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Reference Date: 26-07-1998
Experience selected in the 1998 Dubai Award for Best Practice, and catalogued as BEST (Included amongst the 40
finalists).
(
Best Practices Database.)
País/Country: Spain
United Nations Region: Europe
Ecological region: Coastal
Activity: City / Town
Partnerships: Multilateral agency . Private sector.
Non-governmental organisation (NGO)
Themes = Civic Engagement and Cultural Vitality: civic
education; community participation; social and cultural vitality.
Environmental Management: ecological sustainability;
environmental remediation; environmentally sound technologies;
incentives for sound management; pollution reduction; urban
greening. Social Services: crime reduction and prevention;
education; health and welfare; public safety
Main contact:
Joaquím Balsera García,
Plaza del Ayuntamiento, 11
08901 L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona)
Spain
Tlf: +93-402 95 51
Fax: +93-261 23 13
E-mail: gahosi@l-h.es
http://www.L-h.es
Partner:
Michel Marcus/Claudine Parere
Forum Européen pour la Sécurité Urbaine. (Multilateral agency)
38 rue Liancourt
Paris
75014
France
Tel: +33-014 32 78 311
Fax: +33-014 32 77 952
E-mail: fesu@urbansecurity.org
http://www.urbansecurity.org
Political Support
Partner:
Montse Cabau i Ferreres / Maica Remolí Pérez
Caixa D'Estalvis i Pensions. (Private sector)
Aribau 192-198
08036 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93 404 77 72
Fax: +34-93 201 01 70
Financial Support.
Partner:
Juan García Martín
Federación de Asociaciones de Vecinos de L'Hospitalet de
Llobregat. (Non-governmental organisation)
Peñíscola 14, bajos
08906 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93 438 59 38
Support to the campaign and organization of acts and activities
Organización Nominadora
Marta García Nart
Comité Nacional Español
Paseo de la Castellana, 67
28071 Madrid
Spain
Tlf: +34-91 597 75 72
fax: +34-91 597 86 04
E-mail: mgnart@mfom.es
"L'Hospitalet for Civic-mindedness" is a project that expresses
the Local Administration's desire to involve all citizens in the
proper use of the city's common areas and to promote the
conservation of the urban environment in order to maintain and
improve the quality of life in our city.
It is an agreement and a commitment between the people and the
city to achieve this end.
Location and timing
This project is currently being implemented in the city of
L'Hospitalet and was presented on 20 February 1997. It has no
ending date. The aim of the project is to create permanent and
stable structures capable of providing new contexts of
action in the future to ensure improved quality of life for the
city's inhabitants.
Previous situation
The situation in L'Hospitalet was deteriorating because a
minority of citizens were not making good use of the city and
were not respecting the state of well-being that had been
achieved. Basically, the following problems were detected:
The following mechanisms of action were developed to combat this
situation:
This program has contributed to:
1. Situation before the Initiative Began
There is no better way of finding out what the situation of a
city is than by polling the opinions of its inhabitants. The
L'Hospitalet City Hall follows this premise and has made it a
fundamental step in implementing management policies with the
understanding that a local public administration must bear in
mind the opinions of the citizens. "L'Hospitalet for
Civic-mindedness" has its roots in this philosophy.
In this sense, the City Hall activated and carried out a series
of studies and opinion polls to find out what the public was
principally concerned about. The results expressed concerns that
were not unlike those of the citizens of other cities
like ours because these problems are very widespread.
On the whole, the citizens of L'Hospitalet indicated that they
were satisfied with life in their city and that conditions and
public services were progressively being improved; they also
pointed out that the urban environment and, by extension, their
quality of life could be improved by correcting the problems of
dog excrement on sidewalks, graffiti on walls and façades of
buildings, uncontrolled advertising, destruction and
deterioration of urban equipment through vandalism and the
excessive noise produced by vehicles and other activities.
Thus, the City Hall's main reasons for implementing this project
stem from these demands of the public and from the understanding
that the Administration must concentrate, under optimum
conditions, on taking steps to promote positive frameworks
capable of addressing the environmental challenges to come.
In the opinion polls on the quality of life, the citizens
specified and established priorities as to the factors which
defined their quality standards.
It was clear that in order to eradicate the uncivic behavior
mentioned by the public as much as possible, the City Hall had
to take action that would directly involve the greatest number
of people in the organized society. Under no
circumstances can hierarchical structures be used to plan
policies to deal with these problems if the public does not
accept them as their own. In short, the City Hall was faced with
the challenge of proposing that citizens sign a commitment with
the local administration to work together to combat the incorrect
use of the city by a minority of people that were chipping away
at the level of welfare achieved.
The City Hall had to be the one responsible for promoting the
project because L'Hospitalet did not have any associations,
institutions or the like that worked from an overall, uniform and
multidisciplinary perspective in this area.
