming back to Svaneti. So their demands, they are trying to enlarge their business in terms of tourism, in terms of agriculture and so on. So what should we do? On the one hand, we're tidying our hands that no, you don't have to do there, you have to maintain this thing. But people, when they are returning and coming back, they need some economic development, right? Without economic, come on, we are in 21st century and finance is everything. Without that, we can't go forward, right? So that's actually really challenging. And I remember one interview from the mayor of People are coming back and how can I say no to them? So that's really sensitive on the one hand and really very inspiring on the other hand that we should really focus on this thing and we should really The issues, integrating cultural heritage into our everyday life and keep this urban fabric as a living settlement. Yes, we should do that. And of course, incorporate tourism here and give these people some financial assistance to renovate this area and maintain somehow the old appearance. But on the other hand, we should give them the chance to develop. Because this was built, as I said, back then, centuries ago. We have now different challenges. So we have to adapt to this contemporary thing and not to stuck in the old pattern because It should change in any way. So we shall have to try to change it in a better way. If you have other suggestions, how we can-- what we can do with Svaneti or Khada, feel free to express. And I hope UNESCO also will support us in case of-- in regard of maintaining this historic settlement. Thank you very much. I know that I exceeded my time, but I hope I have not bothered you a lot. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Miss Anna, for sharing different layers of heritage in Georgia. We heard now from Morocco, from Georgia, and from Egypt, and I'm now pleased to invite Mr. Giulio Verdini. We will now hear from the academia and research perspectives on how traditional knowledge can be connected with the modern urban planning approaches. Mr. Giorgio, Giulio, sorry, Verdini, it's my pleasure to invite you. Mr. Verdini is a director of global engagement and associate professor in urban planning at University of Westminster. He will be presenting, sharing a presentation. The floor is yours, Professor Verdini.

