EUKN - Italy - The URBACT Regenerando network promotes integrated urban development to face employment issues in the South of Italy

The URBACT Regenerando network promotes integrated urban development to face employment issues in the South of Italy - IT.

Introduction

URBACT Regenerando is a network created to strengthen the role of local actors in the implementation of employment policies and in the promotion of human capital and economic growth. It focuses on the enhancement of strategic tools to face social local issues and promote urban sustainable development through an integrated approach.

Description

The URBACT Regenerando project focuses on improving a network in order to promote a sustainable local socio-economic growth in terms of employment creation, human capital and economic prosperity. It aims at creating valid tools to enable local Municipalities to face the current challenges of development policies and, in particular, to promote urban sustainable development. The cooperation and the exchange of experiences with other urban areas and with the main local actors is considered a necessary approach to be “mainstreamed” in order to identify a strategy to strengthen social inclusion and to reach the citizens’ and political actors’ participation .
Through the URBAN I and URBAN II Initiatives many cities carried out specific actions supporting urban regeneration policies. The URBAN Programme has been one of the most successful Community experiences at urban level and the core instrument to test an integrated programming methodology aimed at strengthening both environmental and socio-economic actions. The URBAN Programme approach has been characterized by a multidimensional institutional co-operation and by the involvement of socio-economic stakeholders. Following the URBAN Programme experience, the REGENERANDO project offers the opportunity to promote a real European citizenship through a continuous process of communication and information exchange. The main aim of the network is the dissemination of social inclusion experiences promoted in different European areas.

Participants

Municipality of Reggio Calabria (IT)
Municipality of Rome (IT)
Municipality of Naples (IT)
Municipality of Siracusa (IT)
Municipality of Catania (IT)
Municipality of Palermo (IT)
Municipality of Salerno (IT)
Municipality of Evosmos (GR)
Municipality of Chalon Sur Saone (FR)
Municipality of Leicester (UK)
Municipality of Oradea (HU).

Network lead

City of Reggio Calabria.

Objectives

The REGENERANDO project aims at networking local experiences in the field of employment creation. The permanent network is implemented through applying a participatory working methodology. The main objectives of the network are:

to identify the best approach and cooperation strategy in the field of employment policies and their impacts on social inclusion
to support the strengthening of specific policies for business creation
to rationalize the partners experiences
to identify new local cooperation tools for economic growth
to draw up a useful and transferable participative working methodology
to disseminate the project results and promote the network activities.

Products

The URBACT Regenerando project has achieved the following results:

the improvement of citizens’ and urban actors’ knowledge and the Public Authorities’ capacity building
the promotion of a bottom-up integrated approach
the identification of the cooperation methodology added value at European urban level
the enhancement of a methodology based on socio-economic integrated actions to tackle unemployment at urban level
the identification of best practices to improve the coordination of urban actors
the creation of new actions to stimulate employment and create new small enterprises
the support to the transition from social assistance to a wider economic approach.

EU involvement

Following the orientations for the 2007-2013 Structural Funds’ programming period, the REGENERANDO project is aimed at improving the role of urban areas in implementing and stimulating the new European cohesion policy. Therefore, the project focuses on analysing the different tools which have been carried out during the last years in some European towns. The assessment helps to verify the capacity of these tools to encourage and create employment and economic growth. The results reached by the REGENERANDO project will also contribute to improve the on going urban regeneration policies already included in the 2000-2006 programming period.

Contact info

Ministry for Infrastructure
Ms. Daniela Versino

Links

Ministry for Infrastructure (in Italian)Urbact Programme Project REGENERANDO website

Document type

network

Themes

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Urban renewal

Keywords

Urban restructuring