In September 2013, a group of rights advocates and urban professionals from eight different organisations was formed around the main purpose of writing what they thought Egypt's second constitution, after the January 2011 Revolution, should uphold with regards to housing rights, and rights related to the built environment.
This presentation will discuss the used research data which can be found in the publication “Social Justice and the Built Environment – A Map of Egypt”, and how this material helped to form articles in the Urban Constitution Charter. Topics range from the current state of housing and the challenges of acquiring an adequate home, to the state of infrastructure in Egypt's cities and villages, as well as the formal framework that governs them, and the threats faced by communities and that lead to their forced eviction.
Yahia Shawkat, initiator of the blog ShadowMinistryOfHousing.org, is currently a Housing and Land Rights Researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, where he focuses on communities threatened with the loss of their homes, whether as a result of economic policy, forced eviction or the collapse of their building. He produced a number of studies and regularly contributes to the press on issues on housing and the built environment.
In 2008 he curated the Egyptian Pavillion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale and received the National Award for Architecture in 2010. Yahia Shawkat holds a BSc in Architecture from Cairo University.