Participatory urban development is often understood as a process whereby the State or municipal authorities open up urban planning initiatives to citizens. In Cali, we are putting in place a system that inverses the process, allowing participatory initiatives to come from local actors themselves. Our aim is to develop a system that can impact Cali and which can be implemented in many other cities, rich and poor, that believe in the power of collective intelligence and local initiative. 

At the moment, urbz is working with local groups and institutions in Cali to develop methods and tools to strengthen participatory processes from the ground-up. Local populations in every part of the world have always shown an amazing capacity of responding to the challenges they face. Our aim is to connect these local processes to institutions, sponsors and other local groups. 

As part of the process we are organizing a 2 days event which brings together some of the most innovative and pro-active collectives in Cali, including Cali 500+, Camino al Barrio, Colectiva MQ, Casa Grafo, Casa Cultural el Chontaduro, Colegio la Fontaine, Corporacion Lomerito, Taller 77 y la Biblioteca Publica Centro Comuna 20. The event, called “Feria de Experiencias Comunitarias” (Fair of community experiences) takes place on May 9 and 10, 2025 in Siloé, one of Colombia’s largest homegrown neighborhoods and it is open to all. Contact us for more information on how to participate. 

The Feria is part of a 6 months project that aims at developing tools and methodologies to support local initiatives emerging from different parts of the city. As a large and growing Latin American city, Cali faces multiple challenges, which include the provision of housing and infrastructure, the creation of social and cultural spaces, political violence, and the rights of minorities. It also has tremendous assets, for instance its amazing biodiversity, its vibrant cultures, and the resourcefulness of the local population.

In the last months, we have met extremely inspiring people and we have been able to contribute to some local initiatives. These experiences provide the bedrock of the methodologies we are developing at a systemic scale. We have built a community kitchen in the neighborhood of San Francisco, Siloé. The kitchen is run by the Camino al Barrio association, which has been active over the past 7 years in developing a sense of community and mutual respect in a part of Siloé that was marked by the presence of guerilla groups until recently. We see the kitchen as a tool for community building and participation, for the transmission of culinary traditions and new nutritional knowledge, as well as a means to generate resources for the local association. This association will provide food during the Feria. 

In Siloé, we also support the construction of a community theater called Teatro Verde. This project was initiated by Taller 77, Casa Grafo, Universidad del Valle, and the Corporation Lomerito. Due to a lack of resources it could not be completed. We will engage resources to contribute for the partial completion of the structure. We also aim at setting up a new governance structure composed of local actors who will be able to program the theater. 

Last but not least, we are putting together an innovative digital interface that allows any local group to open up its initiative to the participation of the population and seek institutional support and sponsorship. The platform called Calictiva is online in its beta phase of development. It runs on the open source system Decidim developed by the city of Barcelona, and we adapted it to the needs of Cali. One of the main innovations of the Calictiva interface is that every local association will be able to run its own micro-site, promoting and developing as many initiatives as it needs. For this customization and the development of new functionalities we are working with Ocree, a Geneva based startup. 

This initiative is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs and the Inter-American Development Bank. We hope that it will not only help specific initiatives, but also provide a city-wide system to promote more such initiatives in Cali. We are also eager to reiterate this process in other cities that want to support urban, economic, cultural and social development from the ground-up.