Building Environmental Civic Spaces to tackle syndemics in vulnerable scenarios

Abstract

The synergistic action of the four planetary crises: climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and water crisis, generates scenarios marked by the presence of syndemics, where pre-existing social, cultural, environmental, and health conditions are affected in an integrated manner. In syndemic scenarios, comprehensive well-being, the enjoyment of freedoms, and development processes are limited by lack of capabilities, absence of public policies, and lack of local community schemes. Childhood, women, and workers in precarious employment are the most susceptible groups. Faced with this panorama, our group has developed a strategy based on community capabilities that leads to the establishment of Environmental Civic Spaces (ECS). The strategy aims through prevention to promote and protect the enjoyment of human rights, from the right to health to the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The strategy requires an implementation framework based on six phases: i) planning to establish background information on the identified syndemic; ii) community participation; iii) prioritization of accumulated risks, routes, and impacts on human rights; iv) risk prevention through the creation of diverse community-based capabilities and alternatives; v) local promotion and dissemination; and vi) protection with measures leading to the construction of ECS. Our proposal has been applied in different contexts with the aim of promoting communities’ right to a syndemic-free life.