This year’s Open Days were full to brimming with CLLD. In addition to LDnet’s “Community-led local development as a European movement” (09A10) and the URBACT (10A01) and social innovation (10A18) workshops referred to below, it was available in 12 other flavours: LEADER – ELARD (09A02), CCMR (09A14), disaster resilience & climate change adaptation (10A02), LUDEN (10A03), transnationality (10B01), LAGs: public-private – Veneto (10A09), multifunding (10A11), fisheries (10A12), networking – ENRD (10B13), energy (11A01), LS strategy – AGRI) (11A02) and management of CLLD (11A03). So at least 600 people were thinking about it (more than 120 attended the LDnet workshop). We provide below excerpts from the notes of the workshops by Toby Johnson.
OVERVIEW
The presentations brought out a number of good models or features, according to Toby Johnson:
Entrepreneurial approach: Local authorities and LAGs need to rethink their roles from being grant dispensers to project developers. This naturally feeds into a social enterprise logic. The Social Business Initiative means that this has a following wind.
Asset-based community development (ABCD): the advantage of acquiring an asset base (the disused factory in Limerick, the incubator in Pillerseetal, Cork) is that it brings independence, resilience, and an ability to access multiple funds (Eileen Humphreys). It is promoted by Locality (ex Development Trusts Association) in the UK.
Partnership: The consensus that it all depends on partnership, but not a great deal of emphasis on how the partnerships were built. There need to be training and animation (Rosalba La Grotteria). It can be sold to politicians not as usurping their prerogative but enabling them to do more by giving them access to more people (Basingstoke).
Decentralisation: It seems that local actors have to work hard to persuade ministries and MAs to invest in the capacity-building process, and not be deceived by the promises of quick results from the private sector (Liverpool). There are certain local government changes working in CLLD’s favour (Liverpool).
Civil society: A useful part of the capacity-building process can be to stimulate healthy competition for funds among civil society organisations. It works well to involves them in the selection proves (Liverpool, Berlin, Budapest).
Community identity can be a strong force to be built on, e.g. among minorities (Budapest, Berlin).
Monitoring & evaluation: Monitoring needs to be proportionate and nor penalise small community projects with soft outcomes (Peter Ramsden). Evaluation criteria need to include the cohesion as well as the investment effects (Rosalba La Grotteria).
Risk of bureaucracy: we need to reinvent CLLD, not insert it as another layer of ‘sediment’ in the process of fund application. (Robert Lukesch).
Audit: This appears to be the major deterrent, and stems from the MAs nationally and regionally, not the EU regulations. But the EU could do more to reassure promoters.
National role: one way national government can help impecunious local organisations to access EU funds by central action is to match them at source, although this has the downside of excluding local actors from the process (Ireland, UK).
Transnationality: There are quite a few cases of very helpful transfers (Budapest, Pillerseetal). The URBACT RegGov network seems to be outstanding.
CLLD IN CITIES (10A01)
In his introduction Paul Soto made three points very clearly:
1. It takes two to tango: the big question is whether countries will opt for CLLD. While 5% of the EARDF and 13% of the EFF are earmarked for CLLD, there is no such provision in the ERDF. If it is it be implemented it must be explicitly included and budgeted in the partnership agreements and OPs. These will be drawn up early in 2013, so lobbying has to start now!
2. There is a paradigm shift from ‘territoire guichet’ to ‘territoire projet’ – i.e. LAGs have to move from handing out grants but making alliances and defining an operational area. “It may seem obvious, but people at the top don’t see it.”
3. CLLD is different in cities:
• the scale and complexity are bigger; the areas usually already have strategies and a mix of funding, so are reluctant to delegate to a LAG
• partnership – there are powerful interest groups and hence conflicts; it’s a crowded playing field; the public sector has more input – hence there is a bigger need for transparency and control
• area is bigger (the traditional size has been 10,000-150,000 people)
So there are three possible types:
1. small area within a city – the most common type (e.g. Kőbánya)
2. small city and surrounding area
3. target group or thematic approach (e.g. Antwerp, Basingstoke)
CLLD FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH (10A18)
In his introduction Peter Ramsden made the link between the long tradition of local development with the new one of social innovation and how they serve each other. It is important to reinvent policy that has died through user-led or citizen-led social innovation.
We need SI because we can’t solve growth-related problems through more growth! This is a disruptive moment – a time for change.
Marjorie Jouen’s model is that LD is from Mars and SI is from Venus:
Local development is from Mars:
- grant-driven
- committees
- projects
- episodic
- narrow focus
- enterprise & employment
Social innovation is from Venus:
- movement-based
- individuals not organisations
- ventures
- can be disruptive
Definitions:
(Local development is from Mars)
• territory + partnership + strategy
• outcomes: collective goods, development, legitimacy, wellbeing, amenities, collective intelligence
(Social innovation is from Venus)
• social in both its ends and its means
• not only good for society but enhances society’s capacity to act
• both meets social needs and involves new social relations
CLLD has been mainstreamed across the funds. It is focused on sub-regions. The definition of “community” is that there are public and private partners. It is multi-sectoral and area-based. It meets local needs. It involves innovative forms of partnership and co-operation.
Who are the innovators?
Social innovations come from all parts of society:
State – Market
Households – Grant economy
We have to engage with households. 10% of the UK National Health Service budget goes on diabetes, but it’s hard to regulate against fatness. Community-based strategies might reduce this. In France, the insurers support a social enterprise that helps people exercise.
Mainstreaming
Social innovations go through the phases of idea prototype implementation scaling up (represented by the Young Foundation as a ‘snail’). Things often fall apart during the implementation stage. Does mainstreaming lead to dilution? Should we be more stringent? URBACT fails 25% of applications at the first stage, but only 5% at later stages. Maybe that should be more. We need to be more results-based.
Seven ways to acquire social innovations at local level
Some methods are in common between LD & SI:
1. coproduction – rethink it with the end-users. Most services need redesigning
2. NGOs/businesses
3. experts – universities, service design consultancies, living labs, anthropologists – “it doesn’t matter what sort of –ologist you have so long as you have an –ologist.”
4. other places – learning networks
5. competitions – e.g. NESTA’s Big Green Challenge
6. crowdsourcing
7. tweaking procurement – social clauses
Open innovation is based on a ‘triple helix’, involving public authorities, business and researchers. Maybe we should think it terms of a ‘quadruple helix’ including public authorities, businesses, research and civil society. Local smart specialisation – why not?
Opportunities
• employment
• health – medical models don’t cure depression
• climate – district heating, retrofitting, smart meters
• learning communities
Existing groups
• LAGs 2,500
• FLAGs 300
• URBACT 400 -> 600
• Living labs 320
• Transition towns 1,000
• Local Agenda 21 (ICLEI) 1,200
• Total: c. 6,000
We should:
• be serious about innovation
• give local partnerships a core role
• build capacity
• create the infrastructure for SI – hubs, incubators
• use EU programmes
• build vertical partnerships
• aim for large-scale change
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