So thank you very much, especially UN Habitat Morocco for kindly inviting me and giving me this big responsibility to represent academia, which I hope I will make justice to the sector and being with the panelists. I have a presentation and if that can be shared, that would be appreciated. Sorry, it's my fault. So, in the interest of time, I'll go straight to the point. I was asking to reflect on how we can ensure adequate housing and preserving the cultural identity of historic site. And, well, ultimately, what we call it today, the living heritage, the physical environment and the people living there. We are all discussing, I think, about that. So the question is really, what do we want to achieve? Now, it's in trying to find a balance between the true and for whom conservation should, how to say, operate. And is it then, how to say, possible to do that or not? Now, For me, I always say conservation has two aspects. One is a special planning strategy, so there are technical skills. And I think that we have seen, also from the experience of Morocco, that there are countries that are very advanced in actually how to achieve that. And we know there are experiences. So I don't think that's a problem. We know how to protect the past. And we have all the technical skills. But Conservation is also a contested social political process, meaning that that's the variable that we need to tackle if we want to really achieve conservation or not. Now, the past is the past, but it's always good to go back and remember what happened at some point. And the case of Bologna in Italy is certainly interesting because at some point in '69, They decided to protect the historic city center, and that was the largest urban conservation plan in Europe, and possibly in the world, that was done in that period. But the idea was not only to protect the physical environment, which was achieved, but also to set up a program for social housing to retain the population living there. So that was a political decision. We want that people to remain there. Now, that people, by the way, were not even, but they were consulting, but I wouldn't call it participation, although the city was very advanced at that time. They were given access to the right to the city, which is a different thing. So basically, no matter whether they participate or not, there was a vision for achieving that. This is the era of the dinosaurs. It's gone. It's gone, the political economy in which we operate. It's gone, probably the idea of progress at the time, and so on. Today, we are in a different setting, so we need to operate with the current situation. And I always say, there's an elephant in the room that we need to tackle. We need to say what is that. Is that finally, if, as I said earlier, the regeneration is a political process or a sociopolitical process, There are some risks. Now, I'm not saying that this is the case of everywhere, but this is the case in most places that when we see heritage and historic set that that's for profit. So we see that as a possibility for making profit. And especially if... government and local municipalities are under-resourced, well, then you need to get those profit by involving the private sector, by involving others. That's normal. But the risk is that then you push towards a certain specific pro-profit outcome. I mean, we have seen over-commercialization, over-tourism. I mean, I'm not saying something new. It's everywhere in the world. Then discussions are also-- difficult discussions are-- the people in policy making, or in general, they want to be avoided. And so, for instance, if we have areas where there are people living there, maybe migrants I've seen in certain parts of the world, populating historic city center, then it's easier to say, let's move them outside and let's make it clean and modern and new for the city. That's an easy discussion to make. But then what is the cost, the social cost of this replacement when we push people to leave, for instance, far away from the city center, creating unhealthy health conditions, creating possibility maybe of social unrest and all of that. something to consider. And the third point is the crucial issue of the political mandate. Decisions are taken within the time frame of four years, five years, whatever is the political mandate. So that's the elephant in the room that I was mentioning. We are in a situation of three interlocking traps. The one is that we have a profit-driven logic, we have a consensus-seeking politics, and we have short-termism. Now, that can be dangerous. Now, I don't want to say that universities can solve all the problems. Very often, we just follow the same logic. But sometimes, universities can help in trying to put forward some ideas which are trying to be outside of the mainstream, outside of the, how to say, the way of currently operating. That's our role. Otherwise, why are we here? Why are we paid? For what? And so, university can act as a medium to try to facilitate processes which are slightly more sustainable, slightly different. Of course, engaging communities today, we cannot do as in Bologna in '69, consulting and then operating. It would be impossible. So we need to consult, of course, communities. But we need to have in mind what might be a future public missions that we can retain. And if the government is not able to achieve that because of, I don't know, political constraints, that someone that should stand up is NGOs, is civil societies, is academics, is this kind of people. Now recently, and this is what I've presented in this WOOF, I have edited this report for a union for the Mediterranean. It's different knowledge exchanges across the Mediterranean from north to south, different ways to try to tackle the, let's say, the issue of regenerating