A closer look at UIA projects working on Urban poverty

After more two years of experimentation on the ground of their new solutions to address such complex societal issues as the redistribution of wealth, new paradigms of welfare policies for marginalized groups and deprived areas or the connection of local communities’ assets with major public and private investments, we thought it was the right time for them to share their initial lessons with other cities and urban actors.

More than 50 participants had the opportunity to discuss with the six cities, listen about their progresses, achievements and difficulties, get an update on the relevant activities URBACT is running in the framework of the Urban Poverty Partnership for the Urban Agenda for the EU and understand, in the final panel, how important but also difficult is for UIA cities to connect their projects with other policy and financial strands at regional and national level.

The workshop was also meant to be a moment of inspiration for cities preparing their proposals for the 4th Call for Proposals. For the second time, the topic of Urban Poverty is proposed to cities in the framework of the ongoing Call. 
The policy's perimeter for this topic is particularly wide and complex. In the 4th call cities are invited to propose innovative ideas on dimensions not yet addressed by the 6 ongoing projects or alternative solutions able to complement or go beyond what the 6 cities are currently experimenting.

This is why we asked Nils Scheffler, UIA Expert for the Use-It project, to produce a short article (downloadable on this page) providing an overview of the 6 ongoing projects. Nils found several common points linking the six projects but also some essential differences in their approaches. We hope you will you enjoy the article and, if you are preparing an application, that it will help you in better defining your proposals.

Detailed description of the six ongoing projects on Urban Poverty are available in the projects' dedicated webpages. This is where you can also find the projects' journals that UIA Experts are producing every six months. These are essential readings to dive into the project's implementation, understand what it means experimenting bold ideas at urban scale and discover the main learning points.