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Ethnocultural diversity increasingly constitutes an important characteristic of major cities around the world. As the primary centres for national, ethnic and cultural intermixing, cities are becoming laboratories for new ways of “living together” (UNESCO, 2004). However, when this diversity is accompanied by inequalities, racism and discrimination, it can increase the social divide. Therefore, in order to benefit from the true advantages of the ethnocultural diversity that makes up the fabric of contemporary societies, it has become increasingly necessary to employ methods to correct social injustices, and to ensure the equality and the full exercise of citizens’ rights. Accordingly, the last few years have seen true efforts to conceptualize interventions by cities to manage ethnocultural diversity. These efforts rely on ideologies controlled by the state and on the values of equality, social justice, and respect for pluralism that are endorsed by different international organizations such as the UN and UNESCO, or by national organizations such as human rights commissions.

To promote and reinforce municipal anti-discriminatory policies, UNESCO supported the launching of the International Coalition of Cities Against Racism1. The initial framework for this Coalition was the proposal of the Ten-Point Action Plan, which was adopted in December 2004 in Nuremburg.

The present research report relating to the development of a series of indicators for evaluating municipal policies to fight racism and discrimination should be situated in this context. It was carried out with the goal of assisting cities that want to adopt public policies of diversity management and to fight racism and discrimination, and to evaluate the impact of such policies. The goal is to equip cities with tools that make it possible to evaluate, in quantitative and/or qualitative terms, whether their actions produce results that correspond to the major goals of adopted policies.