Gela

Overall objective of the Local Action Plan

• promoting a process of growth of Gela territory through the support to the constitution and to the consolidation of territorial and administrative units of operating experts in the theme of strategic planning, programming, management, monitoring, and evaluation of public investments: in this framework, the Local Action Plan really is understood like a voluntary tool, not equivalent of the being in force city planning, of the territorial development planning through which the Municipality of Gela provides itself with a strategy to acquit the role of attraction pole of the material and intangible nets that can work as a flywheel towards a durable and sustainable reinforcement of the competitiveness in the territory;
• supporting, at local level, proceedings of institutional, administrative and organisational innovation, joined to the activation of deliberative democracy proceeds able to mobilise a plurality of subjects in the activities of building the future of the town, in line with the indications of the European Commission on the Regional Foresight (European Commission, 2002) as a tool to reach a strategic plan built across the stimulus, the activation and the exploitation of a more spacious project planning, capable to involve public and private actors: this involvement of different entities will be essential for the creation of a net of connections and of strong relations, constituting the true added value and the true propulsive force for the development of the Strategic Plan;
• surveying, systematising and valorising the innovations ripened in the framework of territorial strategic planning: this can be achieved both via the systematic (and critical) spreading of national and international strategic planning experiences that progressively reduced the exclusiveness of the urban-territorial dimension of the considered tool; and via the putting to system of the existing planning and the development of knowledge and deliberation proceedings supported to the process of formulation of the “deliberated strategy”, the recognition and re-reading of the issues and information connected to the “emerging strategy”.

Operational objectives of the Local Action Plan

Being the Local Action Plan contextualised to the planning and to the development of the urban social economy, operational specific objectives will be:

• testing the methods of mobilisation of local communities in favour of co-operation in the process of revitalisation of local labour markets and development of the urban area, including the promotion of entrepreneurs’ contribution to the development and implementation of revitalisation programmes;
• working out model solutions in empowering the third sector, particularly by up-grading employees’ qualifications concerning the management of social enterprises;
• improving the availability of investment capital for social enterprises.

Business branches to be strengthened in the city within the Local Action Plan

All of the services aiming to the development of social economy like, as an example: Services to the person, health services, sustainable and responsible tourism, cultural heritage valorisation, environmental protection, equity and solidarity commerce, ethical finances, urban green and differentiated waste-collection, schools, prisons and hospitals catering, sustainable architecture and master plans (civil, industrial and traffic plans), etc.

Entrepreneurial fields in the city/region especially qualified for clustering

Social Economy calls for diversified and qualified skills. The further it evolves towards an enterprise-style management, the more it needs negotiating skills, financial skills, lobbying skills, networking and management skills. Special attention should be focused on this problem and the government should be asked to cooperate in view of such skills, both by facilitating mobility from the traditional sector and financing appropriate learning.

Areas/elements of the Local Action Plan for which inputs from the partners and exchange activities of Urban NOSE are require

Social enterprises need networking. Their growth will be fostered by: the creation of horizontal networks that may offer some of the advantages usually provided by scale economies; and by the setting up networks involving potential counterparts and other social actors. Among those actors there may also be representatives of the profit sector in order to identify positive complementarities.