Building capacities for sustainable urban development

This action supports capacity building measures, strategies and action plans, for sustainable urban development with focus on the tools, instruments and methods needed therefore.

The programme will develop actions to enhance the capacity of key players in the field of integrated and participatory approaches to sustainable urban development.

Bildung, Qualifizierung, Information, Kommunikation, Beteiligung, Management, Verwaltung, Monitoring, Evaluierung, Strategieentwicklung, Konzept-, Teilkonzepterstellung, Umsetzung integrierter, territorialer Ansätze, Vernetzung, Kooperation, Wissenstransfer

• Cities, municipalities, towns.
• Infra-municipal tiers of government such as city districts and boroughs in cases where they are represented by a politico-administrative institution having competences for policy-making and implementation in the policy area covered by the URBACT network concerned in which they are willing to get involved.
• Metropolitan authorities and organized agglomerations in cases where they are represented by a politico-administrative institution having delegated competences for policy-making and implementation in the policy area covered by the URBACT network concerned.

Beyond stakeholders related to URBACT partners, other key players in sustainable urban development (at national, regional or local level) may also be eligible for actions implemented under Objective 1 (e.g. cities implementing integrated urban strategies and action plans under articles 7 and 8, etc.).

 The URBACT III programme area consists of:

• EU 28 Member States.
• Norway and the Helvetic Confederation. Partners from Norway and from the Helvetic Confederation cannot make use of ERDF allocations, but can participate at their own cost.
• Instrument for Pre Accession (IPA) countries. Partners from IPA countries can participate in operations using IPA funding, without receiving ERDF co-financing.
• Other countries. Partners from other countries, anywhere in the world, can participate with their own funding.

Non-repayable grant

The main actions that can be supported under Capacity-building are the following (indicative list):

• National capacity-building seminars – this tool which was tested under URBACT II provides tools and methods to enhance capacities of local support group members of partner cities at national level, in national languages. Member States are strongly involved in these sessions, which fosters dialogue between national and local players on urban policies and allow project partners to better understand the national context in which they are operating.
• URBACT Universities, which proved highly successful under URBACT II (2011 and 2013) is to be enhanced and continued into URBACT III. The URBACT University consists of a large transnational capacity building event centred on the URBACT method and aiming to provide URBACT partners and their local stakeholders with tools and methods to develop integrated and participatory action-planning. Project partners from all URBACT networks come together to “learn by doing”, share good practices and test different tools they can apply in the work of their local support groups at city level.
• Other ad hoc capacity-building actions based on an established need can also be developed for specific stakeholder groups involved in the design and implementation of sustainable urban policies (e.g. elected representatives, Managing authorities of Operational Programmes, national authorities, etc.

Capacity-building actions shall focus mainly on the use of tools, instruments and methods supporting integrated and participatory approaches to sustainable urban development. They shall cover the design, funding, implementation and monitoring of integrated strategies and action plans.

Implemented actions shall target city stakeholders such as policy-makers, decision-makers, practitioners, city staff, representatives of local agencies, NGOs, residents or end-users involved in local partnerships in charge of developing or implementing an integrated action plan or strategy (action-planning and implementation networks) or transferring a good practice (transfer networks) in the field of sustainable urban development. Only public authorities and public equivalent bodies are eligible to the programme.

The projects for the networking activities are selected through open and transparent calls for proposals. These calls for proposals will be promoted and advertised at European and at national level involving the National Points. This is followed by a two-phased application procedure, each with several stages. Information on the content to be provided will be detailed in the call for proposals. Each phase will include an eligibility check, and an assessment by the External Assessment Panel (EPA). Based on this information the Monitoring Committee will make a final decision.

Amongst others important Eligibility and Assessment criteria will be:

• Relevance to the Europe 2020-Strategy and the thematic objectives for the EU Cohesion Policy.
• Coherence of the proposed approach and of the methodology for exchange and learning activities.
• Quality of partnership and leadership.
• Budget.

These and possible other criteria will be detailed in the call for proposals.

Start der Maßnahme: 01.01.2014

Ende der Maßnahme: 31.12.2023