What works: revisiting urban practices on multilevel governance
This was one of the emerging takeaways of the 2024 Forward-looking survey conducted by the European Urban Initiative on Portico. And while multilevel governance is not an “one-size-fits all” topic, there are already valuable lessons learned on how other European cities built strong and resilient multistakeholder and multilevel governance systems.
An abundance of such peer experiences originates from the initial cohort of cities that were awarded grants through the European Commission's Urban Innovative Actions programme between 2014 and 2020. The knowledge on how these cities tackled complex urban issues such as climate adaptation, digital transition, housing or poverty using an integrated approach is captured in this 2022 report. With a dedicated chapter on multistakeholder and multilevel governance, the study highlights concrete examples on how cities managed to build and run extensive alliances around local governments, ranging from national and regional authorities to a variety of local stakeholders.
But let’s begin with a “tasting menu” of the practices and insights you can find about multistakeholder and multilevel governance already tested by innovative cities around Europe.
The starting point of multistakeholder and multilevel governance
Cluj Future of Work (FoW) in Romania
Simple as it may sound, start from assets. Be it networks, previous pilot projects or a general momentum for collaboration created by a recent debate, all can lead to building strong multistakeholder and multilevel governance. For example, Cluj Future of Work (FoW) in Romania initiative capitalised on the groundwork laid by Cluj-Napoca's bid for the European Capital of Culture 2021 title. Although the bid was not successful, it sparked numerous concepts and partnerships that were subsequently implemented in the FoW project.
CitiCap project in Lahti, Finland
Similarly, the CitiCap project in Lahti, Finland managed to leverage the momentum created by the 2021 European Green Capital title to foster a collective commitment to achieving carbon neutrality, as well as securing robust guidance and backing across different municipal departments.
DARE project in Ravenna, Italy
The DARE project in Ravenna, Italy, benefited from a partnership established during a former URBACT network. The methodologies employed in the URBACT Creative Spirits project enabled the city to establish a group of local stakeholders, cultivate relationships with them, and thereby form a foundational partnership. This core alliance served as a platform to which new partners could be added, either to bridge skills gaps or to fortify specific segments within the local framework. With the goal of revitalizing the Darsena district through the introduction of a digital culture centred on the local community, DARE undertook a careful exploration of practices, projects and policies that exist in the territory. At the same time, a good starting point can well be fostering new alliances and involving unusual suspects.
OASIS project in Paris
The OASIS project in Paris was conceived with the goal of converting school courtyards into co-designed, co-constructed community spaces that are both green and responsive to climate change. For the execution of the initiative, the formal consortium consisted of the national meteorological agency (France Météo), educational and research bodies (ESIEE, LIEPP, and LIGUE), and a public agency focused on urban planning and environmental matters (CAUE). The project also drew on additional support from the Ministry of Education, the Parisian water utility, local district councils, and educational communities. All these stakeholders had previously never worked together before. It was through their new collaborations and co-created governance framework that they managed to bridge gaps between previously disparate policy domains.
How to make it work on the long run?
Plan for flexible structures and tools that can support continuous engagement of your stakeholders. Tailormade structures that can allow public and private sector organisations as well as knowledge institutions and civil society actors to cooperate in a horizontal and vertical way have been instrumental for successful multilevel governance frameworks. Most of these structures act as intermediary and umbrella organisations.
Košice 2.0 project
For example, Košice 2.0 project was coordinated at operational level by two spin-off organisations that grew out of the European Capital of Culture initiative. The first, Creative Industry Košice (CIKE), a non-governmental organization responsible for devising the primary strategy for the city's cultural and creative industry development, and second, K13 – Košice Cultural Centres, an entity tasked with the operation and management of a network of cultural venues. These institutions operate autonomously from the municipal government regarding decision-making processes, yet they maintain a web of both formal and informal connections and communication pathways with the public sector. This enables them to engage effectively with public officials and various stakeholders. The intermediary status of these organizations, along with the establishment of the Citizen Experience and Wellbeing Institute (CXI), was instrumental in their operational effectiveness.
VILAWATT project in Viladecans, Spain
In other cases, this umbrella role is actually integrated in the public structure from the beginning. VILAWATT project in Viladecans, Spain, actually created a novel Local Public-Private-Citizen Governance Partnership (PPCP). This PPCP served as the nexus for delivering energy solutions and services that pertained to the energy culture, building retrofits, and a local currency incentivizing energy savings. VILAWATT is now an established European good practice examples both of an innovative approach for energy transition, but also for multilevel governance. In other cases, there is no need of an additional partnership of intermediary body to be created, but rather a clear definition of roles in order to manage a coherent intervention.
Steps ahead: the essential role of leadership and knowledge
Urban practitioners now have access to an expanding repository of resources, including the European Urban Initiative's (EUI) Portico platform and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre's Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies. These sources provide a myriad of emerging good practices on multi-level governance. But the common ingredient stemming from all the available knowledge, is that leadership is crucial, starting from the initiatives of civil servants and various municipal departments and culminating with the strong advocacy by political leaders. So, change makers, unite!