Roundtable Discussion – What is the role for European cities in the 2030 and beyond world?

Opening presentation – Shifting focus from Policy to Governance:
The What, Why and How of Urban sustainability through SDGs
Mannheim, Stadthaus N 1, Ratssaal
Led by Prof. L. Meuleman, Director of Public Strategy for Sustainable Development (PS4SD)
Europe relies on dedicated and determined local leaders. Cities of all sizes create inclusive and sustainable future. Every city have a unique story as part of Europe and beyond.
This strategic dialogue will offer valuable insights into future priorities, emerging challenges, and actions needed to achieve lasting sustainable development in Europe and beyond 2030.

Participants:
Jukka Mäkelä, Mayor of Espoo, Finland
Stylianos Mamalakis, Mayor of Agios Dimitrios, Greece
Tanya Hristova, Mayor of Gabrovo, Bulgaria
Dr. Barbara A. Karanian, Lecturer and previously visiting Professor at Stanford University
Gherca Teofil-Oliver, Director of the URBACT programme

e spe think think right yeah come come come should for are we waiting we have to be on stage yes good afternoon at this uh moment which is called Dead Man’s hour because everybody’s full of lunch and um and the blood is not here but bit lower working very hard um I will introduce myself uh I’m Louie Memon um I’m always happy to be able to say I’m one of you I was 40 years a civil servant at the Dutch Regional level uh at the Dutch national level and at the European Commission in DG environment and since uh I retired I am researcher and and consultant uh and always on sustainability governance issues um after this morning in a smaller group having had discussions on storytelling and and learned a lot about that and from each other um I would now go back to let’s say your core work um and the challenges there and um first give a short introduction which may even take 10 minutes I’m sorry but it’s uh and tomorrow I will give a longer version of the same introduction but there is should be some overlap I think for today and tomorrow um and this introduction will will touch upon around seven issues uh that you will be familiar with and after the presentation I would like to have a discussion with you on the challenges you now uh experience Lessons Learned um hopefully also some failures that you have managed to get through um and to turn around into something positive um and I will then focus on only on three issues but uh that’s that’s just open to you so um for an introduction and also welcome to people online I think there are people online following this so it’s good um the central theme is what role of for European citiz in the multi level governance of the 2030 agenda and Beyond and in setting the scene this is of course the first thing that Springs to mind today’s context is extremely dynamic unpredictable and there’s a term for that vuka volatility is high uncertainty complexity and ambiguity and we need all to deal with that and find responses to these challenges the PowerPoint will be available also afterwards um and and we have not just one crisis but we have what we call cascading crisis of all kinds like we are in a situation where all levels of governments are facing ing um a series of Crisis and that also means that it is difficult to set new ambitious goals and and and targets and the coming years will be much more about implementation of the sustainable development goals and how this was translated in National or local uh City plans um and it’s indeed difficult to tell the sustainability story in terms times of Crisis and War One risk is what I’ve seen in some countries is that they focus very much on crisis management which is quite addictive because in a crisis when there’s a crisis you have a crisis team you have U lots of um availability of um of money of staff to deal with the crisis and if one crisis is followed by the other one then it becomes a kind of a new normal and I’ve seen in European countries that National governments are now using emergency see legislation procedures they were designed that were designed for the co crisis also in for non-urgent issues because it’s so it’s so nice to be so powerful but that is a risk and there’s also another risk um because many issues are not only a crisis but at the same time a complex problem which you just cannot solve with one or two measures like climate change is a crisis but it’s also So-Cal Wicked problem where there you have to have take small steps in many many different areas so this is a bit um challenge luckily we still have a globally agreed policy framework for sustainable future that covers most of the current problems and that’s the 2030 agenda with 17 SGS and all these targets and it really covers let’s say all all aspects of public uh governance but in order to shift more to implementation and and go away from from only planning um and and making policies is we have to shift a bit from policy to also include governance there has been a disbalance in the past where politicians tend to like the policy aspect a bit more and the governance is like implementation which is not so sexy um and um that gets less attention for me this short version is policy is what we do and and when and governance is how we do it and with whom in which kind of roles and the SGS are a nice Compass because all the goals have at least one or two governance targets and SG 16 and 17 are completely on governance and then you need to Define what is governance we need a very broad definition and I you say governance is how is about the how so how public Administration organizations and other stakeholders in what relation to each other whatsoever develop Solutions and create opportunities for societal challenges and that is about institutions instruments and the processes and roles of actors and then it’s also very important to have principles and a framework for Effective governance this picture is the beautiful framework of talin which I happen to to know and have been advising on and then on the left side you see 11 principles of effective governance for sustainable development which are so good I think because five of the 11 are about inclusiveness are about a social Dimension and it was said this morning several times that um sustainability is not only about the environment and it’s absolutely true without the social and economic Dimensions we will get nowhere and most principles for Effective governance do not have this social Dimension very strong and then a key challenge is so is creating effective mixtures of three basic governance Styles these governance styles do not exist in a pure form it’s always a bit mixed but it’s really helpful to distinguish them so there’s the top- down version hierarchical governance the bottom up or independency Market governance approach and more the collaborative approach Network governance and they represent different values and traditions they are very cultural in some countries there’s a preference for for this style and other countries for another style and that’s why you cannot just copy paste what works in Finland with is consensus culture the collaborative culture to Portugal which has a bit more collabor hierarchical tradition um in a book five years ago I I distinguished 50 different differences between these three Styles and that creates a kind of a huge toolbox to work with um I can go into that a bit more tomorrow the point is that each of these super styles are also have also weaknesses you have lots of bureaucracy and abuse of power or you can have manipulation and never ending talks or you can have all the issues you have in a real Market also in Market governance that’s why it’s important to try to combine these things and that is then called governance of governance or metag governance so designing I men situational combinations that can also be changing in time and you can use it as an analytical model but also as a design and management model I’m trying to stick to my 10 minutes but I forgot to count when I started so I’m sorry sorry anger okay um these three governance challenges are important um improving hor hor horizontal vertical and collaborative governance and they are related to each other this is a graph made by ingaborg who’s sitting there and it is included in a multi-level governance report of the Council of Europe of December last year and to to give some examples horizontal coordination then you talk about siloed departments the different Ministries at the national level departments or directorates at the at the city level um and we always have said uh you should not break down silos but you need to work them to work together and we have the metaphor teaching silos to dance make them really work together in a productive way um that’s much better because silos give structure give Clarity transparency so don’t break them down that’s the story um and then to overcome silos are also different many ways but two I like very much uh the first is um that you need to allow some people in your organization not all of them to be B bureaucracy hackers people who really understand the system also the inertia but also know the cracks in the system every system has cracks and if you can find them then you can create change you can create Innovation even when the rest of the organization doesn’t want to change so these people could be are leading people to to show that change can happen similar is boundary spanners people are really talented in creating linkages and trust between organizations between silos and about the boundary bureaucracy hackers I think Tanya and I last night already mentioned this uh and and had a discussion about that it was recognized on the vertical coordination the the let’s say the typical multi-level issue improving the links between administrative levels here mindsets are also important what what is the mindset of cities is it like we are the enablers we are in fact carrying the national uh level and they have to support us or is it more the other side on the right side cities carried away we are suppressed we we feel almost like caliro um so that’s one one thing um here this is an example of how you can have different ways of multi-level governance relation between the different levels is it characterized by legal uh issues top down on the right side bottom up um both are very slow sometimes and there is a third style which is collaborative multi-level governance which is applied in in several countries already this is about engaging effectively with stakeholders Al that you can have three hours course about this we don’t have time for that but also here we have to realize very much and that could also be a cause for problems that the mindset should be right not only on the government or the city side but also on the stakeholders side and the story of City this morning these are examples of things that came up this morning how to shape your own uh story and that expresses also a certain mindset um then on Partnerships further do we map stakeholder the our stakeholder landscape often enough because it can change what about intermunicipal cooperation to overcome all kind of problems and what about public private Partnerships because it is researched that this can also create lots of problems these are just three of eight principles from of policy cence for sustainable development and I’m finally showing this because we talk about leadership uh this morning also a lot this is my favorite picture of leadership where the penguin number one is clearly determined knows the way knows the the direction um but as and the people are the other penguins are following this but as a number two penguin the deputy penguin who is really um who doesn’t look that well is concerned a bit nervous also is everybody