The government of the province of Santa Fe, through the international cooperation project "Local Planning, Environment and Social Economic Development" (Plades), provided training to local governments, within the framework of meetings of participation in the departments of Caaguazú and Misiones, Paraguay.
The three meetings were held in the Paraguayan towns of San Miguel, Coronel Oviedo and Carayaó, where the "Local Laboratories of Participation" and "Citizen Dialogues" were developed.
The Director of Territorial Strategic Planning, José Citroni, explained that "activities were carried out aimed at promoting and ensuring the participation of citizens in decision-making processes, and encouraging the implementation of citizen participation practices in local governments."
As regards the role of Santa Fe in Plades, Citroni recalled that the province was elected "in 2017 as a partner, thanks to the European Union's recognition of the policies of participation and strategic planning that the provincial government has been carrying out since 2008".
PARTICIPATION LABORATORIES
The "Local Participation Laboratories" consisted of a workshop training for officials and staff of municipalities, and aimed to strengthen the capacities of local governments in citizen participation strategies associated with planning processes. To this end, tools and strategies for the development of participation devices were addressed and a methodology for carrying them out was designed collaboratively, together with the attendees.
In the meantime, the "Citizen Dialogues" added the participation of representatives of the main social sectors with the aim of collectively validating the diagnoses of the Sustainable Development Plans and Territorial Urban Planning Plans, which have been developed in the localities and that together with a technical team of the Metropolitan City of Bari (Italy), also a member of the project, are in a process of review and formulation through Plades.
PLADES
The project "Local planning, environment and social economic development" is part of the thematic programme of the European Union "Civil society organisations and local authorities. Activities in Paraguay".
It is coordinated by the metropolitan city of Bari (Italy) and, in addition to the province of Santa Fe, represented by the Secretariat of International Relations and the Undersecretariat for Strategic Development, has as its partner the Eurosur Foundation, also Italian. As local partners of the project participate the governments of Caaguazú and Misiones, and eight municipalities of these departments.
The aim of the project, which has been developed in Paraguay since February 2017, is to strengthen the institutional capacities of the local governments of the Caaguazú and Misiones departments, through improvements in the strategic planning tools of the sustainable local development, recognizing as fundamental pillars the inter-agency cooperation between different levels of government, and the design and implementation of mechanisms and instruments for the participation of citizens and social actors.
