THIRION

Samuel

THIRION

Validated Lead Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:

Agronomy Engineer specialized in systems and development (INA-PG) and Doctor in social and economic development (Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne), my educational background is multidisciplinary (sciences, economy and sociology), including as well training in Popular education and participatory methods. This led me to orient my professional life, since 40 years, on Integrated and sustainable territorial (local or regional) development and dynamics, both in urban and rural areas, including the urban-rural interactions, with interventions in many countries of Europe, Africa and Latin America. I have developed innovative concepts and approaches to integrate diverse sectors and issues. For instance, I launched the concept of “local solidarity partnerships between producers and consumers” that has been used in different countries. I have as well been the conceiver of the SPIRAL methodology, integrating social cohesion, sustainable development and civil participation, currently applied by more than 300 municipalities in Europe and Africa. I have tackled a diversity of issues concerning urban development, as space management and environment, job creation, poverty reduction, food systems and local sustainable economy. Having worked in research institutes (3 years), in an engineering consultant firm (5 years), directed an NGO (14 years), and being administrator at the Council of Europe (12 years), I am aware of the diversity of specific contexts in public and private organizations.

B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:

Organizing and leading networks of exchange and learning processes at transnational level has always been my main focus. For instance, I have coordinated several transnational project (EC financed project “development of commercial exchanges between countries of the Guinea Gulf -1985-89; French cooperation project for exchanges and learning process between Central America countries on “agricultural frontier”1992-1994, I was the thematic coordinator for methodology of innovation in Leader II European Observatory (1995-2001), coordinating or participating in 10 different seminars and publications. I have also coordinated projects on transfer of methods and practices between Western and Eastern/central Europe (1995-1998) between Europe and Maghreb (2013-2014) and Europe and West Africa (1997 up to now). I have been the co-founder of the Urgenci network, linking similar urban-rural experiences in countries of Europe, North America and Asia, creating an interactive space on common values, goals and methods. These experiences have provided me strong skills in analysing and facilitating co-learning processes. I am able to distinguish good practices, organize fruitful exchanges and co-learning, the difficulties to be overcame and how to manage difficult situations. I have a strong experience on how to lead an international meeting to achieve effective and concrete outputs.

B.3. Proficiency in English:

English is my professional language on the majority of cases, namely at international level. For instance, at the Council of Europe, where I have been working for 12 years, English was the main working language along with French. I use English for meetings, communication, emails, reports, conceptual notes, etc. Having worked in English in many different countries of Europe, I have no difficulties to exchange with non-native English speakers and people with low English training, thanks as well to my good knowledge of five European languages.

Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Having a strong practice on local and regional development, acquired along the 15 first years of my professional life in field-projects in Europe and other continents, in the last 25 years I have focused myself on the design and delivery of transnational exchanges, learning processes and cross-fertilization of experiences and methods, mainly on bottom-up local development, both in urban and rural areas, fostering links between both. Thanks to my involvement as Director of NGO, thematic coordinator of Leader II European Observatory on methodology of innovation and then in Council of Europe Social Cohesion Unit, where I conceived and developed SPIRAL, I am in possession of the requested competences to facilitate transnational exchanges and learning activities. Aware of the necessity to anchor the co-learning processes in long-term perspectives, my concern has always been to devote efforts on networking and network formalization to provide continuity to learning process and reinforce the capacity to transform lessons into policy recommendations and mainstreaming. Doing so I acquired a strong experience in technical and methodological support to transnational networks, as well as human abilities to overcome barriers in mutual understanding and identify positive solutions and win-win processes.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy:

Local Governance

Summary Thematic expertise:

My main concern in local governance is how to foster participative and collaborative bottom-up and integrated territorial approaches as way to ensure more efficiency and relevance in public interventions and the use of public resources. I have been involved in the formalization of such forms of governance and methods to foster them, first in EU initiatives as LEADER and INTERREG, and in regional development (ERDF), and then in the framework of the Council of Europe where I developed local co-responsible approaches for the well-being of all, according with the Social Cohesion Strategy of Council of Europe. The issues I know particularly well are local partnerships and collaborative platforms, new forms of dialogue between public, private actors and citizens, participative elaboration and selection of local projects, participative follow up and co-evaluation. I have produced different methods and tools on these issues, as tools to evaluate and improve local partnerships, to build common vision and strategies, self-evaluation tools and methods, etc. Along the years I acquired a genuine capacity to support municipalities and local actors in improving local governance through adaptation of existing tools or development of their own.

