97 Good Practices to inspire urban policy making
The Good Practices selection has been the big novelty for URBACT in 2017. URBACT is now proposing an in depth look at the experience of more than 90 European cities on topics as diverse as Gender Equality (Umea), Spring Clean Up Campaign (Tallinn) or Refugee Solidarity (Ghent).
URBACT City Festival Tallinn, 3-5 October 2017
The URBACT City Festival was the occasion to celebrate the URBACT Good Practices and to learn more from them. The Cities really made the programme and it was a highly inspirational one! For those who could not attend you can find details and links in ‘URBACT City Festival: How was it?’ article online and read more on ideas and practices shared on the topics of:
– Experimenting with Governance
– Housing for all – Experiences of URBACT cities on affordable housing
– Building an effective Entrepreneurship System
– Integration Processes at City Level
– From Nature Lovers to Nature Activists
The Festival video also gives an overview of the Festival and URBACT.
Mouans Sartoux hosts URBACT Monitoring Committee
In 2017, for the first time, a Good Practice City – and URBACT network city – hosted the Monitoring Committee : The 10,000 inhabitants ‘village’ of Mouans Sartoux, in the South of France. There the URBACT Monitoring Committee members and the National URBACT Points learned more on the city’s sustainable food policies, including the 100% organic meals proposed in its school canteens. An occasion celebrated in the local press!
Transfer of Good Practices
The Open Call for Transfer Networks – open until January 10 – proposes to interested cities to team up with the Good Practices to learn from them and help them improve their Good Practice.
To ensure Good Transfer takes place, humble Super Heroes are needed!
Acting for better urban policies
Well thought and concerted action should be at the core of a sustainable city strategy. The 20 Action Planning Networks, which lead, in each city, to the development of an Integrated Action Plan, went to their mid-term reviews and then to the next stage of work. Peer reviews took place all throughout Europe, building on the incredible human resources and knowledge of the city practitioners involved in URBACT. In 2018 all Action Planning Networks will be delivering their solutions and ideas online and during their final meetings.
Implementation of strategies is always a challenge. That’s the core of what cities involved in the four Implementation Networks, which were selectionned to continue their work in phase 2 – Creative Spirits ; Int-HERIT; Urb-INCLUSION and Stay Tuned – do. Among their main activities in 2017: they accessed to trainings on how to jump from action to implementation.
Joining forces for better cities in Europe and beyond
To make sure the key learning and knowledge going out from URBACT Networks is spread to policy makers and urban practitioners throughout Europe, URBACT has been involved through its cities, secretariat team and experts in several key processes and events of European urban policy making, such as the partnership meetings of the 12 Urban Agenda for the EU themes. Notably URBACT participated actively in the Cities Forum in Rotterdam, one of the highlights of 2017 for European urban policy makers, as you can read in Eddy Adams blog commentary on the forum.
URBACT was also present at the European Week of Regions and Cities focusing on Transfer of Good Practices and during a joint workshop on Public Procurement, co-organised with other European Territorial Cooperation programmes (ESPON, INTERREG EUROPE and INTERACT). Conclusions and presentations are shared on the URBACT Website.
The Making Of
Of course URBACT’s year could not be as rich as it is without a lot of work and a bit of fun. Here is what you did not see yet in 2017 but made everything possible!
A committed, smiley and comfortable team at the URBACT City Festival team
Good food and sharing!
In the offices the URBACT team started a FETA Challenge with different themes: The occasion for the international team to exchange on their favorite meals and to try on new recipes. The favorite topic of the year, the ‘Nostalgia’ Challenge 😉
The URBACT Bus moving forwards to new horizons …
You may have seen the incredible sunset and sunrise photos taken from the URBACT offices in Saint Denis over Paris. That time is up and the URBACT bus went on to new adventures in a new location. Not without a hint of nostalgia 😉
But now we are all ready for End of Year Celebrations. Will they be as acrobatic as last year? I doubt it!
Happy End of Year!
