Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

The local government of Riga has announced the 2nd round of voting in its neighbourhood projects competition. At first, NGOs and local organizations from the different neighbourhoods of the Latvian capital were invited to submit their proposals and plans for their respective areas. A total of 34 projects were submitted and after careful consideration by the local authorities, only 14 remain.

Now it’s in the hands of the citizens of Riga to decide which ones will be implemented. The municipality has allocated a total of 500,000 euros for the task. In the end at least 5 projects will be realised as the rules state that each initiative can be given a maximum of 100,000 euros. Voting is done online over at this link and every citizen of Riga can participate – so long as they are over 16 years old. Voting takes place until 19 September.

Public-civic cooperation has never been as important for European cities as today. Fading trust between public administrations and the civic society, rising authoritarianism and deteriorating services all make urban life more burdensome, especially for the most vulnerable social groups. In turn, sharing resources and responsibilities between municipalities and civil society actors has helped cities not only in generating enhanced participation in urban development issues but also in co-producing urban space and co-creating urban services.
The Power of Civic Ecosystems: How community spaces and their networks make our cities more cooperative, fair and resilient explores methods and practices of building stronger local civic ecosystems around community spaces. The book is based on the experiences of ACTive NGOs, an URBACT network that brought together the municipalities of Riga, Brighton and Hove, Dubrovnik, Espoo, Santa Pola and Siracusa for a 3-year learning process towards creating new platforms for public-civic cooperation.
Putting these experiences in a broader context, The Power of Civic Ecosystems also collects inspiring practices from other cities, ranging from municipal policies to citizen initiatives and professional methodologies, exploring mechanisms of stakeholder mapping and ecosystem-building, frameworks to access to public and private spaces, models of economic resilience, structures of participatory governance, and processes of capacity building.