Theme / Policy:

Local Economic Development

Summary Thematic expertise:

As a doctor in social and economic development I have been involved in many local development projects and processes first in Africa and Latin America and since 1992 in Europe. Concerning economic production and exchanges I have the abilities to help local actors in improving mobilisation and sustainable use of local resources (natural resources, surplus in production, financial resources, human skills, etc.) and their preservation and reproduction through innovative economic local organizations as mutualisation, recycling processes, co-responsible management, facilitation of exchanges (as time banks, give away shops, …), new bonds between potential demanders and suppliers, between producers and consumers, and, more generally speaking, new forms of collaborative economy. On the side of needs and consumption I know how to complement the economic development concept with a larger vision focused on well-being of inhabitants with specific indicators complementing financial indicators in evaluation of goods and services. Linking these two kinds of knowledge I can give genuine support for low carbon economy and sustainable development through new forms of organizations at local level, generating new jobs, including low specialized jobs for long term unemployed people. This implies however new forms of collaborative governance as local associations of inhabitants, association for local development and multi-actors platforms (see local governance skills).

Theme / Policy:

Active Inclusion of Target Groups

Summary Thematic expertise:

As administrator in the Social Cohesion Research and Development Unit of the Council of Europe from 2002 until 2014 I have worked on different issues of social cohesion and social inclusion. My contribution has been particularly strong in the Council of Europe Social Cohesion revised Strategy (2004, 2007), in the Social Cohesion Action Plan (2010) conception and implementation and in elaboration and writing of conceptual and methodologic guidebooks for social cohesion and social indicators. My main concern in active inclusion is how to develop co-responsibility between public, private and citizens for fighting exclusion and poverty as a necessary complement of conventional social services and a key way to achieve inclusion without stigmatisation. Such approach is possible taking into account the multidimensionality of exclusion. In this sense I have developed the concept of Social Multipartite Contract existing since 2007 in some cities, consisting in contracts between excluded groups of persons and diverse services, having their own vision of exclusion. I have also developed evaluation methods to enhance the multidimensionality of exclusion-inclusion either in terms of diagnosis or impact evaluation of inclusive actions highlighting possible improvements. Based on participative co-evaluation processes, these methods are low cost and easy to be applied at local level.

Theme / Policy:

Sustainable Food

Summary Thematic expertise:

As Engineer in Agronomy (INA-PG, today Agro-Paris-Tech) with a specialization in agro-economy and systems development, I have been working for more than 10 years of my professional life (mainly from 1975 up to 1984 and, later, in many specific missions and projects) on food, either in production (research on production systems, agricultural vulgarization, organic production), distribution (distribution circuits and market analysis and recommendations for public national and international bodies as Word Bank, bilateral cooperation, etc.) or consumption (demand analysis, sensorial tests in the framework of research projects). More recently (from 2000) I have focused my interventions on feeding the cities (green belts). From different experiences in CSA, CLT and similar experiences existing around the world, I launched and promoted the concept of local solidarity-based partnerships between producers and consumers, linking directly actors in rural areas (farmers) and in cities (consumers) in the framework of Urgenci international network, which I am the co-founder and first president. In this context I developed the first contacts with FAO (Feeding the Cities Unit) and civil international organisations working on local food sovereignty. Today I focus my interventions on promotion of territorial co-responsible approaches for local food strategies including not only green belts problematic but as well the reutilisation of surplus in all the chain (zero waste approach).

Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies

E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :

I am the conceiver and designer of SPIRAL methodology, a participative set of tools for co-production of criteria and indicators of well-being with the citizens, leading to co-production, co-realization and co-evaluation of local participative actions plans. This set of tools, that I began conceiving in 2005 in the Social Cohesion, Research and Early Warning Division of the Council of Europe where I was working, has been developed to implement on the field co-responsibility between public authorities, citizens and private stakeholders for the well-being of all, according with the Social Cohesion Strategy of the Council of Europe. Since its conception I coordinated myself the improvement of this methodology along these 10 years (2005-2015) in cooperation with the cities which apply it (more than 300 cities use it today, partially or totally). More than 50 “SPIRAL dynamisors” in 10 countries have been trained by myself and are able to train the local facilitators who help the municipalities in applying these tools. SPIRAL is considered as one of the most systematic method of citizen participation in local governance, allowing a bottom up approach from local to global through a wiki online system (see https://wikispiral.org). Thanks to the Urbact II project “Together”, the cities which used SPIRAL are now organized in a formal international network.

