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The European Commission is investing €115.55 million in this new call for proposals opened until the 23th of March, to promote “integrated urban development”, based on partnerships between local authorities in the Member States and partner countries.
In the context of fear for a low participation of French local authorities, the French Association of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (Afccre) will soon publish on its website the pedagogical dossier of the training it recently organised in response to this call.
The latter is made up of six lots: four geographical – sub-Saharan Africa (€40 million), Asia/Pacific (€20 million), Latin America/Caribbean (20 million euros) and “Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood” (€18 million) – and two horizontal: one for small towns (150.000 inhabitants maximum for EU communities; €8 million) and the other for cities in the 15 “extremely fragile” countries on the OECD list (€5.5 million).
The call has five specific objectives:
* “Strengthening urban governance” (skills of public officials, public finance management…);
* “Ensuring the social openness of cities” (improving access to water and sanitation, but also increasing security, especially for women and children, disabled people or migrants);
* “Improving urban resilience and ‘greening'” (planning urban expansion, greening municipal taxes…);
* “Improving prosperity and innovation in cities” (implementation of “green public procurement”, innovative ways of financing municipal infrastructure…);
* “Strengthening institutional resilience in a context of fragility” (coordination of actions carried out by public or semi-public agencies, universities, civil society organisations, etc.);
Each project must also indicate how it intends to address the following four priorities: contribution to the achievement of SDG 11; promotion of peer learning and/or exchanges and/or short-term deployment of public officials; promotion of multi-partner and multi-sectoral approaches; promotion of cooperation based on all “human rights”, including participation in the decision-making process, non-discrimination (in particular against women), transparency, etc. Finally, applicants who meet at least one of the following three complementary priorities will receive a bonus: projects with at least two authorities from partner countries, use of NICTs and job creation.
Any contribution from the Union will be between €2 and €5 million for the geographical lots and between €500 000 and €1 million for the horizontal lots, but may not exceed 95% of the eligible costs of the action (the minimum being 50%).
25 August 2021
