The project “The National Strategy for Internal Areas and the new institutional arrangements” supported the Internal Areas Technical Committee and the Municipalities of the project areas, involved in SNAI, to bring out their association vocation, a starting point for the construction of efficient inter-municipal systems and stable, able to deliver quality services to citizens. Formez PA was involved in the selection process of the new SNAI areas, to evaluate their associative aptitude. In the 2021-2027 cycle, 56 were added to the 72 areas of the previous programming involving 764 administrations.
by Orsola Barina – Formez PA
Networking, joining forces to overcome the limits of individuals, cooperating to improve local services, the main bulwark against the unstoppable abandonment of inland areas, especially by the younger generations. The project The National Strategy for Internal Areas and the new institutional arrangements supported the Internal areas technical committee eh Common of the project areas involved in the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) to bring out their vocation for associations, the starting point for the construction of inter-municipal systems efficient and stable, able to deliver quality services to citizens.
A constant commitment that began in 2016 in the context of the 2014-2020 programming and which will end next July with the work done for the start of the new SNAI season. The owner of the initiative, born within the framework of the PON “Governance and Institutional Capacity” 2014-2020, is the Department of Public Administration. Implementing body the Form PA.
SNAI adopts an integrated approach oriented towards local development, aiming to curb the demographic decline that characterizes the internal areas, promoting citizenship services (school, health, mobility and enhancing local vocations.
Protagonists i Common, those far from poles equipped with all the services, poorly connected, sparsely populated by people mostly over 65, but with a rich environmental and cultural heritage. Formez’s activity starts right from them and from their ability to unite and listen to the requests of citizens and stakeholders. The construction of an inter-municipal system is one of the main methodological innovations introduced by the Strategy to overcome the organizational criticalities that condition the provision of services by the municipal administrations. At the base the respect of the associative prerequisitenecessary for admissibility to SNAI – which provides for the associated management of at least two of the fundamental functions. Formez PA has influenced – directly or in part, depending on the situation – this process in over 60% of cases.
The Formez approach
Formez supported the 1060 Municipalities of the 72 areas selected for the 2014-2020 planning in building the municipal coalitions and in rearranging the governance locale for a better implementation of the strategic interventions and a more effective administrative action, in line with the territorial characteristics and their specific needs.
Over the seven years, discussions with the administrators have never stopped with on-site and online meetings, especially during the pandemic period, to verify the membership prerequisite that all 72 areas have fulfilled. But also to collect support requests which have given way to specific strengthening actions. The push to fulfill the associative requirement and, therefore, seize the opportunity of the connected loans, has in many cases gone beyond expectations. In the first place, awareness has increased of how cooperation between administrations can facilitate the provision of public services, despite the organizational effort required. Evidence that has already emerged from the analysis of the inter-municipal systems of 48 areas, the subject of an initial reflection on the outcomes of the associative processes which gave life, in 2019 in collaboration with IFEL, to the report Inter-municipal associations in internal areas.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, a monitoring activity began to observe the evolution of the inter-municipal systems launched with SNAI and to analyze the organizational models that the areas have designed for its implementation. From this experience a report (Associations and implementation) was born, based on the monitoring meetings in 12 areas, which allowed a first consideration on the direct link between the solidity of the associative system put in place and implementation of the interventions. At the end of the project, a volume dedicated to this topic will be published with the dual objective: on the one hand, to analyze and structure what has been achieved (activities/results), how (tools) and why (detected need); on the other hand, based on the results of the monitoring of 27 areas, detect the success and critical factors that can constitute effective lessons learned for the 2021-2027 programming.
The dialogue and listening of local administrators was the Red thread who has guided the many initiatives put in place. More than 450 days were dedicated to the definition, construction and verification of compliance with the associative prerequisite and to subsequently evaluate how those systems operated or, again, to respond to requests from the territory. More than 4mila are the people involved in the project activities. In addition to 13 seminars, ad hoc laboratory activities were carried out at their request. the SNAI Coworking Laboratory, an interactive initiative for inter-institutional cooperation in the internal area of Basso Pesarese – Anconetano; the laboratory in the Emilian Apennines, with the aim of involving public employees more in the construction of the inter-municipal system, while facilitating a reflection on the future scenario with the 2021-2027 programming.
In addition to the volumes mentioned, some reports were then produced on topics that were found to be of interest for numerous areas, the digitization processes in the internal areas, The governance of tourism in the strategies of internal areas and an in-depth study on the theme of Civil protection.
In the last period, the Formez team has been engaged in the process of selecting the new SNAI areas alongside the CTAI, in order to evaluate their associative aptitude. In the 2021-2027 cycle, the 72 areas of the previous programming, some subject to redefinition, were added 56 involving 764 administrations.
At the end of the area selection phase, FormezPA created i Regional dossiers on SNAI 2021-2027 which describe all the internal areas of each Region and Autonomous Province. Divided into three sections with summary cartographic elaborations and descriptions of the areas divided on the basis of the planning periods to which they refer, in the third part they present the Open kitset of indicators to build and evaluate future strategies created with the methodological coordination of NUVAP, of which Formez has taken care of the technical updating activities and the definition of the architecture of the data management system.
The dossiers represent, for the project, the bridge between the SNAI of the past programming and that of the future.