Preparing Information and Clarifying Priorities
That was how the "L'Hospitalet for Civic-mindedness" project was
presented on 20 February 1997: as a city project. This project
was unanimously supported by all political parties, which signed
the so-called Civic-mindedness Pact, and was met with consensus
and support of the majority of citizens right from the start.
Specifically, this initiative involves association and
collaboration between the City Hall and a number of organizations
and sectors:
2. Formulation of Objectives, Strategies and Mobilization of Resources
The principal goal of this project, then, was to build the city
of the 21st century with the highest quality of life, based on
the involvement of all of the city's social and economic agents
by developing a wide range of policies and measures.
To put this project into practice, a specialized department was
set up which answered directly to the mayor's office. It was
created in this way to be able to count on executive support and
a specific organizational structure within the municipal
organization chart. With the idea of ensuring that the action to
be taken was carried out as effectively as possible, a study
commission was set up and entrusted with drawing up a civic
ordinance proposal, and a technical commission was created to
coordinate and establish the priorities for ordinary management
of the project. Normal or official participation of organized
society was also taken into account and an advisory board was
created which answered to the department head.
Different lines of action were planned. One of these lines of
action included the Communication Plan, whose basic aim was to
make the public aware of the existence of this city project.
Because it is a project for the future, i.e., it does not
terminate with the end of the mandate, different communication
phases were designed. The first involved explaining the project
and requesting that the entire community give its support
basically through sign-up sheets, billboards, newspaper and radio
ads, flyers, edicts and bus stop advertising panels. Then, sector
campaigns were carried out in which the uncivic conduct to be
eradicated was pointed out. Currently, the second phase is
focusing on positive civic behavior to make people aware of what
is considered proper civic conduct. Other communication
activities included apre-movie advertisement in city cinemas and
a project trademark that was printed on all the regular
communication with citizens issued by the institution (letters,
forms, direct marketing campaigns, etc.). Moreover, the contact
with the on-municipal media was fundamental for transmitting our
civic message.
The next line or mechanism of action involved creating a
specialized section of the local police force in charge of
inspecting, providing information, correcting and sanctioning
specific anomalies in this area. All the agents in this section
are popularly known as the "Civic Police". In the city they use
electric motorcycles that do not pollute the environment and
respect all environmental regulations.
Another line of action - perhaps the most important - was the
promotion of civic education. This involves teaching the values
of civic-mindedness. A fundamental part of this goal was to
develop educational programs in schools so that children were
involved and the future of the project was therefore guaranteed.
The framework used was another vital educational project:
"L'Hospitalet: City of Education". An educational plan was
developed to offer a series of informal discussions during the
school year and hold competitions and activities which promoted
the values ofcivic-mindedness.
The City Hall also created specific regulations on
civic-mindedness which grouped together all the sector ordinances
in force governing the matters included in the project. These
regulations cover the following areas: respecting public
coexistence and peacefulness, using public equipment as intended,
making sure dogs do not cause damage or become a nuisance, and
fighting air, noise and waste pollution. Worth noting is that the
ordinance not only stipulated citizens' obligations and rights,
but it also established that sanctions should have the positive
aim of making up for the damage done by doing volunteer community
work or attending courses to learn about and avoid uncivic
behavior.
The L'Hospitalet City Hall earmarks approximately 75 million
pesetas per year on this program. This amount includes the Civic
Department's budget and the expenditures that the different
municipal areas and services indirectly make on this project
through their actions (Communication Plan, investment in
materials and technical equipment, activities programs). This
figure does not include the cost of the personnel assigned to the
project.
The sponsors also made contributions to the project, which were
received through the City Hall's Sponsorship Plan for companies,
to the tune of 12 million pesetas.
3. Process
The process was put into practice with citizen participation and
with the multidisciplinary work coordinated and promoted by the
Civic Department, based on the participation lines mentioned
above.
"L'Hospitalet for Civic-mindedness" has also been included in the
municipal Strategic Plan, thus ensuring its continuity in the
future. The difficulties and problems that arose during
implementation of the project were basically as follows:
4. Results achieved
February 1998 marked the first anniversary of the "L'Hospitalet
for civic-mindedness" project and we can say that so far the
experience has been positive. Success can be measured by looking
at the following results:
This project has involved undertaking action to ensure the
continuity of the project in the future:
We believe that this Best Practice has been a trailblazer and
leader in Spain in terms of its process, execution and results.
We understand that the project is completely transferable to
other metropolitan communities. In fact, some local Spanish
administrations have requested information and have used our
experience as a model for their own.
5. The experience in numbers
Financial Profile:
1997 Budget: 75,213,829 ptas
Ordinary:
Ordinary:
| 1998 Spanish Best Practices selected by the International Jury > http://habitat.aq.upm.es/bpes/onu98/bp434.en.html |