following and are we really going into the right direction and and this is very important to have everybody every leader should have a deputy who’s doing like that and I think this is what we what I wanted to introduce crisis addiction versus complexity policy to governance use of this governance Styles multi sector multi- level and multi-actor intermunicipal coroporation bureaucracy hackers and Boundary spers leadership and Leadership for all and there maybe other issues but these were the things I wanted to introduce and um as next step I would like to invite we have a fantastic panel here um of high level City Representatives I think six six cities are represented in the panel but we have three others in the room um and what I would like to do is um in invite you to share starting with the panel and then people could react from the the room invite you to uh say something about your challenges or Solutions Lessons Learned and on this horizontal vertic and stakeholder coordination issue that’s starting about The Silo problem so the first thing and um who can I invite and and and take into account try to remember also what we learned this morning about storytelling um maybe you can talk about your challenges in a different way um now than than before today I’m happy that also Talan is now joining the panel good oh yeah just I don’t have to do anything so um who can I give the floor from the panel on horizontal coordination mechanisms you have created that work or don’t work um and and and what they do about the silos and how to bring them together who wants for the floor first please the last come the first speak this are fantastic yes thank you uh I have I think I have to share uh the story of talin what we uh made uh this how we changed the city government actually so I filled my position as a city strategy director uh 3 years and uh 6 months already and before that there was no position of City strategy director at all in the city government uh there was such a role uh people who dealt with strategies and development projects but there were they were inside the structure they were hidden in the structure there were there was no face and in uh the beginning of 2021 uh the city system changed and we created the Stalin strategic management office which actually is responsible for strategic planning financial planning Personnel planning and digitalization as well and all these like horizontal topics as I what I just mentioned they are horizontally coordinated from the strategic management office across the silos um and we are making uh also cooperation between the different city departments we have uh monthly uh meetings uh which is led by the City Chancellor and all the city directors and different uh department heads are on the round table and we are discussing different strategical objects and that’s a discussion between the public officials we are not the politicians we public officials the cabinet of uh Deputy Mayors and the mayor is uh above us and they are making the political decisions but uh actual horizontal cooperation or finding ways how to make The Silo stands is happening there and uh we have as well uh on the working level uh this kind of steering groups as well across the silos uh and I think that’s it for the starters so you have to have some kind of a structure or some kind of a system or process that you should coordinate horizontally otherwise uh the different departments in the city level they not always are working together or finding uh consensus thank you um can I yeah thank you um could you maybe give one example of a success what went well recently um and didn’t wouldn’t have worked well without these structures thank you that’s a very good question I think um the best things that we do better now is put putting together the 4E City budget strategy and the city budget actually before the cabinet starts uh the discussions about the next year’s budget uh which kind of Investments we are making we are making like pre discussions in the top leaders who are public officials and they are like calculating the arguments and we’re making a common proposal to the political cabinet and one issue as well is um redesigning the street space actually how to find like uh compromises or consensuses uh how do we redesign the street space how many car Lanes we should have where are the bus lanes where are the trem lines how how much space we give to the cyclists and uh for people who are walking uh so this kind of discussions uh we have to bring to the top management level because we are not finding consensus on the expert level thank you very much any questions to him about this further questions followup questions no and who wants to be the second to give an example about this horizontal coordination I mean it’s not easy because this if if it I I what I hear now from from yui V Talen um it seems as if all the differences and the tensions have disappeared between the different cultures of the different departments but in at the national level which I know better everybody always hates the Ministry of Finance because they have too much power and that’s not so easy to overcome that kind of distrust so but it what you try to do is a trust building exercise in fact but as I may add uh then that something is happening in talin as well as you mentioned everybody hates the Ministry of Finance with Ministry of Finance I worked N9 years in the Ministry of Finance before I came to the city level and uh I have had those feelings that everybody hates you according to the budget strategy or uh this the Ministry of Finance was responsible as well for the uh State reform and local government reform and no easy topics but in the city level I think now is the fourth year of strategic management office uh is running I can feel like something is happening uh back there across the Departments that not hate but some kind of uh uh sentences or opinions are coming towards to us that maybe you have too much power some um experts on the city level says say that the strategic management office should have more power some vorite or something uh to it it should gave like like strong guidances now we trying to manage with soft coordination but there are different opinions and it’s yeah okay who is next yeah please go ahead Luna hello my name is Linka I’m a vice mayor of yonet yonet got about 45,000 residents so and we are from the opposite scale of what have you have just heard um we are at the beginning of sustainable governance really at the beginning uh we haven’t uh we haven’t experienced the success that would motivate people working at the city hall uh so what we have done during the last six months is that we bring them together at the one table I would say and make them talk to each other because until then they have never actually talked and met uh professionally um in in coordinated way they were used to work everyone in his Silo because it used to be like this for 20 years so we are at the beginning we are I’m looking for the first success and what I find even though it’s very hard and tough and I know that people uh the employees talk about my strategic team not very nicely I would say like simply like this uh even though it’s very tough um I think we must uh follow uh what we what’s our goal and we must continue with this work and hopefully one day it maybe in one year and one day uh people will accept that it’s very very important to talk to each other and to cooperate but it takes time and we have to digest it this process we have to digest that we cooperate it’s not it’s not easy for them if you are 50 and 55 uh it’s not easy to accept a different way of work so that’s from our side yeah and and um and there’s some there’s some examples in in other places that that might one one example of this horizontal coordination on sustainable development issues is is uh that in some countries and some cities you appoint an STG person Co coordination person for each department that’s not enough I this has happened for example in Romania and what they there miss is still that these people should have also kind of a connection or access to the financial annual cycle because without money access to money you cannot really move things in Germany which is also a country where civil servants are not really very keen to change all the time um they um uh they they tried two years ago to create transition teams of six big big Su sustainability transition with members of at least two or three Ministries so that’s kind of a forcing people to work in a in a team productive way across the Ministries across the Departments are these also ideas who you’re you could work with or is it still so in the beginning this is now just trial and error and and it it’s all about the money right um uh on one side uh those uh head of departments they complain about we we we are not invited in in in the process why have why didn’t you invited us at the beginning of process and now when we invite them they say we’re too busy we we cannot come you know it’s uh there’s a lot of work uh so uh uh I’m laughing sometimes uh because uh it’s a contradictory they want something but when you offer them the offer they say we don’t have time uh but as I said it’s it takes time and I’m rather optimistic than pessimistic so hopefully it will work I don’t know whether I answered your question but this is of came to my mind yes thank you very much any comments at this moment already of burning questions from the others here in the room if not I mean you you can always think of good questions they they deserve the panel deserves really good questions and there are no stupid questions only stupid answers um maybe we can continue along this row and then see so TI Phil you are from not from a city but from coordinator for herback program in Paris so what do you think think about this issue you you don’t have these issues yourself of course of horizontal coordination yeah this I I’m not I will not speak from a city perspective but really from from my previous experience as uh working for the government for long period of time but also for Europe I think first we need to see if there is a problem I mean if you look at the ranking of un uh on uh where we stand as a as a continent the first 20 countries at at World level are European in achieving the sdg so we are from a micro level we are okay but if you look at the at the level of the Cities no city in Europe has managed to achieve all the 17 sdg so there is a problem between what we manage to do as a whole of Europe but what you manage to do at local level and then this is one of the issue as you mentioned because we are working on silos and why we working on silos on those sdg because this strategic framework comes from Top I mean we have the Ministries every Ministry has its own strategy and then we don’t localize enough those objectives at local level at City level uh of course I mean if you if you are a big city we have around 800 cities in Europe more than 50,000 inhabitants so from this level I think yeah perhaps you can you can make a strategy you can put some people responsive on some issues related to sdg but you don’t if you don’t have this capacity it’s very difficult to manage through 17 sdg 170 almost uh targets so what to do in order to break silos but also to make achievements and to to be visible for citizen that this is something it’s worth to invest I think yeah as I mention first you need to to localize this objectives to choose what is your fight to to because there’s something for each City to put more focus on a on a specific uh objective or a specific Target so this can be uh made through mission statement we’re hearing about the Manheim that they have a mission statement on gender equality it’s