The dialogue process “We Make Europe: Cities and City Makers enhancing the (Im)Pact of Amsterdam” took place in Amsterdam’s FabCity in May 2016. The moderator of the working group discussing in detail the Urban Poverty Partnership was Iván Tosics, managing director of Metropolitan Research Institute.
On Sunday 29 May 2016, as part of the New Europe City Makers Summit, URBACT, Eutropian, Agora Europa and Pakhuis de Zwijger jointly organised, in cooperation with the European Committee of the Regions the unique dialogue We Make Europe: Cities and City Makers enhancing the (Im)Pact of Amsterdam at FabCity. In a dialogue City Makers, city officials and political representatives have explored the role of cities and civil society actors in effectively addressing the pressing urban challenges of today.
The event aimed at creating a dialogue between Cities and City Makers to enrich the ongoing work of the Urban Agenda Partnerships with experiences “from the ground”. The discussion focused on the ongoing Partnerships on Urban Poverty, Affordable Housing, Refugees and Migrant Inclusion and Air Quality. The event was divided in three moments: a first one with a plenary session with a group of 80 people, where 4 Cities from the URBACT network and 4 City Makers briefly presented their innovative governance strategy or initiative, highlighting challenges and potentials of EU policy on the urban scale. A second moment took the form of working groups discussing in detail the 4 topics of the Urban Agenda Partnerships, with the aim of elaborating suggestions that may feed into the ongoing policy discussion. The last session was a plenary open to the wide public where the institutional representatives from the European Committee of the Regions, Dutch government and URBACT commented on the discussions of the working groups. The moderator of the working group discussing in detail the Urban Poverty Partnership was Iván Tosics.
The We Make Europe Report about the event is available here.