Policies

Relevant city context

Rome is a major metropolitan area with a vast urban agriculture area of 51,729 hectares (the widest within Europe). While most green areas are located outside the urban perimeter, several agricultural “corridors” connect the periphery with the city centre of Rome. This unique feature distinguishes Rome from other European cities that are characterised by a division between urban and rural areas. Thus, Rome offers a unique potential for further development: citizens are now developing permaculture systems and producing healthier organic food for self-consumption.

As a Territorial Cooperation European project, the project is conceived to be reproducible in cities that wish to start a process of urban regeneration and social cohesion. Other EU cities could rework its outcome to propose new visions, feasible strategies, spatial scenarios and guidance tools to address the challenges of social agriculture in urban and suburban areas. The specifics of each city will vary, and could thus contribute by defining complementary models to the current UPA, which can be replicated in other similar urban contexts. Common features should include a problem-oriented approach for sustainable urban development and focus on social inclusion. Besides fighting social exclusion local communities will learn more about their local environment, a knowledge to be passed on to potential local civil organisation/NGOs, both locally and in the EU.

Goals: (1) Fight social exclusions and poverty and, (2) Allow brownfield recovery

This urban gardening project was developed using an important area of its territory suited for agriculture (51.7 ha), the City of Rome (IT). So far the project is using 27 ha of the available land, aiming to promote approaches for sustainable and eco-friendly urban gardening. Working with NGOs, citizens, disadvantaged communities and minorities, the city has used urban and suburban agriculture to improve the governance processes by connecting different competencies and municipal offices such as social, environment, urban planning and innovation departments. UPA is an innovative practice towards a governance model for sustainable development, environment protection, brownfield recovery and reuse, social cohesion and poverty-fighting (i.e. immigrants, elderly, disabled people, AIDS and Alzheimer patients, prisoners etc.). The project has affected employment policy, as well as a social and intercultural dialogue. The importance of other factors such as housing, health, culture and communication were also acknowledged.

Cooperation among stakeholders

The project approach is the result of a territorial cooperation process, involving different partners of the Mediterranean basin under ENPI CBC MED Programme: the Royal Botanic Garden and the National Department for Forests and Agriculture (Jordan), the city of Mahdia (Tunisia), the metropolitan area of Barcelona and the City of Rome. Previously there have been problems with the lack of co-ordination among Institutions, Departments and Offices at the different levels and lengthy administrative procedures. Coordination and sharing between the City administration and citizens to reach agreements has also been lengthy due to the novelty of the initiative (experimentation of dialogue on UPAs). The participatory mechanisms for communities and citizens in the new UPA policies/actions mean greater capacity for action and decision making on Urban Governance. Stakeholders such as local NGOs and horticulture associations contributed to the set-up of the Regulation of urban gardens (City Council Resolution, July 2015) activating local representatives of such communities in a process of social and intercultural integration. Socialisation among different communities is the core of this activity.

Outcomes

This experience allowed the City of Rome to create three pilot projects that cover more than 3,5 ha assigned to different non-profit, multi-purpose associations involved with needy and disadvantaged citizens. At present, approx. 300 people are direct beneficiaries of the parcels. Dozens of associations and thousands of citizens are involved in the pilot projects, and awareness was raised among municipal officers and citizens. The Regulation of the Urban gardens of Rome (City Resolution of July 2015 or “Regolamento degli orti urbani”), is to be considered an extremely important outcome as a governance tool. According to the “Regolamento”, the use of pesticides, chemical fertilisers and GMO seeds are prohibited.

The sustainability of the UPA pilot project is ensured by the commitment of the City of Rome (i.e. the “Regolamento”), the Districts, the associations as "managers" of the pilots, the thousands of citizens involved, and by the coordination with a network of urban gardens and other local and national organizations.