historic areas, adapting to climate change, transforming to the needs of the current issues and problems, and trying to understand how we can, let's say, operate in this very narrow space. I'm also saying that we need to have more resources. We need to have, we need to present these things in this kind of outlet and platform to get more, how to say, track and trying to advance in this idea. Now, I've been working over the last 15 years in China, mostly, and I, or also, and I have seen talking about what are the key success factors and common pitfalls, an evolution of the practice of heritage conservation and regeneration in this part of the world. And I would like to also mention what went well and what went wrong, somehow, in this context. showing that the government, if it's willing to do it, can do it. And China has shown, when I first worked there 15, 16 years ago, it was a moment where basically historic city centers were pretty much demolished. Rural villages around cities were just demolished because there was another idea of development at that point. some point, this started to change because cultural heritage start to become interesting, profitable. People start to actually like it and maybe fight for it. There is an emerging civil society, which, again, university can try to support because they can provide alternatives to the system. So this is a case that you see in the image in Longchang, Sichuan. You see the aqua and this monumental area in the middle. Around that, there were urban fabrics with not high value, but community living there. Now, the approach at that time was demolishing that in order to make the monument visible. And of course, the cost was pretty much all on communities. Communities were relocated. Now, the approach has changed. entirely. So China is a country that is showing somehow that you can understand and learn from mistakes and then move on and try to find alternatives. I was visiting this site in Hanshun in Guizhou last March, and I found that regeneration, this is a completed process of regeneration. Very interesting because it doesn't reach the level of beautification that we have seen in other cities, but it reaches a sort of intermediate level where some communities are still there. Some roads are more for-- they open up shops and restaurants, so it's also for tourists. But the two can coexist together. So you see, depending on how much we push on one direction or another one, we can try to, how to say, achieve a balance between the two. Today, we cannot ignore that it's not only development pressure, the problem that we are dealing with, but it's also we are in a context of poly-crisis, so that This is one layer. But then in addition to that, we have disasters. Climate change is certainly one of the most important. And I think in post-disaster, we understand a lot of things that can happen, that can either-- how to say-- exacerbate existing trends or modify the trajectory. And I like to see where crisis open up an opportunity to modify the trajectory. Now, the case that you see here is the case of the earthquake in Kahramanmaras in Turkey, 2023. As in many other cases, I mean, I'm from Italy, and Italy, we had that experience as well, where, how to say, earthquake came, historic city center were demolished, and then the political response was, let's build new towns all around. New towns around means that you displace community, you give an immediate answer to that, but you have emptied the historic core, and you will not get back to that. forget it. It's so hard to retain that living heritage that we are trying to actually protect. So once you do that, it's lost. Japan has shown that after the floods in 2011, there has been an attempt to slow down the process, embed that practice in the community, how to say, tradition of the country, which is the machizukuri tradition, and then using Well, of course, every context is different and it's context-based solution. The villages around the area in the hills that were half emptied to re-identifying those villages and so to recreate actually livelihood around same existing structure so that a float and a crisis can be an occasion to restore existing building and to recreate communities. So that's a question for me. If something like that can recreate an idea of the future, then we are in the right track. And finally, how to achieve, and so for conclusion, resilient urban heritage, I think we need to ask, let's say, the right question somehow, whether in the practices that we are seeing in every country, we really are trying to achieve a balance between development and conservation or reconstruction. between the profit logic that I was saying before or more community oriented logic. And so that means that we need to go beyond the easy answers, no, to what we are seeing and whether these pressures, crisis, whatever it is, as I said earlier, open up an opportunity for future oriented missions, public missions that I think we should try to pursue. That could create alternative future. Now, just to conclude, I'm working on a report for the European Commission about resilient urban heritage, a future-oriented framework for reconstruction recovery. So with the hope that this can provide some further material for that debate. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Professor Verdini, and for sure we will continue discussion including your current work. And thank you for highlighting actually the essential role of research, knowledge and exchange and universities in supporting more context-sensitive regeneration practices. We are a bit running of time, so I will now call my colleague, Elsa Sattou, who is joining us online. Ms. Sattou is a head of program specialist at the UNESCO Regional Office for Maghreb. Elsa, can you hear us?

