Boostinno Case Studies – BAIA MARE
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BoostINNO case studies – BAIA MARE This case study is one of the best examples of social innovation in your city. You may only choose one. Please describe it as well as you can, so that the reader can understand easily. This implies a short concise description, the use of common words and maybe illustrations or graphics. This case study, if accepted, will be published on the URABCT and BOOSTINNO web sites and will constitute part of the final production of the network. It will symbolise your city. The same case will be presented in 2 minutes by your mayor at the mayors summit in Paris on the 7th November, so it has also to be "communicable" by your mayor with her/his own words. Short summary of the essence of your social innovation: CITIZENS PARTICIPATION „BAIA MARE ACTIV” BOTTOM-UP Approach in Baia Mare empowered by the Mayor and civil servants acting as brokers We observed that citizens are always waiting for action from the Local Authority but they are never satisfied with the proposals. None of the analysis done bewteen 2007 and 2015 gave us a clear vision and a scenario on how to satisfy the requirements of the community, mainly because we are not certain which are these requirements. In all that period we received mainly individual requirements. Therefore, right from the beginning of the BoostINNO project I, as the project coordinator, decided to change the approach. So I focused not on what can the Local Authority do for the community but on what the community consider that we all together should do in order to develop our city. I consider that first step towards an innovative approach is always taken by one courageous person who has a desire to change and a vision to do it. This was exactly what I stated on almost all ULG’s meetings, stating that each of the participants can and should be the courageous person. Right from the beginning of the project I acted as a broker and, even if it was very hard we succeded to obtain a citizens vision (the Local Support Group expressed the desire of change and drafted a plan to put these into action). During the implementation of the project we (me and my colleagues) tried to became innovative civil servants in order to involve local community in in policy making (co-construction of ULG, participative processes). During the meetings I used some mottos: - THERE IS NO BAD IDEEA. THERE IS ONLY LACK OF IDEEAS - ANY PROPOSAL COMING FROM THE COMMUNITY IS OF INTEREST TO US AND CAN BE IMPROVED AND DEVELOPED. - INDIVIDUAL APPROACH TO BE CHANGED TO COMMUNITY APPROACH - UP DOWN TO BE REPLACED BY BOTTOM UP - WE DEFINE WHAT IS SOCIAL IN OUR CITY - WE DEFINE WHAT IS INNOVATION IN OUR CITY We succeeded to draft an analysis and a proposed action plan on 4 topics: Economic, Social, Culture and Youth & Education. Furthermore, when the ULG asked for a way to test the proposed actions we started the first Participatory Budget (in September 2017) which will offer the possibility to obtain the requested funds to put into practice their proposals and we started to establish the ways to change and adapt the former Baia Mare 2021 Foundation as to become the support for the future development proposed in the city. City: Municipality of Baia Mare Name of person filling out the template: Dorin Miclaus Name of the "social innovation" (logo if applicable) Baia Mare Activ – CHANGE YOUR CITY ONE STEP AT A TIME! Justify why you think that this is a social innovation: • First of all we succeeded to change the perception within the citizens participating to our meetings as regarding the Local Authority. At first there was a lack of confidence that the Local Authorities would be able to listen to the citizens’ voice. In the previous years the Municipality proposed almost all interventions. It was for the first time that we expressed our willingness to hear what the community wants. And the ULG answered according to our expectations; • Because we redefined what we consider as social development in the city: YOUTH and ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT but also defining Local Identity; • Because we define an eco-system to tackle our approach; • Because we succeeded to complete concrete projects and activities within the group consisting of different stakeholders; • Because we transformed our ULG into brokers. They will actively involve citizens in the future activities; • Because the Mayor understood to quickly answer to the challenge: Participatory budget has been issued in 5 weeks; the change of the Baia Mare Foundation has been started after the visit in Braga; the discussion about the future external development has been started after the discussion with our partners; the Youth involvement has been also started-all as an answer to the proposals coming from the ULG; • The main change was from “The Local Authority knows what the city needs” towards “We together shall decide what is important and sustainable for our community”; • The city invites citizens to come up with solutions to the existing problem, giving them first