Social PolisSocial Platform on Cities and Social Cohesion

The Experience of the European Territorial Employment Pacts: a case of participatory development.

Achille Flora

Città del Fare is a Territorial Employment Pacts

The experience of Città del Fare is part of the Territorial Employment Pacts which, in the Italian case, saw 10 active Pacts

It’s part of the new operating model of European cohesion policies that have pursued targets for the participation of actors and local institutions to enhance social capital.

Social participation vs decision-making autonomy Città del Fare is a Territorial Employment Pacts

A greater stock of social capital positively influences economic development, but may activate local interest groups that may distort the use of resources.

Participation, the roots of the institutions in the territory (embedded), must not sacrifice the decision-making autonomy (Evans, 1995)

The operational procedures of Territorial Employment Pacts in the creation of social participation have been based on: a) accurate and intense animation stage; b) relationship with an external structure – the Supervisory Committee – which meet the need for a periodic account to a structure directly connected to and composed of members of the European Community

Context policies

•The territorial context policies require the selection and timing of intervention and choice of priorities

•Without these requirements are likely to implement a dispersal of resources in many small projects

•This selection must result from a choice of participating

•The Territorial Employment Pacts have concentrated resources and integrated various financial instruments

Territorial representation

•The deep change from a fordist to a post-fordist productive cycle threw the forms of social and political representation into crisis.

•The local development agencies created by the Territorial Employment Pacts can play a crucial role in promoting new forms of participation

New forms of communication

•The diffusion of new communication technologies represent new forms of construction of social networks

•increase in the degree of participation beyond physical and territorial obstacles

•can also contribute to the creation of bridge-connections among local networks

•The task of the development agencies is also to promote the diffusion of new communication technology

Cohesion policies in urban contexts

•The experience of Città del Fare is produced in a degraded urban environment

•The action of the agency turned to the rehabilitation of area, pursuing the objectives of urban regeneration, support for development, social inclusion, creation of new jobs, administrative innovation.

Open networks, close networks, bridge-connections

•relational networks at local level can clash with the external dimension changing them into non-inclusive networks

•It is necessary to create bridge-connections in order to connect different social networks and favour their opening towards the model of inclusive social networks.

•The experience of the Territorial Employment Pact was aimed at creating bridge-connections with other experiences of social construction of local development at regional, supra-regional and international level.

Administrative innovation

•The influence of development policies depend on the ability of the Public Administration to overcome the old cultural approach for evolving towards an administrative active culture, based on the administration of results

•The experience of the Territorial Employment Pacts determined a valid support for the Municipalities involved, giving them the possibility to overcome the micro-dimension of their administrations, promoting cooperation and associations, supporting them with technical competences normally absent in local administrations, offering cultural innovation for administrative actions in the perspective of overcoming a merely conservative and bureaucratic view.

Valorization of hidden resources

•The Territorial Employment Pacts aimed at valorizing hidden resources which in Southern Italy are essentially represented by a huge submerged economy

•The territorial approach aimed at restoring lawfulness within the local productive system through actions structured as means of support for the enhancement of territorial systems competitiveness.

Key elements of success

•Ability of connecting social animation, participation and decision-making ability

•Integrated territory approach

•Expense efficiency

•Low number of project cancellations

•Low cost of the structures of the intermediary subjects

Key elements of success

•Administrative innovation

•Social cohesion construction

•Construction of social cohesion in urban areas

•Construction of bridge-connections

Conclusions

•Economic development can increase, in the early stages, social inequalities and can destroy the old forms of community

•The main aim is to break marginalization through participatory strategies , economic policies, social services and territorial interventions

•The experience of the PTO is a good example in this direction