The communities are the focus of this project. We use dialogical approaches to co-create equitable resilience.

The URBE Latam team has partnered with local communities to enable the co-production of enhanced, context-specific understandings of local risks and the integration of the resulting data into decision-making procedures which enable transformations that close the implementation gap in delivering equitable resilience for marginalised communities.. The project will be based on two case studies focusing on specific areas of Rio Janeiro and Medellín; however, the findings and methods developed during the research will be widely transferable to other places and environmental contexts

El Pacífico - Medellín, Colombia

Informal settlements in Latin American Cities are often characterised by dense populations, substandard living conditions, and to numerous social problems. Those are often consequences of the imbalances and dichotomies arising from the push for rapid urbanisation of cities on one hand and the sociopolitical, economic, cultural and other characteristics of the urban contexts of the region, on the other.

In Colombia the national historical background adds another dimension to this complicated dynamic. The Colombian armed conflict, which has lasted more than half a century, has served as the catalyst for massive forced displacement throughout the entire Colombian territory. Those movements of people, contributed to the social and territorial outlook of the Colombian cities as seen today. People affected by the conflict flocked to cities, in search of a response from the Government and help in overcoming the state of emergency. In many cases, the state capacity was not enough to meet their needs, and since they could not go back to their original territories, they settled in the limited spaces available in cities throughout the country. In the particular case of the city of Medellín, El Pacífico is one such neighbourhood born out of forced displacement and violence as consequences of the armed conflict. There, on the slopes of the city, this neighbourhood stands as an example of resistance and resilience in the face of violence and adversity. With more than 25 years of history, today El Pacífico illustrates the practices of social and environmental risk management communities have adopted to defend the permanence of their territory. At the same time it provides a great example for the situations and ineractions that URBE Latam seeks to face. Some of the struggles, achievements and challenges experienced by the community can be seen in the following audiovisual piece, prepared within the framework of the research project Social construction of the territory on the slopes of Medellín from community practices in the defense of the territory (1995 -2005), carried out by the El Pacífico Community Action Board, the research group on Local Development and Territorial Management of the Institución Universitaria Colegio Mayor de Antioquia, the Corporación Jurídica Libertad, and the Mesa Interbarrial de Desconectados between 2017 and 2019.