a good fight I mean you can you can have different other missions St but I think one city can decide to focus on one or two missions and then uh afterwards you need to involve citizens because Society is really something that they believe in this it’s something that you can make your alliance if you don’t manage to break the stus of Ministry of Finance but you bring your people from the from from the city and then you’ll be able to convince other stakeholders so it’s better yeah to First Focus to see okay what is needed at your local level and then to build up the mass of stakeholders of of citizen to be involved and really to support you to achieve at least some objectives and do it step by step I think this is what is now really uh we need to to to strive more at in Europe to try to uh better valorize the the power of cities in achieving this uh these targets thank you if you’re working on the scgs they are very much interconnected so you can pick out one target one goal to go for but it’s very soon you will also have to deal with the the impacts on other issues is there maybe one from your long experience one interesting example to mention uh of how horizontal coordination was improved the silos were crossed were overcome in a country in in the city from your past experience something that is was made maybe a very strange idea but it worked uh not so much but uh I think um it’s very much depending on uh also each uh City position and what are the challenges that they’re facing uh they could be different recipe for each City so I will not say that uh I know what should be the focused but uh I I think I mean as I mentioned myhind give us this example of gender equality I think it’s it’s it’s really s that if you want to focus on and to have a mission statement on those targets which are related to gender equality of course you can link you should link with with other related objectives and then you can you can move move forward and afterwards you are going to build up this base with other targets so what I’m saying is that you need to you need to choose to really to invent something which is also concrete for your citizens and also you have the means to achieve it in a medium period of time you know in order to see that it’s not just about strategy uh but it’s also it’s grass rooted within your city thank you sorry I have another short question for you because I certainly thought about it there is there is a wellestablished method to work across different uh interests the mutual gains approach kind the Harvard negotiation approach of how you can there many ways to call it um do do you have do you know of in the if in the context of uh herback there have been cities who have introduced that I mean my own example is that almost 30 years ago the environment Ministry in the Netherlands uh made a three-day training on this negotiation method obligatory for all civil servants and all the whole management and that created a mutual understanding also of course uh about how to achieve success win-win situ package is across silos and that was quite a big thing but maybe you haven’t I mean inat what we are doing is in fact um we are very much relying on uh participatory approach and integrated planning and then uh for uh every Network for every city you you know very well because you are part of a kbak project you need to create a local uh support group and then the city hall is of course leading the the subject but they try to involve all the stakeholders and of course it’s not easy to discuss with private with NGS depending on the subject of the of of your network of your policy uh and then we we notice that in fact uh at the city level local level this is working quite well in fact this trying to bring the the relevant stakeholders at the table and try to to reach a common objective what is more difficult is to to have the territorial integration and then with different layers administrative layers up to the National this is something that we didn’t manage to to get through I mean through a project but I think it’s part of of of a success story if you don’t manage to really to embed your project in what is uh on different layers in your country doesn’t work uh but yeah I mean this yeah did work this multistakeholder involvement it’s something that it’s also to build up your credibility on what you want to to achieve at local level it’s something that if you have all the other behind you as much as possible this is something that yeah works okay thank you T may I go to you uh what kind of problems have you solved where nobody said nobody believed that you could solve it in terms of silos probably just one small question maybe I’m not the person to say that I have managed to solve a problem that I was not trusted too but uh when I was listening to your presentation I remembered that actually I entered the local governance in 2008 and uh I was appointed as Deputy Mayor with the uh how to say with the area of sustainable development which means that there is something called a destiny concerning my presence in local governance and especially in engaging in local uh in in sustainable development at that moment moment I was engaged with the single um engagement to provide for horizontal coordination among the different departments and units actually uh what you say to make the cwol dance and it was really a challenge because these were the first steps of Bulgaria and my municipality in the European Union and at the beginning it was really a big challenge at that moment the challenges were of one type nowadays they are different so we’ve learned a lot and obviously since I’ve been now among you uh as a mayor of that City probably I to some extent manag to uh achieve some uh coordination but uh what I want to tell about my experience um uh and my municipality is the fact that thanks to the European uh membership and thanks to the fact that especially gabu municipality as a team is quite ambitious and really trying to achieve its goals we managed to become part of many different projects and we really gained a lot of expertise a lot of experience which was at the first um uh level very important for the administration because without motivation you cannot manage with the implementation and more importantly we managed to show at the beginning the citizens that things could happen on the ground and step by step we started uh investing in things that are more invisible but that are extremely important for the sustainable development perspective and it is to sit on a table together with business together with um Academia and education and try to speak of the same language at at the beginning just listen to each other this started I think with one international project which was related to The Innovation Gap and because we are a city with University uh a city with really ambition to regain the um the business and Industrial devel development in um in new um uh perspectives we really uh manag to to create a solid basis now we have a sustainable um um platform which is called Regional Innovation Center which unites US public authorities uh representatives from the business and Academia and a lot of Partners in this entity and we are very active in different project and I’m very happy that together with espo we are going to be I think part of the new Regional Innovation valleys so what I’m telling is that step by step we are upgrading our little achievements and something that I still have to resolve somehow with my colleagues is really related to the fact that in our administrations and especially in mine we still divide our work between European and local which is something that is um creating silos and somehow this is probably part of our uh culture part of our self um insufficiency or self or complexes we have to overcome by um gaining more confidence and maybe strategic uh um sustainable development goals could be something that if they are measured properly on different levels they could show also where we are progressing because yes Bulgaria and our territory is not as rich as Finland not as rich as even Greece but compared to the starting point we have made some progress and being part of so many uh initiative we can learn from each other and find basis uh to uh to improve our um our U challenges and something pragmatic thanks uh once again to uh our friends from espo and especially Mr marua we are the city which probably is champing one type of initiative called um Innovation camps we organized this Initiative for more than I think seven years and this is a very uh successful collaborative um um model that um uh brings together people of different age of different um profession uh with different beliefs uh uh working together on societal challenges for for three days following the methodology that was now um developed by jrc and finally reaching on an idea that is prototyped and I can tell you that um our uh strategy that we are now implementing and that is trying to refer to the um sustainable development goals contains project ideas that are designed Within These um formats and I can tell you that um all the ideas that were U born uh in this format they are um continuing to evolve and the majority of them are implemented so um this is probably part of our ambition to become also uh a city part of the mission for achieving climate neutrality and hope that um this will influence also our vertical Partners uh in our country because to some extent because of the Cascade of crisises we are feeling a little little bit uh more lonely nationally and we’ll be happy to share and to exchange um uh good practices also in uh in in gabo but with the participation of the national authorities okay thank you and on the vertical party we will come back later somebody’s very happy with that it was also very good any questions from the panel to you maybe yes please please like sorry you said you um you cooperate with business right how do you manage to F uh how do you succeed in that cooperation and second question was um I forgot it so the first question thank you well it took us more than 10 years to be consistent and to try to engage them and to convince uh businesses that we are not wasting their time and that we are not trying to uh to manage their uh activities but to uh involve them uh in decisions that are important for the quality of the place that they live and um I think uh in time uh the majority of them are very happy when we create something that they used to have in their dreams and then they come to us and put us our next uh duties and tasks but um the fact that we managed to work together on different initiatives and projects make us understand each other and I think Co was something that made both parties very connected uh I’m not very big fan of Crisis management policies but unfortunately we especially in Bulgaria are more productive in such periods which is also something that brings lessons that could be useful so it takes time and persistence this is part of our motto of the city did she answer your question well I will have to talk about it with you later on because I have more questions even on that topic okay we come back to that uh now over to Aros dimitrios um I have two speakers here stos or vilus and who has the one has the voice indeed please unfortunately the mayor ofus Mr mamalakis is having an issue with his voice so I will be representing him during the discussion so I’m vasil zakaras I’m uh quite new in politics I would say I was only elected a few months ago so I’m just in my six months in politics let’s say and uh but uh mayor mamalakis had a vision because for 20 years we had the same Administration Aus demitrios and for the last 13 years was the same the same mayor that Unfortunately they didn’t