Annual Conference Output - Report on the URBACT Café

What is an URBACT Café?
Sitting around over 40 tables, delegates were to explore a series of questions related to the URBACT programme and report on their findings on the conference website at the end of the session so that these could be processed and presented during the final plenary at the end of the day.

The discussion was organised around 3 main questions:
1. Which are the most important challenges faced by cities in your country? How can the organization of the URBACT projects be improved to better help cities to deal with them?
2. What kind of capacity-building will be required to help cities to translate the lessons from URBACT networks into concrete action on the ground?
3. What can be done in your country to spread the lessons from URBACT to a wider audience of cities and practitioners?

URBACT Networks as a tool to support cities in addressing urban challenges

The main challenges faced at local level are perceived as strictly interconnected. Participants stressed that the actual situations of economic stagnation and decline are pushing a larger share of the population out of the labour market, contributing to the dramatic increase of income disparities, social and spatial polarization. This happens in a context of scarcity of natural resources which requires a more sustainable model of development for the cities of tomorrow.

For what concerns the role of the URBACT Programme, a majority of delegates recognised that, since 2007, URBACT has effectively supported local authorities in designing integrated and sustainable local policies, combining the exchange of experiences at transnational level with the involvement of local key stakeholders. But in order to increase the effectiveness of the support provided, two main directions have been identified by the participants to the URBACT Café.
First of all, the link between the Local Action Plans and the funds available at national and regional level must be enhanced. In the other hand, with several cities in position to start the implementation of the Local Action Plans and having in mind the new tools for sustainable urban development for 2014-2020, there is a growing demand for the URBACT Programme to provide a platform for exchange and capacity building for the concrete implementation of the activities planned.

Needs for capacity-building and possible ways for URBACT to cater for these needs

Enthusiastic feedback on the actions developed by URBACT in the past months in terms of capacity-building and training was the first entry point into the matter for a vast majority of delegates. A vast majority of the Café tables referred to the URBACT Summer University for URBACT Local Support Groups (Krakow, August 2011) as being an appropriate action for the programme to go forward with capacity-building and strongly recommended that this action be renewed.
Delegates also outlined a wide range of needs, among which needs related to city management skills rank in first place and a second series of needs were also expressed related to specific policy challenges and tools.

Improving dissemination of URBACT lessons to a wider audience of cities and practitioners at country level

Stressing the importance of dissemination of URBACT results in the different countries, participants encouraged the programme to strengthen cooperation with existing players such as national or regional networks of cities. Specific URBACT tools such as the National Dissemination Points (NDP) were also highlighted as a good starting point for dissemination of results. Yet several tables stressed the need for more NDPs, meaning a better geographical coverage, and for more content being disseminated through the NDPs for urban practitioners.
However, when it comes to improve the dissemination of URBACT lessons to a wider audience, the most appealing tool in the eyes of participants seemed to be the development of "national networks on urban issues".

Following the conference, at a time when the design of URBACT III is being launched, the outcomes of this URBACT Café will constitute a valuable input for policy-makers and practitioners involved in the elaboration of the next programme. So now is the time for all of us to make the most of it!


Read more:

• Download URBACTcafe.pdf (491.07 KB) - PDF
• URBACT 2013 Annual Conference - website
• Annual conference Output - EU responses to urban challenges - URBACT Café