Entries in [EN] (48)

lundi
mai212007

2007.05.22 QeC-ERAN Skills Workshop in Brussels [EN]

Very late - my apologies! - I got informed about a European urban practitioners' Skills conference in Brussels (tomorrow...)

It is organised by Quartiers-en-Crise/European regeneration Areas Network.

qec-eran7521.jpg 

Long time ago, in 1988/89, I was one of the founders of Quartiers-en-Crise (QeC). We were the first NGO to join into the new European urban (re)development programmes, first mainly supported by Employment (DG V), soon mostly by REGION (DG-XII). Founded originally by some national coordinators (civil servants) of urban regeneration programmes (the French one, the British one, the big German Land of Nordrhein-Westfalen and me, as the Dutch coordinator of "PCG"), it developed into a network that was pricipally guided by local elected aldermen and mayors.

Soon, however, it gave way to bigger, and more official, networks, like EuroCities and, of course, the Comittee of the Regions. After 1993, QeC was essentially run by the city of Torino. At the start of the 21st century, it got a second life with its new director, Haroon Saad (from London, later Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam, Holland) and its new president, Ilda Curti, a successful developer of a difficult Torino neighbourhood and now alderman ("deputy mayor") of Torino. I saw her at the Lyon Regenera final conference (23/2/07) and I got a very positive impression of her work and the new course of QeC, now called "ERAN". QeC-ERAN participated very actively in the URBACT urban networks study and research programmes and produced remarkably good reports in 2006 and in 2007. (UDIEP-ALEC, led by the city of Venice).

I am looking forward to the meeting, tomorrow. I ask your special attention for a new Qec-ERAN initiative: the ERMN - an European Regeneration Managers Network, to be launched soon. It has roughly the same intention as e-urban: providing a platform for urban regeneration operatives, in order to enhance our skills by peer review and designing procedures and criteria for good practices. I wil give more information about this new network for urban project managers and their elected political patrons in a separate contribution to this Journal.

Here is the programme of the QeC-ERAN Workshop: 

QeC-ERAN Conference: SKILLS FOR SUSTAINABLE AND COMPETITIVE URBAN DEVELOPMENT : TAKING THE EU AGENDA FORWARD
Date: 22 May 2007 Time: 09:00-1 6 : 3 0  Venue: Committee of Regions, Rue Belliard , Brussels

AGENDA [Summary]

09:30: Ilda Curti, Deputy Mayor; City of Torino and President QeC-ERAN - Intro

09:40 Setting the context  From Lille to Leipzig ,  Haroon Saad , Director QeC-ERAN

10:10 Developing the EU Agenda (1) - Centre for Excellence/LEED programme ; Ekaterina TRAVKINA Policy Analyst, Manager of the OECD LEED Forum for Cities and Regions

11:15 Developing the EU Agenda (2) - Academy for Sustainable Communities (UK); Trudy Birtwell, the Director of Learning and Skills

11:50 Developing the EU Agenda (3) - The Council of Europe' Centre of Expertise - Sylvia IVANOVA Programme Manager

12:25 Developing the EU Agenda (4) - EUKN – European Urban Knowledge Network – Mart Grisel, Head of the secretariat

14:15 Case Study: Scottish Centre for Regeneration, Craig Mclaren, Director

14:50 The needs of key actors - Initial Results from a Skills and Training Audit - Haroon Saad, Director, QeC-ERAN

15:25 The contribution of EU Regional/Cohesion programmes, Corinne Hermant-de Callataÿ Commission européenne , Direction générale "Politique Régionale" Unité "Actions urbaines"

15:45 Taking the EU Agenda Forward – Next Steps – Panel Discussion

16:30 Conclusions and end of Workshop

One of the next days, I'll report about the proceedings here.

Huib Riethof, Brussels. 

lundi
mai072007

Sarkozy won in France. What'll change? 6.5.07 [EN]

I wasn't a fan of Ségolène. I saw her performing once, in 1994, on a meeting in Bourgogne, of young entrepreneurs. Horrible.
But I preferred her to Nicolas Sarkozy, you'll understand.
Now, five years of Sarkozism must be taken into account in France.
The New-Labour-Fans expect a friend who modernises France's economy. You should not be too sure about that. He is a French nationalist and his actions are limited by the forceful French Trade Unions. My expectations are, that he won't change so much.
Anyhow, in order to change the suburban neighbourhoods, you need emancipatory workers.
There are some, terrible, in France. He'll have to use them, if he wants to show any real progress.
That is what keeps me going, tonight. France won't change so much. You'll see...

jeudi
mai032007

2007.5.10-6.14 Announcements Welcomeurope [EN]

We have good references about the Paris-based "Welcomeurope" training sessions for urban project developers and -managers. Therefore we publish the following announcement for their courses in English (For the French ones, see the next post in this Journal).

Welcomeurope is pleased to announce its forthcoming training sessions on European funds:

For your projects with European partnership:

-“Building a European partnership”, 10 May, Paris

-“Building up the budget of a European project”, 11 May, Paris

-“How to get European funds?”, 13-14 June, Paris

-“To successfully manage a project cofinanced by the European Commission”, 15 June, Paris

For your European Research projects:
-“Project preparation and management in the Seventh framework programme FP7”, 25-26 june, Paris.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at training@welcomeurope.com to receive the detailed programme and to contact Camille Constans, the Head of the Training Dept, for any further information on the content of the session at cconstans@welcomeurope.com .

mercredi
mars212007

2007.03.21 SEVILLA Sustainable Cities European Conference [EN]

"Sustainability" as a lemma is long overdue in Ur.Babel as well as in the Urbipedia. For it is at the same time central to correct community development within the framework of urban regeneration in deprived neighbourhoods, as it is also a fashionable bureaucrat word that legitimises unusual investments, but also limits active development efforts in time. Sustainability of the empowerment that is set in motion is absolutely a main objective of any urban project. But at the administrative level it is seldom taken into account, that the dynamics of empowerment only develop during the course of the regeneration process.

Click to read more ...