Yes, hello, can you hear me?

Yes, so, Elsa, you will be presenting the small project and its outcomes framed within the UNESCO DRR program for resilience building. The floor is yours, Elsa, please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you first for the invitation to take part of this site event by UN-Habitat in Morocco. Distinguished panelists and colleagues, I'm really glad today to be here with you and to hear to the different experience from around the world and the insights shared for the regenerative resilience construction. So I will share you an escalated experience, in fact, from the Maghreb region, presenting a concrete path of the post Al Hocei, earthquake in Morocco's High Atlas. I should note that my intervention also address pivotal dimension of UNESCO's work and mandate on UNDRR. I will tap on the contribution of the small project to local development and adequate housing in vulnerable territory, the role of community participation and local ownership in regeneration process, and the impact on the local value chains, economic development, and job creation. So I don't see, I think, I don't see the presentation. I'm not sure if.

I will, can support you as that to move to next slide. Just ask me please to move when you end.

Okay.

Can you, can you, you are not able to see the presentation, right?

Yeah, now I can see it.

Okay.

Okay. It's not all the time permanent, but now I can see it. So before turning to a house case, I would like to brief you how UNESCO operates in disaster and post-disaster context. Our intervention, in fact, work across three interconnected levels. We have first the science, technology and early warning system, where we advance multi-hazard monitoring. We are part of the early warning system for all and the training of engineers, researchers, practitioners and journalists, as well as local actors to strengthen preparedness and anticipation and also crisis communication. The second level is the resilient education system. So we work to ensure school safety and continuity of learning during crisis. We have the VISUS program for the school safety, which is a methodology for structural risk assessment and providing psychological support for students and educators. And the third level is heritage, cultural heritage protection. And here, what I heard today from colleagues is really well centered and just revolving around the cultural heritage protection. So we safeguard heritage sites and cultural institutions against disaster. We mobilize the heritage emergency fund and we integrate heritage into community recovery strategy. So these three levels are not separate programs that are designed to converge in the field. We have many multi-sectoral programs and projects within UNESCO, and the Al-Haus earthquake is a case where all three synergically came together. Next, please. I don't see anywhere, I don't see the screen. No, no, no way. So, as you know, on September 8, 2023, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Al Hoceima province. So, it was the deadliest seismic event Morocco had experienced in over 60 years. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost, 2.0 million people were affected, and close to 60,000 buildings collapsed or were severely damaged across 163 municipalities and over 2,900 villages. So what made this disaster distinctive from a rural to urban regeneration perspective is what the houses represented in the affected villages to the local community. So the settlements of High Atlas are built with local materials, as you know, rammed earth, dry stone, and timber. Techniques refined over centuries, deeply adapted to the landscape, the climate, and the social organization of mountain communities are important assets to be conserved, preserved, and revitalized. So when those buildings fell, what was at risk was an entire architectural heritage and the living knowledge that sustains it. This was a sociocultural and economic heritage crisis, in fact, in the region. And our challenge as UNESCO was clear for sure with Morocco, was setting the path towards rebuilding safely without erasing the identity, so to produce adequate housing that is safe in the future, culturally appropriate and rooted in the territory. Next, I don't have access to the room. So through the small project, Strengthening Morocco Resilience to Earthquake, funded by the government of Japan, and it was implemented in partnership with the Moroccan authority, which I would like to cite. We have the National Institute responsible for the National Seismic Monitoring Network, the Ministry of National Land Use Planning, Urban Planning, Housing, and Urban Policy, the Ministry of Interior, the history of education, the National Order of Architects, and the university also, and the academic researcher and non-governmental organization. And this is what also made the project multidisciplinary. And at some point, the approach was transdisciplinary in dealing with many aspects of this project. So I'm not sure where are the slides now because I cannot see.

It's the multidimensional heritage activities, Elsa.

Yes, so here we have, as I mentioned, the partnership with the different stakeholders and government agency brought a multidimensional path in Alfoz, which revolved around the community participation, local development, Reinforcing the sense of belonging also because of the post-traumatic disaster which sometimes take place after earthquakes among other natural hazards. So we have the resilient education, work on the education component, the reconstruction, bringing the architecture and traditional architecture to the front in order to preserve it and try to create a new job opportunity to preserve the traditional construction. We have also, it was a very important component in the project, it was the seismic monitoring and early warning system. So now Morocco has an independent platform in order to monitor and follow up on the earthquakes that take place in Morocco. Before it relied on regional platform, which was in Portugal. Now this project has created an independent, a solid platform to follow up on the different, sorry, on the earthquake that happened and in terms of anticipation and early warning system for local community as well as local agency. Next, so I would go, but very quickly, I know we are running out of time. So in terms of the three dimension, we have science communication and local development. In terms of scientific dimension, we have reinforced the institutional capacity, technical capacity. So there was a deployment for 12 seismometers in the region, 10 accelerograph, eight early warning system, and we have organized training to more than 150 engineers plus 30 journalists in crisis communication, to communicate during the crisis and also after the events of crisis. Here we're putting this, the project was only for one year. And as I mentioned before, it was funded by the government of Japan, and it was part of the emergency fund that usually is, um… given by the government of Japan. In terms of science communication and local development, we have the heritage-led reconstruction. So we positioned the reconstruction as a local economic development strategy, keeping wealth and expertise within the affected area. There was the production of videos and modules in Darija, and this too also to keep the practices in traditional architecture and are preserved and also to build the capacity of local communities, youth and even the artisan that lives in the area. The outcome was an integrated scientific monitoring, informed public communication and a heritage-driven economic recovery. Next, please. The second level was about education and community safety. So there was training for more than 130 school professionals in disaster risk reduction. It was also in terms of psychological support to the teacher and how they can the support also to the students during and after the disaster. We have set the path for the application of the VESIS methodology across 12 schools. In terms of community participation, we have empowered community with technical capacity to become informed actors. intergeneration and embedding local community. Next, please. So in terms of skills and livelihood revitalization, the most important, this is really an important outcome of the project and it was a very important component because This is a model to be shown when we're doing the training for artisan in order to preserve the intangible heritage and to protect the traditional architecture. The main aim is to boost the local value chain, the job creation, and to keep also the young in the El Houz area. This is to the extent of the duration of the project, but what we try to do is really to embed all the results of this project within the community. The small outcomes, I think I will skip this because I already mentioned what we have done. The major point also, an important outcome was the technical building center. I'm not sure if you moved next in the in the slides. So we have the technical building centers and it's a national platform for certification research and for doing studies on earthquake that impact and how to improve the resilience of local communities and community as a whole and citizen. Also what was done here It was to support, to assess Morocco legislative organizational framework for natural hazard management. in terms, and this was part of the Technical Building Center. There was this project trigger an initiative to revisit the building code and to work on it in terms of updating, taking into account the advances and approaches in terms of resilience and anticipation to earthquakes. This I mentioned it, but this was very important. The last point is to anchor for local value chains and this linking the artisan with engineers, researcher and public authority within a shared quality framework. Next, in terms of global framework and scalable tools, so the project for sure, we address the Sendai framework.

