At the 2021 European Week of Cities and Regions the work of the Small Places Matter Pilot Action was presented at a session on 12 October. The session focussed on governance and green transition and the particular role of small cities, towns and villages. The session was chaired by Martin Guillermo Ramirez, Director, AEBR, and began with an introduction of the Small Places Matter Pilot Action by Dr Ireland McMaster from the European Policies Research Centre and presentations from Merja Haapakka, DG Regio, and Maria Gafo-Gomez-Zamalloa, DG Agri, on the role of small cities and centres in developing larger territories.
Highly innovative examples and good practice were presented by Ana Maria Martinez, Mayor of the Municipality of Rubi, Spain and Markku Mäki-Hokkonen, Development Manager, Lappeenranta City Council, Finland, speaking about local governance and green transition and Bjørnar Saether, Professor, University of Oslo, Norway, developing a cross-border tourist region.
The session highlighted the value of an on- going dialogue on how to promote integrated multilevel governance and strengthening the links between bottom-up/local initiatives and top-down planning processes and initiatives.
The entire session is now available online and could be replayed from the following links:
English:
https://vimeo.com/636620449
Deutsch:
https://vimeo.com/636833075
Original Language:
https://youtu.be/-adkcX3FrwM
You can learn more about the Pilot action here.