On September 12, 2003, representatives of urban organizations and social movements from different regions of the world met in Madrid to discuss how to build a common front against the perverse consequences of the exclusion, poverty, environmental deterioration, exploitation, violence, and the problems in transportation, in public services, in housing, in stability, and in urban governance brought about by neoliberal globalization.

The IAI Charter of Founding Principles highlights the importance of reinforcing the voice of the voiceless, and the local level in the global context as a strategic tool to build and to strengthen the links of an indispensable solidarity to protect the rights of inhabitants to be builders and users of cities.

For these reasons, the IAI has promoted the World Assembly of Inhabitants, the development of which will be the constitution of a world federation of urban organizations and social movements. (Further information on the IAI Web site.)

Goals

• To stimulate self-esteem, cultural identity, and the ethical values of the population in view of a collective project for change.

• To develop the capacity to connect specific problems with their originating causes and with the consequences that they produce, in order to present solution alternatives that are viable from a practical point of view, but radical in the sense of getting to the root of the problems and of the solutions.

Network

At the moment, the IAI is a world network of organizations based on inhabitants and territorial social movements, communities, tenants, home owners, homeless persons, neighborhoods, cooperatives, indigenous peoples, and working-class neighborhoods from all of the continents.

It is a cross-cultural, inclusive, autonomous, independent, self-managed, and solidarity movement open to coordination with other sister organizations pursuing them same goals.