About

Four local Joint CoR-JASPERS workshops on the implementation of the EU Urban agenda were organized between May and September 2017.  

Target audience

The workshops are open to national ministries working on smarter and more sustainable development, regional authorities tasked to implement plans and projects in urban areas and local authorities/municipalities preparing and implementing plans and projects for city development.

 

Objectives

The Pact of Amsterdam establishing the EU Urban Agenda was agreed on the 16th of May 2016. In light of this event, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and JASPERS have agreed to support the implementation of the Agenda through dedicated workshops.

Following a Brussels-based “high-level” kick off meeting on the implementation of the EU Urban Agenda with a focus on the Smart City approach, the next step is the delivery of local workshop co-hosted by JASPERS and CoR-members. 

The local workshops are open to JASPERS countries of operation and held at the following locations:  

  • Vienna: 09.05.2017
  • Gdansk: 05.07.2017
  • Athens: 10.07.2017
  • Sofia: 13.09.2017

Each local workshop will provide a platform for co-hosting cities (mayors and city officials) to present their strategies, plans and projects and highlight their experience. Within technical breakout sessions, the co-hosting cities’ staff member responsible for preparing and/or implementing plans and projects will get the opportunities together with other municipalities to engage in a focused conversation with JASPERS experts and other cities and regions. 

To make most out of these sessions, JASPERS will present its advisory support to cities and regions. Participating cities and regions can expect to have an active role in moderated sessions and smaller break-out sessions. In particular, the interface between cities’ (technical) needs and JASPERS technical assistance will be explored to see how cities can benefit from JASPERS advisory support.  These events serves to:

  • pinpoint cities’ and regions’ technical issues with regards tackling their specific urban challenges
  • frame smarter and more sustainable urban development in which smart cities are regarded as a particular modality
  • discuss spatial and sector-specific topics related to actions of the EU Urban Agenda from a municipal perspective,
  • give an overview of the available ESIF budget available for urban development tasks  and
  • outline the way JASPERS may support the preparation of strategies, plans, projects or programmes in the areas of its competence, irrespective of their scale or financial volume including, for example, urban regeneration, social housing, smart city development, smart and sustainable urban mobility, waste management  and energy efficiency.

The JASPERS/CoR events will complement the Urban Development Network (UDN) workshops that DG REGIO is organising during the coming months. The choice of the appropriate format and location is therefore important and will reflect the technical issues facing the co-hosting cities.

A participatory format or "citizens/stakeholders dialogue" will be included as an additional session of each local event to build a political debate led by CoR members involved on  specific issues related to the future of their cities in line with the objectives of the new CoR "Reflecting on Europe" campaign 2017. 

Other partners such as Urbact could be involved. To this end, the CoR will support the preparation and implementation of this dialogue session.

Questions?

For any further enquiry on this webinar and in general on the activities of the JASPERS Knowledge Platform please write an email to jaspersnetwork@eib.org