Nagrika, new partner in India

On 13th September, Mistra Urban Futures signed an International Cooperation Agreement with the Indian-based social enterprise Nagrika, covering the period until the end of our current funding phase in December 2019.

Nagrika (which means citizen) combines research, practical experience, and knowledge from local context to provide solutions for small cities in India. The co-operation between Mistra Urban Futures and Nagrika will start with Mistra Urban Future’s comparative project “Implementing the New Urban Agenda and The Sustainable Development Goals: Comparative Urban Perspectives”. Nagrika will contribute to the comparative project by analysing how the city of Shimla, on the foothills of the Himalayas in the State of Himachal Pradesh, is engaging with Agenda 2030 and assessing the data available to monitor its Sustainable Development Goals.

The Municipal Corporation area comprises a population of around 100,000 and the whole urban area some 250,000-300,000, making it the smallest city in our project. An additional city, Dheradun, the capital of neighbouring Uttarakhand state, may also be included as part of the project partnership by the end of the year. Provision of training in transdisciplinary co-production also forms part of the Agreement, since Nagrika wishes to benefit from Mistra Urban Futures’ diverse experience in this field to underpin its engagement with Shimla and Dheradun.

Top photo, from left to right: David Simon, Yutika Vora, Tarun Sharma and Sandra Valencia, lead researcher on the comparative project, in Shimla. Photos 2 and 3: Yutika Vora and Tarun Sharma, Nagrika, and Mistra Urban Futures' Director David Simon, signing the agreement.; partial view of Shimla, almost all of which is built on very steep slopes at an altitude of over 2300 m above sea level.

For more information, please contact David Simon or Jan Riise