E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:

I have a strong experience in monitoring and evaluation tools and methods. Beyond the numerous monitoring processes and evaluation missions I realized in different countries of Africa, Latin America and Europe, I have been the conceiver of specific tools, namely for self-evaluation and participative evaluations. For instance in LEADER I conceived and developed with Portuguese LAG the SAP method (“Suivi-Autoevaluation Participative”) which has been applied in Portugal and partly by some LAGs in France. From 2007 in the framework of SPIRAL methodology I introduced monitoring and evaluation tools based on the principles of co-monitoring and participative co-evaluation according with the objective of co-responsibility. These tools allow multidimensional analysis of impact including impact on immaterial (personal, social) questions which are not directly measurable but are determinant. For instance I personally designed and coordinated the participative co-evaluation of impact of the social cohesion action plans of the 147 Wallonia communes leading to a clear understanding of the impact of co-responsibility approach (see https://wikispiral.org/tiki-index.php?page=Evaluation+PCS+Wallonie).

E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:

In all my professional life I have been involved and I am still involved in many projects and networks of local sustainable development, exchanging with them and creating links to develop complementarities. For instance in the follow up and improvement of SPIRAL methodology, I always try to identify and develop synergies and complementarities with other sustainable development approaches and networks, as transition movement, CittaSlow network, zerowaste and Planzheroes, Tempo territorial, etc. Furthermore I read regularly the new publications on this field, and more widely about progress in research and science in order to be able to foresee their implications in terms of sustainable development, thanks to some good revues as “La Recherche”. Providing technical support to Together network I am always informing myself about new opportunities of funding, providing this information to the municipalities and local groups which could be interested.

E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:

SPIRAL methodology in not a fixed method but a general methodology which can be applied in different ways, totally or partially. It improves step by step through a set of tools which are conceived, experimented and confirmed according with the needs coming from the field. I am the person who coordinated this process since 2005 up to now. This provided me a strong capacity to identify the good ideas and practices coming from the municipalities and local actors (one in 2005, more than 300 in 20 different countries today) and to transform them into formal tools integrated in the general methodology, enriching it and turning it more and more effective and attractive. After November 2009 up to November 2012 this process was realized in the framework of “Together” Urbact II project with the 8 cities participating in it and I was then working jointly with the lead expert in the 2 phases, ensuring the training of the local support groups to make them able to use the set of tools. After 2012 I created the figure of “SPIRAL dynamisors”, that I trained to be able to do the training of people themselves in every country, taking into account the increasing demand. This gave me a strong skill in transmission of the capacity not only for training but also for identifying the good practices and to enrich step by step the methodology. Now I organize and lead every year a meeting of all SPIRAL dynamisors to do this work collectively from what they experiment during the year with municipalities.

Summary Expertise:

My main concern to support local authorities and other stakeholders has always been to promote co-learning and improvement processes, both locally in the municipalities and globally between municipalities, by exchanging good practices and methods, more particularly in integrated and participatory/collaborative policies, in a general context which turns such policies even more necessary. Having been confronted in diverse occasions with difficulties to ensure capitalization in a long term perspective, without loss of knowledge and know how on these fields, I focus my efforts since many years in the conception of transversal and scalable methods and tools able to concretize continuous processes of improvement, capitalization with visible and easily understandable and applicable results. My 12 years work in the framework of Council of Europe Social Cohesion Strategy has been the opportunity to concretize such an ambition. First referring to a global objective (well-being of all) which allows to overcome the limits of conventional indicators of growth, second, with a clear concept of collaborative global approach (co-responsibility) and third in co-developing with cities a transversal methodological framework (SPIRAL), flexible enough to allow bonds and complementarities with other approaches with similar objectives either sectorial or trans-sectorial. As expert of Urbact my concern would be as well to help cities to progress in this way.