Networks and cities' news

Mouans-Sartoux and its Food Project - Interview to Gilles Perole

"Every region, every city, every department, every household should be able to define its own food sovereignty." (Gilles Perole, Deputy Mayor of Mouans Sartoux)

How BioCanteens accelerated local food initiatives in Liège? 

The particularity of the Transfer of Good Practices, promoted in the URBACT Transfer Networks, is that they play a different role depending on the Partner City. In some cases, it kicks starts a transformation process and helps  set the basis of a resilient project. In other cases, it is an accelerator of a local dynamic with a long history behind it. This is the case of Liège, the civil society and political panorama was already shaping a food policy framework at the local level. "BioCanteens#2 arrived at the perfect moment for us, because we were ready to quickly learn and react to innovation", says the Coordinator of BioCanteens#2 from the City of Liège. 

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?

Local governmental committees (LGC) as a flagship of a democracy Our planned small-scale action with a long-term impact

There is an ongoing discussion of how to encourage people to take care about their town, neighborhoods or park, which they use every day while walking to the job. On that account one has to ask: Why do we not care about public spaces in the same way we tend to care about our flats or gardens? This question points to the very important fact, which is our sense for a common world, the one we all share together, and where “I and they” merge into one. Thus, the key role of Active citizens I see in advocating for this sense of common. To understand this will help us to build a stronger sense for participative principles and democracy. Who I perceive as a useful ally in this task are local governmental committees (Komise místní samosprávy in Czech). In response to that, our ULG sets as one of our long-term goals, to create a strong partnership with LGC in Hradec Králové. In the following lines, I would like to describe our tactics of how to involve members of LGC in Active citizens’projects and what pros we see in this cooperation.

TRANSNATIONAL MEETING IN DINSLAKEN: AGEN, LEAD OF THE ACTIVE CITIZENS NETWORK, BRINGS PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY TO THE HEART OF EUROPE

FEEDBACKS FROM AGEN’S DELEGATION FOLLOWING THE TRANSNATIONAL MEETING IN DINSLAKEN.

As part of the European Urbact program, the “Active Citizens” delegation from the city of Agen took part, on March 30 and 31st, 2022, in the 3rd Transnational Meeting in Dinslaken, Germany. During these 2 days of meeting, the 8 European cities, members of the “Active Citizens” network, were able to discuss feedback from the participatory democracy experiments implemented at the local level. Interventions and workshops, the particularity of this meeting is based on the first feedback from the experimental phases set up in each country. A moment of sharing that will make it possible to build the IAP (Integrated Action Plan) grouping together good practices and applying them on a local level beyond the URBACT program.

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.