All of us, at some point in our lives, will have to be cared for, and perhaps take care of others. The current health, economic, social and emotional crisis has highlighted the importance of care in our society and our lives and has exposed a failed model of elder care. In this session we'll share different projects from Barcelona, Zaragoza and Bogotá that aim to guarantee dignified aging and value care work, one of the most essential jobs, as well as being one of the most precarious and feminized.

An important thesis of municipalism is that empowered cities will slowly divest the centralized state of power, bringing authority closer to people at the local level. But what happens when the state fights back? Around the world we’ve seen municipal jurisdictions assert themselves only to have regional or state governments circumscribe their power. And if we elect municipal candidates to regional or federal governments how do we ensure their allegiance remains to the confederated municipalities? 

The structural racism found in wider society is reproduced in progressive movements and parties, creating deep inequalities in the participation and representation of certain groups. This makes it essential that we work on actions and mechanisms to dismantle racism and drive the participation and empowerment of people who aren't white. We'll share the challenges to antiracist participation and the practices we're developing to tackle them.

The old polis have become technopolises that make us permanently interconnected and mediate all our actions. They censor dissent so that the world is drawn from the ambitions of those who control knowledge. We discuss Educommunication, that wants to reverse the media cartel and preserve the communication ecosystem as a space for human and social development where we can all generate content in a diverse way under equal conditions.

We must ensure that sports practices are free from discrimination, facilitators of women’s empowerment, with full equality of opportunities, which overcome prejudices and stereotypes and eliminate barriers and structural ceilings. Is racism in sport the inherent racism of society? Are stadiums a mirror that reflects it? Can sport contribute to building an inclusive future? In the world of sports, does discrimination still win the game?

Is it possible to have a local economy that puts caring for people and the planet at the center? We talk about how to build towns and cities that combine the well-being of all people with respect for the environment.

The Universal Basic Income, the unconditional salary for the entire population that guarantees a decent life, can be understood as a way to distribute the common wealth among all citizens and as a citizen's right that rewards the losses related to the privatizations that take over the community media. In addition, it would serve as a material guarantee to effectively exercise the right to political participation that those who now lack the time and resources cannot realize. For this reason, the demand of the UBI goes hand in hand with the right to the city and political participation, claimed by the municipal movement and can serve as another tool to advance on this front. What does the UBI have to do with municipalism? What would be the UBI model that would reinforce municipalism and therefore should be defended by the international municipal movement?

What makes a city a city and not just a collection of buildings? Without a doubt, the people who live in it. Real estate speculation has sent cities into a destructive spiral where residents are pushed out. In this session, we'll discuss the emergence of movements that defend the right to housing and municipalist policies that can help to save cities.

Transformative political candidacies around the world don’t usually enjoy economic or media power. Their strength is found in grassroots organizing, in direct communication and in the ability to mobilize a majority to win. Experts in grassroots organizing will discuss the challenges they face in 2021 and share how they are innovating to take them on in their work in campaigns and organizations.

Corruption and organized crime are scourges that affect municipalities around the world. In this session, we'll discuss corruption and organized crime at the local level, the role played by countries that are tax and legal havens and the policies needed for a more transparent and fair world.

Digitization weakens some of our rights and increases the power of big lobbies, but it also opens doors to a closer democracy from the municipalities. We talk about how to use tools like local currencies and public data control to build a new digital economic democracy.

What if the cities we live in were designed for people rather than for cars? We discuss the revolution that is transforming european urban space: superblocks.

This session will showcase transformative solutions to the global housing crisis and bring together activists and community leaders from different countries that are tackling this issue. How did they organise their (trans)local housing movement from the ground up, how did they resist eviction or build better alternatives?

If aliens were to visit Earth, they would assume that we humans would protect those who dedicate their lives to defending us. This isn't so: Human Rights defenders see their rights frequently violated. We listen to first-person testimonies and talk about the cities that do defend the defenders and the need to open a state, European and international political process.

Municipalist governments face a dilemma when dealing with the systemic crisis we are facing. Should they opt for degrowth policies, for green growth or, like Amsterdam, for imaginative solutions such as Doughnut Economics?. We will discuss these three models and how to apply them in the context of the Next Generation EU funds.

Policing and security is an area traditionally dominated by the right. Not only do their policies fail to solve the existing problems, they even increase violence against citizens and groups. Ceding this terrain to conservative forces prevents us from transforming realities and contributes to reproducing the current model.
What barriers stop the left from addressing violence and insecurity as an area of public policy? How can we break them down?
 

The intensification of migratory flows to the European continent through the Mediterranean has met with deterrence and containment policies on the part of the EU. This process has created so-called “Prison Islands”, in addition to serious violations of human rights and international law at sea. Lampedusa, Lesbos and San Cristóbal de La Laguna are three of the municipalities directly affected by the policies of their own states and the EU, the result of which couldn't be more dramatic. Representatives from each municipality talk about how they have sought real support from other local governments to face the crisis and implement refuge policies.

Municipalism advances towards a more inclusive, democratic, sustainable and feminist economy. In order to achieve this, public contracting can be a useful tool, which represents a significant weight of local economies. In this session we will talk about the potential, limits and complexities of public contracting as a transformative tool. We'll discuss the situation in Barcelona and Chile.

The countries and cities of southern Europe share a common culture and history and many times we experience similar political situations. However, for years the alliances of Anglo-Saxon neoliberalism or the austerity-friendly Troika countries have seemed easier. Has the response to the Covid crisis managed to turn this situation around? Will we be able to build strong alliances between countries and municipalities that defend social and climate justice?