Networks and cities' news

We all have a good reason to distrust organic certification!

The visits to the 4 initial BioCanteens partner cities revealed different forms of reluctance towards organic certification... which is a bit strange for cities that have just embarked on a process of transferring a Good Practice whose main issue is to to emphasise local and organic food! Beyond this apparent contradiction, local actors are faced with critical difficulties. We take them seriously and have produced two sets of facilitation cards: one entitled "We all have a good reason to distrust organic certification", which brings together all the possible counter-arguments heard in the BioCanteens cities and other network partners.

And a second set of cards entitled "Everything we know about certification that we don't want to see!" providing all the knowledge and arguments that we have been able to gather to to combat stakeholders' distrust of certification. From webinars organised by BioCanteens #2 with 2 leading experts experts in the field, Denis Lairon, Director of Research at INSERN in biochemistry and nutrition and Lise Pujos from Ecocert for the certification process and an active teaching exercise with the students of students of the University Diploma in Sustainable Food Project Management from the University of Nice-Côte d'Azur have enabled to enrich and consolidate the two sets of cards.

Ready to challenge your colleagues and friends on beliefs and fears about organic food?

Barcelona opens its first workspace for women entrepreneurship organizations and entities

The file provides you with the full article by Dr. Malcolm Borg on transit oriented development in Malta's harbour regions around its captial Valletta

Playful Paradigm Gender Toolkit

The 3rd Transnational Meeting for Playful Paradigm Second Wave, virtually hosted by the Municipality of Jelgava on February 24, 2022, focused on the Transfer Module 1 – PLAY for Sustainable Urban Regeneration.

 

Active citizen = investment in the future

The statutory city of Hradec Králové has enough experience with so-called "hard" investment projects. But even "soft" projects cannot be underestimated. For this reason, I consider it very important that the city continuously and systematically improves its capabilities in the field of community programs funded by the European Commission. This, very often so-called "soft" money can lead to improved processes by transferring "know-how" from other European cities. One of these opportunities is the involvement of the city in the URBACT networks, which are an example of how experience can be transferred from other European cities in the field of citizen participation and activation.

PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY A REAL BENEFIT FOR THE MUNICIPALITY

Bertrand Girardi is Delegate Municipal Councilor in charge of the city of Agen’s Participative Democracy and in particular of the URBACT Program and European projects of citizen participation. Fascinated by politics from an early age, he describes his experience of participative democracy through the Urbact program.

The Urbact program was integrated in the middle of the 2 mandates.

Play and Placemaking – a perfect match for great public spaces

This article addresses two questions:

How can we work together in communities to make better public spaces?

How can play be used to create the momentum and focus for placemaking?

The article follows on from an online transnational meeting held on 11 February 2022 where play and placemaking were explored by partners in the Playful Paradigm Second Wave Project.

 

By Wessel Badenhorst

URBACT Ad Hoc Expert

April 2022