have a vision about embracing all the different uh digital Technologies and how we can use it and utilize it to say it better in to transform our cities and the way we are working so one of our goals is uh to bring these deals of transformation to break the silos that we have during the different Services uh which is also part of the Greek culture uh that people tend to work alone and not really collaborate and cooperate with each other and and this is what we want to achieve also with a common goal towards being closer to European uh standards and working together uh in more collaborative manner so there has been I would say even though we are as we said the new Administration only a few months in a Demetrios ER based on mayor’s Vision we have started a lot of different things like trying to break also the silos between the different municipalities because imagine that in Athens all the municipalities are more or less interconnected so there’s just a small Street separating one municipality from the other where we all face common challenges so as per the mayor’s Vision we have started to do an active collaboration network with the surrounding neighboring uh municipalities with a goal to to face common challenges and issues like we have a big streak which is actually the second biggest in all of Athens vatica that we want to really bring life to it preserve the ecosystem and create different uh elements that will help our societies uh from creating um pedestrian roads create cyclist Roads places where families can actually go and spend time quality time next to the city so we have a lot of work to do and uh if I may add I think what is important for us is to really create a cultural shift in AOS Demetrios based on how the Greek people are used to work collaborate and and try to bring this and we can only achieve that uh through open commun transparent communication with each other and ourselves we need to become role models we need to be there to inspire the people and motivate them to make the change towards a common goal yeah that’s that sounds very good uh and but especially if it’s so deep in the culture to work on your own and not together that that can take a lot of time um but I learned from uh being part of the peer revieww in talin was that Pilots if you want to change something and and nobody’s really ready to change you can always start with pilots and also here collaboration Pilots uh joints projects between different departments in I know from the Netherlands there was once a joint project directorate between the Agriculture and environment Ministry that became so successful that it was quickly abolished again because it undermined the power of the individual Min ministers but but these things are also part of the game um if I may add on top of that uh I think that although we all faced the very hard times in Europe with the pandemic of covid still for Greece I saw that this uh because I’m in the technology sector for almost all my professional career it really brought up uh the elements and the advantages that digital technology and can actually provide us in better collaboration and being open and uh I think this is something that even through a pandemic we can keep the good elements and we can see the opportunities and work on creating this cultural shift it will be a long road for us but still uh we are fully engaged and committed in uh proceeding indeed also small small steps help thank you very much questions from the rest of the panel at a moment or we go to Manheim yes yeah thank you my name is Chan Hub exactly I’m the director for democracy and strategy in Manheim and we have a long way behind us with a big change reform which uh was beginning in 2008 and some things were good at the end and some things you learn about it so uh try and error um is the culture of us um I mean you said it about the multi crisis we have we have the wuka world but we also have in our cities um three logical systems we have the politics with their logic uh which are running for uh elections and saying we want to have less boundaries for the economy the other side we want to have more educational Justice Etc PP then you have the administration with the silos we see here with the Logics now that the planning Institute says we know best about planning and Education Institute says we know best about how to educate our children and then you have the Civil Society um which need has the Enterprises all the citizens Etc PP and they all have different uh point of views also I mean during Co covid we have about 80 million people who were uh you know who know how to make politics with u an epidemy so what crazy um this is all very critical and uh at the moment uh I think uh in as in every um city or country we need a common Vision so that everybody first of all know where we want to go and when you have this um usually you have a a little side effect that everybody is looking that is coherent with this vision and then you have usually the biggest mistakes um cut check but then you have to look how to bring the people to work on this common Mission and at the moment I think we have um with the sdgs a very good framework because the sdgs learn us integrated thinking they also learn us to have a classical plan to check X Circle to say okay we plan something then we do something and then we measure it and then we evaluate it and so you come also in the politics more into an evidence-based discussion and um they are also have um I would say um at the moment a dynamic that we say okay we have a global crisis but we also have to look what we doing locally for our citizens and that’s the main point and I think the SGS are predestinated to bring this all together now think globally but act locally at the moment I mean we all saw it in the European elections we have the problems with the negative populism who is explaining us very easily um how to solve this crisis no um and at the moment we need I think um a positive narrative which is clear to to the people and explain what is good for us and this is a challenge I know but I think we need this uh positive Nar and I hope we are we’re working on it for our cities and get with the support of barara Etc help in this because we need this a positive uh narrative for us uh we also need to yeah when we’re saying we’re dancing with the sers to orchestrate uh the dance of the silos uh that we come to an outcome a positive outcome and this means we have to look about um uh common Vision we have to look about processes but we also have to look about uh the culture of an organization I mean there’s a quote from Peter trucker that says culture is is eating strategy for breakfast so you have to change the mind uh of the people and this is sometimes hard because we all know it change is hard everybody wants to live in his comfort zone and when you’re talking about technical things with the zos um everybody knows it better cuz that’s my job I learned it on the University we have to do it in this way and then bringing them out to say what is our c goal and how we can achieve more together then I think you can break it more up but you have to um you have to bring the people together uh this is a lot of discussion and it’s hard work but um at the moment as we can see it um in the end for us it was more successful thank you very much it brings me to the observation that I think that we we need a lot of uh organizational psychology sociology and anthropology probably to get these changes and to change the mindset because it goes so slow and if you just announce the mindset will now change our culture will change as from next Monday that’s the best way to organize resistance so I I my my little experience is that um you always have to build on existing cultures and not try to First destroy them because people believe in the existing culture as something that’s valuable for them and then if you can convince them that adding something or changing a few things but not everything will work better than you have them but that’s um experience of all of you I suppose uh any questions here at the moment yes please go ahead it’s uh more like a also a comment and a question for Christian uh because I hear what you say and I fully agree but uh given the rise of the populist in Europe during the latest elections how easy do you think it will be for us to convince the people because they hear you know simple easy solutions with no cost and what we’re trying to achieve for sustainable growth and common vision for Europe is more difficult it requires people to I would say step out of themselves at some uh to some extent and uh transform themselves so how do you do this yeah that’s a point where I said we need empowerment in administration which is explaining uh to the people what we are doing and why we are doing this and the populist parties um they are really clever in it uh they are on Tik Tok for instance in Germany um we are not on Tik Tok due to data security and all these things and sometimes we are all we we don’t have the um yeah um I wouldn’t say the power but um the feeling how to go on this no it’s very um no we’re making a press and we we are on on on Instagram we are on instam we are modern I think we have to be more open for uh this uh new methods of communication then we have to fight the the fake news and we have to make more uh in quick videos or in data uh visualization to bring the information to the people we are writing um also here in this city council we’re writing papers and papers and papers we also transmitting the city councilors speaking or meetings here via live stream but to be honest it’s not interesting and how we make it interesting for the people and this is a great story to say we want to save the world to 2030 but first of all we want to save Manheim to look what’s in for Manheim for and then we help others and then to say okay what we are now here discussing for instance we are discussing um um Energy electric energy uh in this quarter and why we need this measurement and therefore we need this money so to make make it more simple that the people can say ah now I understand it and from the simplification I think in the end there comes trust for more complex answers but at the moment our trust uh in the service is about uh 58% for the councilors and 5 7% for the information politic of the city Administration not bad but not enough and we have to do more enough Al trying hard is not good enough we have to achieve more okay yes please just a reaction I think I mean people cannot be wrong I mean it’s people are right when they are voting uh I think there there is a need to have two uh we need more Europe in fact we have some policies where we don’t manage to achieve too much because we don’t have enough Europe uh and then this is main for several policies including migration but then afterwards you need also more involvement at local level I think the the message that is given by local politicians it’s really trusty I mean people are trusting their mayor and then this we we are not doing enough also for the sdg I think uh if you are giving a message from a local level you need to really to to build up on those local politicians which are really trusted by their citizens we I we see this in France I mean Mayors they manage to get reelected almost all the time uh but uh the national politicians they don’t they are not being trusted by by the people so there is a gap in communication between national and local and this we need to really to bridge this this Gap and then involve of local politicians in conveying those messages including in the in the national elections in something that we need really to invest more but I think those two elements more Europe oncs policies where there