Cities’ Council

The creation of the Cities’ Council, in the year of 2004, represents the materialization of an important instrument of democratic management of the National Urban Development Policy - NUDP, which is still in construction process. It is a collegiate body with deliberative and advisory nature, that integrates the structure of the Ministry of Cities and has for purpose to study and to propose guidelines for the formulation and implementation of the NUDP, as well as following its execution.

The Council makes possible the debate around the urban policy in a continued form, respecting the autonomy and the specificities of the segments that compose it, such as: the popular movements, businessmen, non governmental organizations, professional, academic and research organizations, labor unions, and governmental officials from the three spheres of the government.

The Council of Cities is, therefore, a true instance of negotiation where the social actors participate of the process of decision about the policies executed by the Ministry of Cities, in the areas of habitation, environmental sanitation, transport and urban mobility and territorial planning.

The plural origin of these bodies and entities and their traditional performance around the thematic of urban development make possible to the segments a performance characterized by the political articulation and negotiation, prospective action and technical quality in the debates, allowing, amongst other things, the construction of public policies that favor the access to all the citizens, having always as reference the deliberations from the National Conferences of  Cities.

Currently, the Cities’ Council is constituted by 86 counselors - 49 representatives of segments of the civil society and 37 of the three spheres of government - beyond 86 substitutes, with mandate of two years. The composition of the Council includes, still, 09 representative observers of the state governments, which must possess Cities’ Concil, in its respective unit of the Federation.

 In the trajectory of performance of the Council of Cities, one of the main learned lessons is that democracy gains more quality when governments join with the accumulated experience of the organized civil society and increase its participation in the elaboration and execution of the programs and the public policies.