MRI managing director József Hegedüs and researcher Vera Horváth presented on “ReImagining Inclusive Cities: Planning, Land, Housing, Infrastructure” in Chennai, India on 16 November 2018. The two-day symposium, on 15-16 November, was organised by the German development Agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), and supported by the government of Tamil Nadu. The event brought together leaders and policy makers from the central, state, and local governments tasked with housing and urban land management; as well as researchers, NGO representatives and private sector actors from India and all over the globe.
The event was organised under GIZ’s Sustainable Urban Development – Smart Cities project in the line of Indo-German Technical Cooperation; aside from Tamil Nadu state government, it also received support from Odisha and Kerala states, and India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research was instrumental in the organisation.
Speakers included, among others, World Bank economists Robert Buckley and Eduardo Rojas, Prof. Ruth Kattumuri of London School of Economics, Prof.Giorgio Brosio of the University of Turin, Ms Kecia Rust of Centre for Affordable Housing Finance, South Africa, Prof. Michael Ball of the Henley Business School, a number of outstanding experts from GIZ India and the Centre for Policy Research; and many others, with a global geographic coverage, and an Indian and Southern Asian focus. The Agenda of the Symposium is available here; it sets out the context and central themes, and pages 6-11 present the detailed programme and speakers.
Hegedüs and Horváth were asked to present on the Central and Eastern European experience in expanding the private rental housing market; and on attempts to and bottlenecks to making it more inclusive and affordable. The presentation of MRI participants is available here.
