This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐Co‐Bologna&LabGov (Italy)
This CTP (CTP6) is currently in the making therefore the information that is available is incomplete. At the beginning of 2015 LabGov began the process of stock taking and learning about opportunities and challenges encountered in the implementation of the Co-Bologna process following each step of the Co-City Protocol including the implementation of the collaboration pacts. The evaluation is currently being designed and foresees survey questionnaires produced and conducted by independent researchers from LUISS Guido Carli and the Catholic University of Rome to collect quantitative and qualitative data from the 200 collaboration pacts.
The outcomes of the Co-Bologna evaluation will translate into new instruments, experimentations and new guidelines presented in a “White Book” that will inform new policy legislation in Bologna and more generally provide insights on how to implement a Co-City process. The “White Book” is scheduled for release sometime in September 2016.
A key external factor that influenced the decision to evaluate the Co-Bologna project is the willingness of the organizers (also see CTP 3 and 5) to emphasize the process of collaborative city making and distinguish Co-Bologna from other co-city processes in Italy. By documenting the complexities and opportunities of shared governance, as they happened in Bologna, LabGov wants to point out that the concept of co-city should not and cannot be an exercise in copy/paste or worse a marketing communication strategy.
This CTP would not have emerged without all preceding CTPs, so they are all related events. The new guidelines will be the final outcome and the publication of the guidelines is still anticipated for. The guidelines will inform the creation of new collaborative governance instruments, new dissemination events in Bologna and nationwide.
There is no point that can be defined as contested so far. LabGov is aware that introducing innovative public policy processes in Italian local governments is something of a shock for authorities. The Municipality of Bologna, like many Italian administrations, is not used to innovation in their practices even less so the evaluation their outcomes. The evaluation of public policy cycles in general is something that, in the experience of Iaione, lacks in Italian local authorities. The evaluation phase is often seen as a sort of “universal judgment” (Interview with C. Iaione, March 31st, 2016) by Italian local authorities that, in most cases, lack entrepreneurial behavior. By accepting to spearhead the Co-Bologna project and be evaluated for its outputs the current leadership and the approximate twenty people involved in this process at the Municipality of Bologna showed openness to innovation and a systemic vision of policy management. “The Municipality was open to work with LabGov researchers, open to using a scientific and empirical method guided by LabGov throughout the Co-City protocol. This is unlike many of the smaller or larger cities in Italy that instead opted for a less scientific, less guided approach but still called the output a Co-City” (Interview with C. Iaione, April 6th, 2016).
This CTP is an evaluation of the Co-Bologna process. The Co-Bologna process followed a defined Co-City protocol used as a means to implement and experiment with collaborative or polycentric governance in Bologna. In this sense the CTP, unfolding as we speak, is understood already now to be a crucial moment in the Co-City process.
The learning from this CTP will contribute to understanding the enabling factors for collaborative cities to exist and nurture new ways of sharing responsibility and accountability of urban common goods (tangible and non-tangible). The aim of the evaluation is to inform how collaboration can be extended from common urban resources (such as public spaces) to other and more complex public policies such as social inclusion, job creation, social innovation and local economic development.
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