What is the Local Urban Agendas Promotion Project (IAUL)?
In 2020, the Barcelona Provincial Council launched a series of so-called “transformative” projects aimed at addressing major global challenges. These initiatives reflect the institution’s commitment to localizing the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
These are strategic projects with a transformative vocation—not only because of their content, but also due to the new forms of governance and management involved in their implementation.
Launched in 2021, the Local Urban Agendas Promotion Project (IAUL) was created with the aim of translating the content of global agendas into the local context and supporting municipalities within the province in designing their own action plans.
This growing and evolving project has, over the past four years, progressively helped to spread among local governments in the province of Barcelona the new perspective represented by Urban Agendas and the significant opportunities they offer, within a shared conceptual framework across all levels of governance.
The initiative was launched by the Housing, Urban Planning and Activities Department within the Area of Urban Planning, Housing, and Urban Regeneration of the Barcelona Provincial Council, and it is managed by the Urban Planning Service.
In 2015, in response to the environmental crisis, the effects of rapid urbanization, and growing social and economic inequalities, the United Nations took action. Member states unanimously approved a global agenda with 2030 as its horizon and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its structural pillars: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Countries committed to aligning their policies with the SDGs and to establishing the necessary regulations to achieve them.
In 2016, stemming from SDG 11, the UN General Assembly approved in Quito, Ecuador, the final document of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III). This document introduced the New Urban Agenda, a strategic and conceptual framework that sets the direction for urban policies in UN member states. Its implementation is envisioned through a cascade approach—from the global to the local level—by encouraging countries and regions to develop their own Urban Agendas.
Within this global framework, almost simultaneously and in parallel, Europe developed its own Urban Agenda. Subsequently, the Spanish government followed with the Spanish Urban Agenda, approved in 2019, and Catalonia did so with the Agenda of Towns and Cities, Catalonia 2050, approved in 2022. Together, these documents shape the immediate strategic framework for integrated urban policies in our country.
The objectives and priorities of all these agendas are largely shared and form the basis for urban policy both globally and locally. The themes are common across most territorial scales and, in every case, are addressed from a cross-cutting perspective.
The purpose of the project is the real and effective implementation of the Urban Agenda across the territory of the province, by providing support to local authorities so they can put it into practice and achieve healthy, safe, inclusive, and high-quality urban environments.
To this end, the deployment of the project is structured around the following strategic lines of action:
- Promoting integrated strategic plans that update municipal diagnostics and define concrete programmes and projects.
- Establishing coordination frameworks and synergies between different sectoral policies, administrations, and local stakeholders.
- Renewing intervention and management models to ensure they are more coordinated and participatory.
- Creating a cooperative framework within the Diputació de Barcelona, with a transformative spirit and a collaborative approach.
Landing of the Urban Agendas in the Province of Barcelona
- Develop local action plans within the framework of urban agendas.
- Align local public investments with the principles and priorities of the urban agenda.
- Improve the quality of the urban environment by reducing inequalities between neighbourhoods.
- Coordinate the corporation’s internal resources to support the implementation of urban agendas.
- Promote networking, exchange, and cooperation among territorial stakeholders in the definition and execution of Local Urban Agendas.
The project is structured around three main pillars:
Support for the drafting and implementation of local urban agendas through the resource offered by the Diputació de Barcelona’s Service Catalogue: Design of the Local Urban Agenda.
A financial support mechanism (funding provision) for local authorities aimed at promoting the execution of local urban agendas in the province. This resource facilitates the implementation of action plans by strengthening local (municipal or supra-municipal) management capacities.
The XAUL is a collaborative space for cooperation, exchange, innovation, learning, and monitoring of Local Urban Agendas. It activates dynamics that engage a wide range of territorial actors: municipalities, public administrations at various levels, universities, experts, economic and social stakeholders, local organisations, and citizens. XAUL fosters coordination among different agendas and actors, facilitates the creation of alliances, enhances local capacities, and serves as a space for building shared commitments and advancing the collaborative implementation of the Local Urban Agenda.