is uh no way to progress if you don’t have enough Europe and then really strong strong involvement from local politicians will bring will manage to to to to reach better the the citizen in order to convince them about what you want to achieve yeah okay thank you can we now go we fly now to I see a question from the audience ah first after P yeah thanks so pleas first of all Louie um let me congratulate you a great presentation and you are bring bringing here very interesting uh topics and um the question teaching silos to dance I think that like a DJ a DJ so if people are not dancing I think that we need to change the music um and so I think it’s also as a contribution I would say that leadership I think it’s also related with leadership and I think that that’s uh after everything was said so I resonate with most of the uh the what the previous um speakers um uh share with us uh but um I I would say well a lot of thoughts one is nature uh it seems that nature can teach us nature based Solutions well in one hand we have this is animal behavior the silos the territories is animal behavior and we are animals and we behave uh in our territory because we are in a comfort and safe Zone maybe that’s why the silos can keep their uh momentum um on the other hand there are some other animals and we should learn with them like the bees or the ants uh because they cooperate even yesterday night at the dinner we have some of us had mushrooms and it was the canel the canel and the canel it’s a mushroom that lives with a tree so it’s very important for them with the roots of the tree they change um Services um and uh they gave minerals to the tree and the tree gave water to the mushrooms and they uh cooperate and they are um they and they are delicious by the way they are delicious um but uh back to the leadership and the communication because we had a very interesting uh day workshop with Barbara and at the end I think that one thing is also to commun and I remember a say I cannot recall who who is the the owner of of of that phrase that it means in communication three sentences one sentence is tell me and I will forget um show me and I will um remember and engage me involve me and I will understand and I think that this thing is key to understand we need really to uh embedded in ourselves in order to then behave uh differently because we are talking about changing behaviors our natural behavior and also our education system I think everywhere in the western world was more selfish and now we have this challenge uh to change me if you turn the the the the me letter is we so I think that is a big a big Quantum lap really to change from me to we uh and also to forget they them because it’s very common and by the way I interact with a lot of municipalities with a lot of Foundations uh private companies and everywhere is the same challenge you have silos everywhere it’s not only the municipalities um so uh and I think that there are at least in the private sector uh they can use some in the rewarding system uh some let’s say uh they can incentives with money because someone said that the most sensitive part of our body it’s our pocket um and if that’s true uh if someone puts uh things that we like in our pocket we value U we value it but I think that there are also other rewards that it’s not money I think it’s more emotional more let’s say the emotional wage um that uh feedback uh the celebration the praise uh I think that there are different ways for a leader to Value the contribution of someone that really uh try to to Broken the silos and uh give the the the the the example I think that the the issue is even more complex than you describe it in in a way when you said well and it’s true uh Portugal culturally historically uh it’s more hierarchical and let’s say southern Europe our culture uh but I work in multinationals and global companies and then is everywhere but it’s is true that Portugal has that culture embedded but I think that is more complex because nowadays a leader or anyone of us deal simultaneously simultaneously with different uh different uh um uh structures we we can deal in a day life in our day we can we can deal with hierarchical we can deal with metrics we can deal with networks um so at the end what we need more and more it’s not only to be smart smart citizens smart leaders but we need to be also to have emotional intelligence Barbara it’s of course an expert in that area but emotional intelligence social intelligence so other intelligence I think that we must learn I think it’s also part of the soft skills that we need to learn so I think it’s really very very challenging um and it’s really um also I I think that leaders uh can somehow give the example lead by example and try to break the silos I leave with that with this comment is that really I think that there are reward systems uh not only related with money that can have a a role there to try to incentivate to to to give incentives to the right Behavior or the desirable behavior in what concerns cooperation and uh um and again I think that nature can also teach us a lot of lessons thank you for going so much into the the human dimension of of this issue and uh I I fully agree I also I’m still a fan of uh hery and Blanchard’s more than 50 years old scheme of situational leadership the different styles of leadership you have to do you when you have a team there’s always somebody you have to give instructions at 8:00 in the morning and others you can Empower and only see every two weeks that is what the different styles of leadership also are about and uh this is linked to different governance styles on on teaching sty is to dance which is very nice metaphor um in who invented the term once um and I we organized the training at the European commission for European commission offices on teaching silus to dance on the skills you need to learn and um and the point was that we got the wrong people the people who subscribed were the ones who already understood because they immediately jumped on this nice sexy title so a year later we did it again with the most unsexy title we could invent in the the same training uh we then called it working better with others most boring title and we got again the wrong people because now we got all the people who make problems with everybody who could not really collaborate so it’s difficult to find the middle way I think but yeah I think we have now now Villa and maybe somebody else yes please oh yeah Barbara come in hi I’m Dr Barbara kinian I’m so impressed with all of you Pedro you had me at the T show engage metaphor that was really poetic beautiful so my question for all of you are any of you that would like to answer if you’re going to be featured on the cover of a famous magazine in your country or in the globe like Time Magazine as the woman or man leader of the year what would it be for so you’ve been featured as the leader the government leader of all time for the year what would you like to be known for speak up the teacher ask so you have to answer um the professor thank you very much profess Louis do you like my question Louie do you like my question okay the the extra mile Runner you want to be known for what extra mile Runner of the Year somebody who goes the extra mile yeah in my case I would love to be as a servitude leadership be there humble working for the people yes Linka me I would like to be a leader that brought politics to people and people to politics so someone who managed to engage people in things what’s happening around them anybody else inspired at the moment it’s not mandatory but please go ahead I think we we all agree that we will be very happy if we have uh on the cover as engaged leaders I think this is something very very nice anybody else may I say another another okay front because it’s are two two magazines one was the one that you mentioned and the other one the gardener Gardener of the year and I explain why because gardening I mean when we sew we want really to um to have the the tree or the the the whatever we we sew we want to have the output of it when we um we prune we think that the next shape is better than the previous one when we uh transplate transplant uh transplant we think that the new uh the new um is is is is is good the new way so gardeners believe on future because if someone doesn’t believe on future could not be a gardener so hope the Gardner is a hope spot for our Humanity okay so I would like to be known also the Gardner of the Year okay thank you very much any other last uh for because this round is then closed on silos and on horizontal coordination any last comments at a moment and on this side nobody then then let’s go to the next round uh about working better across the levels the different levels of government of administration where there was already a comment that European is not really um should be part of the normal level of series European Europe is not uh foreign affairs it is part of our integrated multi-level governance thing um so what who has experiences to share about very yeah about difficulties or or Solutions or certainly very smooth operations between the different levels of government I mean sometimes it is like I said earlier when I was in Tali last September I first had a meeting with the SG coordinators of the ministry of the government and then a day later with the city of talian and it turned out and I thought okay they they they work like 500 meters from each other so they must be in contact all the time and and and and exchange and and and and whatever no there were the ministry didn’t see really reason to discuss things about the SGS with Talon please go ahead yes thank you IOU um yes you described the situation in talin actually so I think uh first of all there is two ways of cooperation the one uh way or one pillar is political and the other way is uh expert level or public official level cooperation because um in Dallin has been ruled by uh only one party uh over 10 years maybe it’s already 20 years I I don’t remember the time but uh but uh a couple of months ago uh there was a small Revolution and uh they took down the former mayor and now we have a coalition government who has like four different parties uh in the Dallin city government I think it was much needed this kind of change uh uh it’s not the matter of question which party you like or not to like but uh if you rule one city uh like over a decade or over 15 years then it’s too long time uh there are not so much like uh innovative solutions uh are created and that’s why the state government actually ignored uh talin city government on the political level because that concrete party uh was uh has their main positions in the D city government too long time and there was like a political like river between this state level and the local level and mostly Estonia has uh 79 local governments and the cooperation between for example the state level and the local level happens um between the state the concrete Ministry uh or the concrete Minister and the union of Estonian municipalities and cities but the Union in Estonian case is not a strong union it’s quite weak and it lacks resources financial resources and the personnel as well and that’s why the positions are not uh not so strong every time and now uh we H we have to think so that um different municipalities have different problems and time from time to time they should have direct access to the state level because the talin’s problems uh because the maybe thir 30% or more of the Estonian population are living in talin we have different kinds of problems and and we want to talk to directly to the state and um the political situation I cannot change but what I can do is um to influence people work in different uh