The people who live in cities must have a say in how they are shaped: Notes from the Common City Conference

A rights advocate from Nigeria's Human Rights Journalists Network traveled to Uppsala University to present on forced evictions and unequal development in Lagos and Cape Town, part of the Common City Conference on housing and urban justice. The panel examined how communities dispossessed by redevelopment projects can turn their own sidelined knowledge into a tool for accountability rather than raw material for outside researchers.

In the interview, the advocate described housing as tied to dignity and belonging, not just shelter, invoking Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. He noted that Lagos communities facing eviction are often reduced to statistics in development narratives while their lived expertise gets left out of policy discussions entirely.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.