a platform to express and later space to gain work experience, resulting in an innovative tool for presenting changes that the city will use to assure sustainable development as requested by citizens. What challenge does this social innovation address? We believe in the power of good examples therefore we address followings: Citizens Participation, Attracting Citizens to fix in the City, City Governance, Participative Democracy and Participative Budget. The Starting point was to consider facts and map citizens policies in general and understands the general practices in Europe regarding the participatory policies so that Baia Mare is looking to the European Participatory trends and testing new models to understand how to apply them to local contexts and local realities. Citizens lack the necessary soft skills in the labour market and they do not want to engage in social life, but expect solutions, and often criticise them. Until now only the Local Authority has focused on the topic of city’s development, which resulted in a lack of objectivity or fresh ideas. Introducing a new group to the social dialogue should result in unconventional solutions. The problems to be solved: • Citizens’ confidence that the Local Authority is listen to them and is including them in the local development of the city • Involving citizens to describe the problems in their neighbourhoods and the proposed actions to be taken to solve them • Collecting ideas from the citizens for new approaches within the city • To establish together what can be externalized as social actions and to prepare partnerships to do it • To establish together what should be tackled by the Local Authority • To move from individual actions to community actions to assure a greater impact • To build-up the new ecosystem for social innovation where to include Culture and Economy development together with Education. • The absence of opportunities to acquire practical skills and experience among young learners, and their ignorance in discussions about Baia Mare and its problems. • The absence of proper spaces where new ideas should be generated and tested (CityLab, FabLab, Incubators, Accelerators) Describe the target/beneficiaries of the social innovation: (number of persons etc.) Baia Mare has a total population of 135 000 Citizens organized in 13 neighborhoods The status of capital of the county bordering Ukraine, together with the context of geographic proximity to Hungary, gives the municipality an opportunity to develop as a transit hub. Baia Mare plays the role of a city with mixed services, with a sub-regional importance along with Satu Mare . According to the Regional Development Plan, Baia Mare polarized by local synapses the entire area of Maramures County, the eastern part of Satu Mare County and the northern part of Salaj county being bound by a dominant flow to Cluj-Napoca. Baia Mare metropolitan area has a population of 215,932 (44.6% of the county population), an area of 1,395.38 km2, and includes the municipality of Baia Mare, five towns and 13 communes. Therefore we consider that our approach can aid in the prioritization of development in our and neighbourhood territories, while taking into account the area’s main comparative advantages – geographical layout, natural resources, cultural traditions - and fostering its competitive advantages – human capital, coherent economic structure, capacity of organization of the local administration. Furthermore our approach aims to overtake and to settle the multiple pressures resulting from the changes in the economic system, in the development and planning system, from the distortions and diversified needs in the urban area, as well as in the adjacent rural area, in order to create a development nucleus in a coherent network at territorial level. As such, the adequate capitalization of the potential in the city and in the bordering localities can contribute to the creation of a regional nucleus and the consolidation of the roles assigned to the partner entities at county, regional and national level. Beneficiaries: • local stakeholders, residents, businesses, schools, universities and institutions; • potential users of public space from Baia Mare but also from Cluj-Napoca • Young people entering the labour market. • Baia Mare metropolitan Area • Satu Mare county • Neighbour regions from Ukraine What is important: to enable dialogue platforms, motivate and convince people (interest groups which are often in conflict with each other), to engage in dialogue, and to develop compromise solutions that address the most important needs of the local community. What are the concrete activities/actions involved in this social innovation? Integrated process to listen and involve citizens on the development of an Innovative Strategy for the socio-economic sustainable development of the city which shall integrate the previously issued Social Strategy, Sustainable Integrated Strategy, Youth Strategy and Cultural Strategy, developed with participative democracy to identify the needs of inhabitants and co-design funding, infrastructures, services.