levels so uh I previously worked in private sector and after that I worked nine years in the Ministry of Finance and now I work in the local government level so if you have different perspectives uh from your background then you can better understand uh the viewpoints of different stakeholders and I think that’s the key and what our former mayor mik gwart did very well he started the strategic management office and he started uh also the renewable of the city organization and uh he changed uh a lot of top managers in the city systems and a lot of them came from the state level and they had the vision that the state had they had experience from the state level and now uh I have a lot of personal contacts in the different Ministries in Estonia that’s my personal contacts but it will help and it’s already had helped me because now I can call or write uh uh to the public officials on the state level I can organize meetings and I can organize some background work before the political decisions and I think the key is uh to to like search cooperation in every way and uh it’s not good uh when the government has not changed in years and years and the same uh things uh happens in the organization so if you have been like 5 years in your position then it’s a good time to look in the mirror and think should you continue or should you change position okay thank you um yeah and is has any of you experience with um uh what I’ve called realtime collaborative multi-level governance or in in shorter term um situations or or um mechanisms committee whatever where local um National Regional and N National if you have three levels are sitting together to discuss a huge issue a big challenge where you won’t know from the beginning that all levels will be involved in the implementation and where then from the beginning you discussed the issues the problems whose problem is it how can it be solved what kind of division of roles could there be and things like that and in in in my old country the Netherlands they have system for that uh where there’s a big issue of this type they they create a special committee from local Regional and and national government to discuss it and to before they start creating a new law or a new policy uh do you have similar examples in different countries I have an example if I might I have an example not exactly what you but I think that could be valid um yesterday I was sharing that I’m involved in a in a Online Academy for sustainability literacy on sustainability and there is this financial instit tion in Portugal uh they have Insurance and financial services and also at the let’s say the headquarters the the back office um and they decided together so we co-create content to in order to empower 150 sustainability ambassadors for that financial institution and we went through in the last months and uh it has been very very interesting and I think that will have an impact on in that institution because what they did was they mixed uh U they working together different levels different hierarchical uh so you could have a top manager a sea level and to have a trainee in those sessions because what they want is really to create and reinforce uh sustainability ESG culture um so I think it’s a good example and I hope that this example at least in our Market but in other markets can uh have other following that approach because it’s really to try to fight silos it’s really to to have and to improve collaboration and cooperation between different areas and different positions different hierarchical levels within the organization and because what they are doing is really to empower 150 uh sustainability ambassadors and next October so after summer because it was an online course we will have uh inperson session uh face to face uh and we will mix in the round tables we will mix some guest experts that delivered Master Class class in that online course and with uh students I’m I I don’t know the exact word is not students the the the the the employees from that financial institution that the ambassadors it’s better said the ambassadors will be part also of the of the of the the round tables so and we will see what we are going to do next uh again co-creating um the the following uh step uh because so far um the feedback was very positive and is something uh somehow disruptive for the traditional because the financial institution it’s an old institution but a leader uh with vision of the future uh Inspire um and motivate and with a good story um with a good story I think that uh that organization it’s now moving um to the future I would say thank you I had to think of investing in in the collaboration skills is very important and I know that Romania for example is next year rolling out a training program on on sustainability for 2,000 local uh uh local civil servants to to create like a larger group of people who know about the linkages and the connections and and about holistic thinking and uh that that’s a good idea I think any other comments suggestions on this vertical thinking maybe also a question from my side has anyone from you experience with working directly with the European commission and forgetting about the national level when I worked at the European commission we loved working with cities directly because the members States the national level was very annoyed about that and it was always nice to have a reason to annoy them because they had too much power please who Tanya or first just brief intervention because uh I was not willing to share negative experiences but uh uh because we live in a country uh like uh uh Bulgaria uh which is uh for four years in different crisises I have to share that it is very good when you have the opportunity to work directly with European um um commission and to avoid the national authorities and I have to say uh and this is my uh personal observation may be shared by some of you that sometimes politicians show how strong and important are Place based policies and quite often bad politic itions uh violate this very important multi-level governments in the vertical uh component so uh for example Bulgarian municipalities um are suffering because of the dynamism that we have in our national uh level and unfortunately uh we are having um uh very um uh instable uh governments which affect the opport Unity of citizens to have access to important Investments and this is something uh which is a real challenge but uh on the other side I would like to share something that is um uh I believe a positive um token also coming from our country we now have um uh started with the implementation of our uh Regional um uh development law which uh establishes new uh entities uh called Regional councils uh and they uh rely on the model that PO uh shared having different representatives and it is up to us the uh local leaders and National authorities to find the way uh through which these entities will be really um uh speaking to the citizens to the businesses and in three or four years we will be able to measure progress that will be um um related to competitiveness of our regions and even for overcoming the challenges that the northern part of Bulgaria have compared to Southern thanks to more investments in the southern part and one more um recent decision that is also uh related um to improving this uh cooperation and collaboration it was um this decided that 50% of the Europe European money will be uh directed to um uh sustainable development uh in the northern part of Bulgaria which means that when we have resources and good decisions we can really uh engage with better implementation so this is what I can share with you thanks very much um first I think um pasus you wanted to say yes H I like the thoughts and the comments of uh the my co-speaker here today on this topic uh it’s closely connected to the previous question about breaking the the silos because even in at the multi level we’re still talking about different silos at different levels ER I do not remember which philosopher said this and I don’t want to quote it in wrongly but if you want to go fast go alone if you go want to go far then you need to go with company and I I think this is what we as humans we need to understand as Citizens that we really need to be open transparent and collaborate with each other and uh especially when you are at the city level we are part of the communities so we actually live in the communities we live the city problems and the city challenges let’s say while politicians at National level for example they have maybe better overview of how things are progressing and what is achievable if I may put it like this but still it’s part of our work to really raise up those uh challenges those issues sit with them at the same table and try to find common Solutions and the common ground to move forward and I think this is important starting always with a very transparent and a collaborative uh perspective in life thank you Christian yeah I think um there are some borders uh on the one hand there are legal borders for instance uh in the earlier days we went not allowed As Cities to um apply for funds from the European Union we have to go over the federal state and sometimes over the national States and then you can imagine what happened uh the second thing is we have some cultural borders I mean the language from the European Union and the people who are working there is sometimes very abstract no and I think sometimes it’s also not um working together on I level but from both sides the local level sometimes says oh EU or national state they don’t don’t know what’s happening into the cities and then you talk to people from the national state or the UN and say oh God the cities don’t know what is going on in whole Europe and so I think there has to be more communication about it more uh communicating tubes about it so that uh you can understand each other and I also think you have to empower more both sides in the thinking of the other because on the global level usually you have the big overview National level European level what we have to have do you have to do for our uh G geographical uh overview area also for achieving social cohesion all these things and I think on the local level we have to experience this really what works to give to get tangible results because the good thing they want from the top level is not always the good thing on the ground level and so we have to communicate more together yeah and that’s why you need to communicate in real time and not after s years because that’s how long an EU initiative takes to get implemented at the local level some I mean like up to seven years and then when the commission starts something there’s always some years sometimes of of discussion and and agenda setting so sometimes the ideas that land on your offices and your desks are in fact the solutions for problems of 10 years ago and that’s logical and that’s all how our democracy works but uh sometimes you wish that there are also faster methods yeah thank you any other comment on the multi-level Dimension directly yes please go ahead thoughts from my side I think I mean this is really difficult to do it because I mean multi level it’s about borders legal constraints administratives it’s quite difficult to to to bridge all these borders and and constraints I think we need to see first about subsidiarity so really to see who must do this policy I mean this is really important to have Clarity on who is doing those specific policy sometimes it’s not clear and then afterward you need to to empower the level which has the responsibility of this often time cities they take responsibility for a lot of topics and policies but they don’t have the budget to do it there are some countries they really rely