Resources

Total budget: 1.998.646 €

Budget for Rome: 400.000 €  

Other

Key figures

Start: 2015

End: Ongoing

Related links

407_rome_gpsummary.pdf [27/06/2017]

Resources

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Relevant city context

The project is relevant to the European Territorial Cooperation programs that support the delivery of innovation by actors in regional innovation chains in areas of “smart specialisation” and innovation opportunity.

Goal: Improve policies to support cities resilience

The project's main objective is improving policies for the delivery of innovation in public service applications designed to support/strengthen the capacity of cities and regions to prevent, resist, absorb and recover from societal and environmental risks/hazards (resilience). The envisioned policy instrument focuses on enhancement of regional and national innovative systems by supporting exchanges on results achieved via R&D projects and the cooperation between regional and interregional systems, maximizing networking between public and private stakeholders. Main objectives:  

• Identify and map the state of resilience against societal and environmental risks in the partner cities and regions, and the set-up of their related ecosystems;
• Create an inventory of relevant resilience practices (best and worst) in Europe;
• Define a methodological framework for benchmarking regional resilience in the context of the policy instruments addressed;
• Exchange of experience on innovation in tools and models with the potential to enhance the resilience capacity of cities and regions to best deliver innovation in public service applications;
• Identify mechanisms for transferring good practices on resilience between and within regions and cities, adapted to the different external influences (e.g. governance systems, cultural differences) and the nature of the challenges;
• Develop and monitor the implementation of action plans for improved resilience capacity, building on lessons learned from the project.   

The reference tools for improvement are:

1. Innovative projects (ie: best practices) for the development of new processes, aiming to stimulate exchange opportunities on qualified platforms and / or through networking between stakeholders, public and private bodies, and to gain greater funding opportunities;
2. Regional innovative system through Open data/new ICT applications for e-government, to reinvigorate public policies and services and foster stakeholder engagement;
3. Resilience to natural disasters and development of disaster management systems  

Cooperation among stakeholders

Today, the Lazio Region shows poor relationships between SMEs and public research in the management of common innovative projects. This issue will be addressed though the multidisciplinary competences in the project: citizens, NGOs and civil society are demanding better and more specific public solutions and services to prevent disasters. In addition, there is a growing number of unaddressed issues in terms of adaptation to climate change, poverty reduction, public safety, urban planning. Specialized knowledge is needed to capture the complexity of the problems, and efforts must be undertaken in order to reduce natural risks (ie: Geo-hydrological risk and mitigation). The City of Rome, in cooperation with the Lazio Region, will focus on developing the networking among public bodies, enterprises and research institutes, supporting the delivery of innovation in resilience management, aiming at the development of innovative tools to face natural disasters, protect the natural and cultural assets. The innovation is expected to enable the dialogue between public and private stakeholders, in a holistic vision of resilience strategies, according to an Open Governance paradigm driven by open public data and services, as well as facilitate the collaboration between design, production and delivery of public services.  

Outcomes

Expected outcomes of the project are:

1. Development of a methodological framework to perform resilience assessment following the structure of the SMR maturity model (see: http://smr-project.eu/tools/maturity-model-guide/)
2. Identification and analysis of challenges, gaps, governance systems, institutional frameworks, existing experiences, etc. – a benchmark of the territorial situation. The aim is to break down silos and identify innovation opportunities.
3. Exchange of experience among the partners, based on their own experiences, as opposed to "external sources", in order to identify potentially good practices. Presentation and validation of good practices by means of workshops, seminars, study tours and site visits, possibly also peer reviews and/or user and expert panels.  

Identification and analysis of best practice will be exchanged with the partners and disseminated to other interested EU regions. There will also be a validation of how the results of the interregional learning process could improve the policy instrument and support to promote and communicate the projects results. Results are expected to be a contribution to the development of a Regional Guideline based upon the lessons learned from the project – from which the policy instrument could be improved.  

Resources

Total Budget: 1.698.000 €

Budget for Rome: 202.000 €