Elza, can you hear me?

Yes.

I would like kindly to ask you to conclude, please, because we are really running out of time.

I still just want to have this slide and the next one.

Okay, please go ahead.

So the project addressed the SDG 11, if you can move, please, next, the SDG 13 and partly the SDG 4 in terms of working on school safety for quality education and UNESCO recommendation in terms of urban landscape, heritage urban landscape. So the job creation was mentioned. And what also I would like to stress on is the cooperation with Japan, where we had cooperation with the National Institution and Research Center. As you know, Japan is very strong in terms of dealing with earthquake and natural hazard in general. So we have been in partnership with the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, and the Earthquake Research Institute. So can I move to the last slide, please, which is about lessons learned. here what I heard from colleagues and the panelists, the distinguished panelists, I think most of them they were mentioned in a way or in another. So we have the most important thing is to keep the local ownership and participation. This is one of the most strongest lesson. So we have the local community that are empowered as informed and conscious actor of the importance of their heritage and how to keep it in terms of living in the houses and where they dwell. The integrated multidimensional approach was very important in terms of this transversal approach methodology. So the project showed that resilience required combining education, science and artisanship in terms of heritage and traditional building skills. heritage-led economic regeneration. This here, it's a point to debate how to position heritage reconstruction as a local economic development strategy to keep wealth and expertise within the affected area. So this last lesson highlights that recovery is not only about rebuilding infrastructure, but it's also about revitalizing cultural identity and local economy. And this is what we're aiming to do next after this project has ended. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Elza. Thank you for joining us online. We couldn't have this session without the contribution of UNESCO, so thanks again. I would like just to ask the participants if there is any question or any inputs for our panelists. Everything was very clear. Okay. So as we come to the end of this session, I would like to sincerely thank our distinguished speakers, our participants and partners for the enriching discussion. So today's exchange reminded us that the historic settlements are not only spaces of memory and identity, but also spaces for opportunity, resilience, and innovation. We have heard powerful examples demonstrating that heritage-led regeneration can contribute directly to adequate and climate-resilient housing, local economic development, social inclusion, preservation of traditional knowledge, and stronger community resilience. We have also seen the importance of an integrated partnerships bringing together governments and agencies, local communities, academia, and cultural institution under a shared vision. So thank you once again, all of you. And we now, maybe I can just invite you to take a photo group before leaving. Thank you so much.