more than 50% of the budget from transfer to from the central to the local level sometimes if it’s not the right the the same political party they will not have enough budget transfer to be able to implement all those policy which are interested to them by EU or by by the national level so I think here there is no size fit so I mean each country has their own way to to to to make this uh work work better from from my experience when I was working for the for the government in my country in Romania we had one time a task atot technical level to make uh a strategy to attract EU money so there was this new tool created by the EU called inte teritory investment ITI and then there was a political decision to have just one ITI for a very specific area Delta which with high natural constraints protected area and then uh this was the one of the issu that how we managed to to bridge this multiat but also multi level because there are different territories administrative and then what we managed to do is really to rely on expertise we we brought World Bank with us to be really uh to have something to impose in face of politicians so bringing someone which is really trust trusted it’s something that can support you to really to to to to make uh happening this uh working across multi levels uh and then also to have politicians with you also it’s really important a mayor can speak with several ministers without any problem you as a technician will not be able to to to breach to break the silos but if you have a good mayor which can reach directly to to a minister it’s often time much easier to do it that way afterwards also from my experience we managed to make the strategy we got the money it was 1 billion of Euro for a very small area but then everything that has been built up to make this strategy and to bring this budget has been forgotten and then to implement UTI just on the locals and then who got faster got money and then all those objectives have been really nicely set up in on a paper I mean it was not so much uh implemented I mean the money has been spent of course with good project but then you need to to keep this momentum or for a longer period of time and this is what is difficult if you don’t have the right institutional Arrangements in your country and I think this is really uh something that it’s yeah s that we need to work on it yeah thank you yes please yes if I may I just wanted to add small comment that From talin perspective we strongly support this kind of uh solution or uh or that the cities must uh have more cooperation directly with the European Commission because um in the local level uh as I understand now three and a half half years later in the city Sy previously L was in the state level that everything is integrated and there are no easy solutions you cannot invest like one Euro here and one Euro there because everything is connected uh to each other and that’s why uh we won’t like to start uh discussions maybe sometimes in the future and sometime in the future that uh uh maybe if the European commission rethinks its uh support schemes to the cities and to the states Maybe there should be more like uh Integrated Solutions uh I mean support money that you don’t not get the the money for just uh building their tram rails maybe you should have the money also as well for the uh to reorganize or restructure the whole like Urban space and uh as well buy some new um apparat on the on the rails so that’s why it should be integrated and one uh I want to make fun uh about myself and about estonians that uh we have this saying that the best breakfast for an Estonian is another Estonian that’s why we have constant discussions with the state level but now I think talin in Estonia is a forth Runner about um sustainability governance and trying to integrate the SGS in everyday processes but um it’s a Pity to say that uh the same thing is not happening in the state level in the ministry of climate they are formulating now a new climate law they are calling it like climate proof um climate proof economy law or something like that but the view is very narrow the view is not holisticals and uh stgs are not the not the base for that and uh they’re naming uh these kind of like structures in the ministry like green transition green transition units and that it’s very narrow View and I think that we should grow out from the green transition and move towards to the est’s approach so thank you thank you um I’m I’m getting the feeling that these three topics horizontal vertical and and and stakeholders that’s there’s a lot more even in it to exchange ideas and and experiences and I would suggest to have the last 20 minutes um talking about engag M of stakeholders and and and and starting with Partnerships I I showed a slide with a critical view on public private Partnerships because they can be very good but often it is in the end the private partner who wins and and uh who takes the risk and uh and and so on but sometimes can also be good I think if you want to go into a partnership you have to think of two ways what can the partnership mean for me but what can I bring into the partnership also what kind of expertise if if it’s more than money um and and and there’s also I I talked about um different mindsets if you want stakeholder involvement then you need organized stakeholders apart from citizens some weak groups weak interests are not so well organized and in my past career as Ministry person manager I I then gave some money sometimes to uh to stakeholder organizations to organize their voice better so that it came out louder and I thought that was a okay thing to do um and then the the the topic of skills because if you want an NGO or business organization to be more than than than uh just informed or consulted but also to help to Let’s co-create or make maybe even uh have co-responsibility for a project or for an action then you have to learn how to be um a co-producer and that’s really something different than uh being uh an advocate advocacy is the core thing of NOS usually but it’s a different capacity because you don’t need to trust you just send and send send and if you want to be a co- producer or partner you have to be willing to take co- responsibility and I’ve seen that a lot among ngos that they don’t want that and so there’s a lot of skills to learn also and experiences so who would like to share an experience on stakeholders on new Partnerships on and so on please go ahead lka we tried we started to engage a business stakeholder last October we organized an event um uh afternoon event we wanted to present uh the city projects and the second half of the event should be gathering their problems or topics to to work on and then discuss unfortunately my political colleagues including me uh we didn’t uh get on time the half the first half so the first half of the event was too long so there was not enough time to discuss and to gather their topics so it wasn’t it was a good experience but not very successful but then I realized after some months uh when I was in contact with the with the people from business we went for a working lunch and we were talking so according to me and I’m not saying this is uh something uh that works all the time or every time according to me engaging business stakeholders works much better if you have a personal relationship with them so I contacted some people or some people contacted me we went as I said to a lunch and we had time to discuss really face to face eye to eye the commonly shared topics and then we started I think we are not at the top of the uh of the potential but we are building the stakeholder Community like step by step very slowly but then I think at the end it’s going to be solid but it stands on the personal relationship and one other uh observation uh unfortunately the business people they have got problems that we cannot really solve uh from the municipality they uh fight with um huge administrative processes uh it’s legislation and we cannot do anything about it uh so we we can’t help them with everything and so this is something that we cannot solve so our experience thank you next who would like to say something about this stakeholder participation just one just one please yeah sometimes it’s about the format how you engage with stakeholders because of course it’s easy to to to call people in the city hall to organize a meeting and then you are the leading you are safe in your building so you are you don’t take any risk let’s say say but sometimes it’s better to get out I know from previous project WB so one one project was dealing about mobility and uh it’s all the time difficult to take decision organizing parking L cars there are different uh conflicting demands between uh shops and then citizens and then one idea was yeah to to close the street and organize a dinner and convey everyone uh involved and then they they they try to discuss during this long long dinner for the entire length of the of the street it was quite quite a nice way to engage yeah sometimes yeah you can also there was another city in France again uh they they organ they they put um video boot in the park and then let people come to the to the video Boot and say something about uh a specific policy it was really something that uh quite quite so I think the format is sometimes quite interested to see what is the best format to engage with different stakeholders depending on the policy that you want to to yeah I I fully agree formats are important and also being flexible when you are in a format I once was with a minister uh there were 500 citizens um it was about rural areas rural development a lot of farmers there and they were quite opposing to the minister so we had made an agenda and in the beginning these uh citizens and Farmers they said we don’t want to talk about your top topics we have different problems we want to talk about our problems and then we said okay let’s talk before the break about your problems if you promise that after the break we can talk about the things we are concerned about and that worked fantastically but otherwise we would have had a failed evening and so format matter anybody else please may I would like to share that I already mentioned that I’m very honored to be part of the advisory of the Council of Braga and I think it was really a very interesting approach from the mayor and from the executives of the camera the Bram uh because there are different stakeholders involved there business universities um research institutes um uh citizens um so at the end I think it’s a very interesting for room and again I’m honored to be part of because there also we learn from each other we cooperate and different angles to can contribute also for the executive and the mayor of of Braga uh really to uh implement or to assess um uh different options um so I think that then the most important thing that is as as someone mentioned then is really to make it happen in terms of of of of uh meetings prod productive productive meetings um because it’s really um helpful for sure to have the different views from different stakeholders that are as much interested in the success of the city as the the mayor and the executive so I think it’s a good example and um and and Braga in that respect I think it’s it’s good the the vision of the mayor and it’s it’s it’s really um in in the right direction according to my to my opinion yeah and I wonder if some of you have experience with uh mapping the stakeholder environment because that’s something you really need to do maybe every six months or three months because things are changing around you and if you don’t see that then you won’t see coalitions or fights between important Stak holders that can influence their behavior