The EU-BELONG project builds on a wide partnership of 11 Regions, 4 technical partners and 33 associate entities (Council of Europe, International Organization for Migration and local/regional stakeholders).
The expected impact of the project is to improve migrants’ socio-economic inclusion and sense of belonging through the development of Regional integration strategies based on a strong intercultural approach. In particular, the project will strengthen the capacity of 11 European Regions and their cooperation with public and private stakeholders, thus durably supporting their role as key-players for the successful integration of TCNs.
The project will support the adoption of innovative and pioneering regional integration strategies, based on a multi-level and multi-stakeholder framework that, for the first time, applies the intercultural approach to Regions as a key-player for the successful integration of TCNs.
It will strengthen the capacity of 11 European Regions and their cooperation with local authorities and other public and private stakeholders to design and adopt regional integration strategies with the aim of designing and adopting regional integration strategies able to encompass different aspects of the socio-economic inclusion of TCNs, especially those in vulnerable situations (women, children and victims of discrimination).
European Commission (AMIF – Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union)
1) Public and private stakeholders increase their knowledge and competences to effectively address integration challenges at the regional level.
This outcome contributes to creating an enabling environment ensuring that the key-actors acquire the necessary intercultural competences to effectively participate in the process proposed by the Action in the 11 regions.
2) A regional multi-level and multi-stakeholder framework for the development and the implementation of intercultural integration strategies is defined.
The outcome n° 2 provides a general framework to support and guide partner Regions in the development of their own intercultural integration strategies, thus directly contributing to the general objective of the Action.
3) A replicable methodology for regional intercultural integration strategies is designed and tested.
The outcome n° 3 contributes to the General objective by supporting regional authorities and local stakeholders in the co-design and test of their regional integration strategies based on the intercultural approach.
4) The exchange of experiences and transnational cooperation between European Regions and relevant EU stakeholders is improved.
This outcome contributes to disseminating project results and facilitating their adoption by other European Regions, thus ensuring a wide impact at European level.
Beneficiaries of the project are:
- 11 Regional authorities: Catalonia, Navarra (Spain), Pomerania, Wielkopolska (Poland), Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Donegal (Ireland), Arad, Timis (Romania), Salzburg (Austria), Leipzig (Germany), Västra Götaland (Sweden).
They will participate in capacity building programmes, assess their integration contexts, co-design their own 3-years intercultural integration strategy and test it through pilot projects.
- 165 local stakeholders will be formally involved in the co-design process and cooperate with the Regions in the elaboration and implementation of the integration strategies.
- Additional 40 European regions and 15 International organisations will benefit from project results through transnational knowledge sharing.
Project activities
- Capacity-building program for Public authorities and local stakeholders The aim of the activity is to develop and deliver capacity-building sessions for regional decision-makers, civil servants and local stakeholders to build knowledge in intercultural integration concepts and methods.
- Regional multi-stakeholder Learning LabsOne 3-days Learning Lab event is organised in each region targeting the members of the Multi-stakeholder Platform: approx. 20 participants in each region including politicians, decision-makers, civil servants working in regional administrations and local stakeholders from key sectors (CSOs, migrant communities, economic and social partners, academia and media).
- Peer review of replicable European good practicesAt the beginning of the initiative, a preliminary peer review of good practices is carried out to collect, analyse and present innovative and successful experiences from European Regions on the topic of the participatory design, implementation and evaluation of intercultural integration strategies.
- Assessment of regional integration contextsThe data collected in the regional integration questionnaires will be then analysed from a policy perspective and elaborated into a regional intercultural integration assessment report (one for each Region). This will include an evaluation of regional policies, weaknesses and needs for the elaboration of effective intercultural integration strategies.
- Elaboration of a multi-stakeholder model framework for intercultural integration at the regional levelThe objective of this activity is to elaborate a model framework to promote effective regional intercultural integration strategies and multi-stakeholder governance.In particular, the Action will design a comprehensive policy document presenting a multi-stakeholder regional framework able to integrate the intercultural principles into concrete integration actions, as well as identify the role and potential contribution of national and local stakeholders.
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- Set up of regional multi-stakeholder Platforms
- Multi-stakeholders co-design meetings
- Elaboration of the Intercultural integration strategy in 11 European RegionsMulti-stakeholder consultation activities for the design of the regional integration strategiesBased on the general model framework elaborated within activity 3.3, the partner Regions will carry out a co-design process with the following steps:
Starting from the inputs provided by the multi-stakeholder Platform, each partner Region will elaborate and validate its 3-years Intercultural integration strategy applying a “theory of change” approach in order to describe how the strategy is supposed to deliver the desired change.
The strategy will not only include commitments by the regional authority but also pledges by the stakeholders (institutions, civil society organisations, businesses, etc.) to undertake specific actions to foster diversity, equality and inclusion in their activities.
- Implementation of 11 pilot integration projects According to its Intercultural integration strategy, each Region will select and implement one pilot project among those included in the strategy, aiming at testing new measures (e.g. services, tools, etc.) that will contribute to the goals of the regional strategy.
- Evaluation of the model developed by the ActionThe experience carried out by the Action for the co-design and co-implementation of intercultural integration strategies will be evaluated and the whole process and its results will be modelized and presented by ICEI in a comprehensive report.
- Transfer Clusters for transnational knowledge sharing Transfer Clusters are set up to provide a structured platform for the transnational exchange of knowledge among partners, associates and other relevant stakeholders, thus facilitating the adoption of methodologies and best practices developed by the Action.
- National dissemination and mainstreaming activities
- European dissemination eventsThe EU-BELONG project will develop an ad hoc-dissemination strategy focusing on the participation in existing European high-level events in order to share the experience, results and deliverables of the project with a wide network of International institutions and organizations.
- Social media communication campaign The project envisages to contribute to raise awareness on the positive impact of the intercultural integration in European regions by shaping a positive narrative driven by an ad-hoc communication campaign.