to you and you can also I mean I was working with Farmers organizations uh from the environment Ministry and they were very defensive and very negative until I discovered that there was a young Farmers organization who was thinking very differently so it involves also the young farmers and this a way to to find sometimes new stakeholders it’s not doesn’t always have to be the same ones def had something is that um at least in Portugal there are two apps where someone can look uh or or go into the app and see how the ESG or C sorry the the the the sustainable development goals the stgs are um in their municipality so you can have an overview and to see then to have a zoom and to have your own municipality and to understand how things are progressing or how things are evolving um and um in that Council in the Braga Council there are also room for other people from other cities that bringing in experience from best practices in other cities so at the end is really cross polonization like the bees uh we can cross poize the knowledge and the and and the the best practices sharing best practices is is really also very helpful yes thank you um go ahead please a question a request what we so far we are not successful enough or at all I can be honest uh is an engaging young people so if you have anyone any tip where to start how to start how to uh attract them their attention I’ll be happy to hear or maybe now if you has a solution yes maybe a part of a solution so firstly I would like to answer your question so that um in our experience that’s a maybe a narrow experience but um the key is cooperation with the universities because um we have a special like public official working in my team uh who she has the responsibility of the how to coordinate the cooperation between the city departments and the universities and we have uh written down agreements with every big university in Estonia and we have mapped uh the capabilities of the universities and we have mapped the needs of the different city departments and we are trying to mix it together we have different Round Table discussions and uh what happens uh next uh or what happen already next that we have different Project based initiatives together with um like students and we are engaging the students actively uh in the decision making processes in the city for example we have this old uh City Hall um in talin uh that is um under um Heritage protection uh it needs renovation uh the cost will go Sky High I think 200 plus million Eur Etc it’s not used right now but we made like uh mini architectural competition together with the youngsters and we got like tens and tens of uh nice ideas and uh we make cooperation with the young Architects and we have uh talin has opened a year ago when we are Ken Capital here we had the title uh we open this um uh participation Hub it’s like a special room uh in the our our strategic management office building uh we have the different digital tools Solutions we can uh explore there the digital twin of talin with VR classes on the big screen and uh we are making like uh different engagement events there and we have had already several discussions with the students and we have cooperation with different professors and lecturers in the universities and they’re making their practical like Les in our rooms and we are like uh uh giving there the students as well the city perspective the public officials are making speeches and having discussions uh with the students and I think it’s a very good example how you can like engage youngsters and we are looking the students and the youngsters that uh in the future they could be potential workers in the city system thank you very much unfortunately we don’t have a university but probably this is not an obstacle right okay um Pedro and then very short and then we we in the last five minutes now and then V okay very short and sorry to I don’t want to monopolize uh but I’m suspicious maybe but uh I organized in the last 17 years 17 years a greenfest event uh and it’s not green only for environment it’s sustainability more and more and in Braga late September this year at University we co-organize this event and the history of the event and it’s greenfest dopt Portugal uh green fest. PT and we organize an event where is Cross generation but we have a lot a lot of youngsters I’m a strong believer that really the young the youngsters or the young people are the ones that can change Behavior at least my generation I mean it’s very difficult My Generation to change maybe our grandchildren can help as grandfathers and grandmothers to change but uh it’s harder it’s tougher uh so um just to have to give you an idea last green Fest event uh we had 3,700 children or I would say youth not at University level univers University level uh and so at the end you can co-organize your municipality or with University or other schools public schools and private schools whatever some local uh local private companies some other public companies at the end could be something with different stakeholders organizing an event where under the same roof uh you have content uh and practical content so people can do uh workshops and uh uh hands on hands on um and to involve again involve them in part of the solution so um if I made joke but if I I can help you to organize a green Fest event in your um at least to share with you and could be remotely to share with you what are the the the the the the what was the path um for some successful events and what to avoid um in order not to to have a something that that doesn’t work sounds thank you for the public offer everyone Heards you hears you so uh it’s a promise the deal has deal is done the deal is done yeah yeah okay thank you okay yes um I would like to go to Villa and then if do you have a question or a comment or something and then we have a very last two words around for at the panel because perfect thank you very much uh and and uh link don’t ask a complicated question we are we are actually going to Braga in September so we will have chance to to learn this firsthand on side no no no uh uh questions just a quick comment and an end note from lead partner side and and uh wonderful examples just to bring out one more uh I would say that mayor mamalakis every day he goes 7 a.m. to the City Hall to to run his City afternoon personally he goes to the uh High School to help students to get to University if that’s not leadership at the local level if that’s not engaging your your citizens at the local level please tell me advise me what is no so to tomorrow morning we will have the chance to have a peer-to-peer city- to City exchange where we’ll Deep dive into these issues what is important for me two things the most important thing is that we are having this discussion what we witnessed today uh starting first with barbar’s amazing uh uh emotional engagement work storytelling is that we started to have more questions than answers when yest yesterday evening when she asked that okay V what’s the outcome what do you want I said that in the end if we are in a situation where we can constructively uh maybe even disagree with each other show our uh emotions show our views then it’s a success and this is what I’ve heard throughout the time thank you Lou for amazing facilitation by the way so so thanks to that as well and I think this is the right way we have the right people asking the right questions and answers will follow and and just the final thing that’s the third one then and then I’ll promise to stop several of these distinguished high priority high level people today draw either a Continuum or some kind of loop representing the idea that this is a marathon this is not a Sprint we are in this for the long term so uh with this word a huge thank you for amazing panel audience and and Lou thank you for facilitating can we have a last round of two takeaway two words three words forward just to say that um uh again leadership very short okay leadership about leadership uh it’s I think that we need leaders and to improve our uh skills in what concerns leadership as I said soft skills but also to have more breath let’s say to blow to blow the fire to blow The Embers um uh I do some coaching also uh and there is a say in coaching okay and the terminating that uh if you assume that everybody everybody in this room we have fire in our chest is is is a metaphor we have fire in our chest we have ambers in our sh in our chest if a leader blows correctly I mean the talent the skills the energy will flow so we need Leaders with more breath thank you Christian even shorter please microphone okay yeah shorter I try to I mean um the one thing is learning from each other the other thing is perhaps um simplified simplified uh in making tools that can easily be implemented uh in administrations but also simplify uh in communication what is the outcome of it and the worth of uh this rounds but also for the EU and my wish would be we would have a holiday day for the European Union because this is a worthful thing when everybody was saying in in Hungaria in Germany whatever this brings us the EU and not only talking about other things and we can yeah we can think about it then thank you now even this getting competition even shorter Vil very yeah forgot the mic very shortly uh I think for us in AOS Demetrius since this was actually the first time that we were fully engaged in these kind of meetings we live inspired more committed and looking forward for Fruitful collaboration and knowledge sharing between the rest of the network cities thank you Tanya thank you for the extremely inspiring uh day I think uh this is something that’s most of us uh really do and thank to all of you uh that brought us here and made us so close to each other and I think that we all are on a mission to reach sustainability and in this Mission everybody is invited and should be provided with the opportunity to contribute and one more thing I would like to invite all of you next month in the period 19 21st of July when we are organizing our Echo Festival it is in the mountain and I think this is something that is very uh closely related to what we have exchanged today and what we have as a common vision and and uh opportunities in the next day so if you don’t come this year next year we will be expecting you thank you for absolutely thank you T Phil last words one uh the fact that I mean this idea that up to now we have worked a lot on policy so at you level we are very good in fixing policy objectives but not so much on governance how to do it and I think from this network from this fullback project if we could get a blueprint on some steps that we can do on this governance mechanism that we need to put place at local level be really nice that we can also promote to to other cities and other other uh institutions okay thanks L I’m great f for any support that I get from you thank you last one it’s a lot of pressure to speaking short so but I think that um we have to find uh the best practices from the cities from this network and to share it and to implement it because praga has shared a great example of this uh sustainability Council talin has made uh the first climate assembly uh we have as well participative budgeting maybe others have it too but the key question is let’s learn from each other and answer this question how we can make this kind of initiatives permanently uh as a part of the city organization and last but not least cooperation cooperation cooperation and let’s uh formulate the city’s Coalition and talk directly to the European commission thank you thank you very much thank you your marvelous pan pel thank you all and a big Applause for the panel and sorry it’s 3 minutes past 5 so it’s not my style e for