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Forum tematici. Un esempio di ascolto del territorio: un’azione di “Community Visioning”
Parco dei Nebrodi
Italy

The Problem

The Thematic Forum is the communication tool that the 21 Municipalities participating in the Integrated Territorial Project of Nebrodi adopted as an innovative element to stimulate and to give continuity to cohesion institutional processes and to the construction of the necessary social capital in order to affirm a sustainable development, to promote a bottom-up development, able to provide a deep knowledge of the territory and its resources, to the sense of belonging to a common history, to the extending of the actors that have to intervene in the decision processes.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The successful competence for the actor that undertook the responsibility to define the communication strategy of the Integrated Territorial Project of Nebrodi, was surely the capacity of “hearing the territory”. It was important the assessment of the behaviour and the predisposition of the potential interlocutors to create synergies, share projects and taking opportunities. The potential stakeholders of the integrated projects were never treated as simple communication receivers: through that tool, they were able to interact, to express needs, to be proactive on the consolidation of an intersectorial network of relations.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
1. CONTEST ANALYSIS the knowledge of the status quo increased compared to the awareness that the territory had concerning the Integrated Territorial Project.
2. ANALYSIS ON THE FLUXES AND ON THE COMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURES have been reconstructed the ways and the main actors (not only institutional ones) of the territorial and extra – territorial communication.
3. ORGANISATION OF MEETINGS WITH THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP AND WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF INTERESTS have been intercepted the actors that represented wide interests and have been started up an active confrontation on the activities to carry out and on the real interests of the beneficiaries of the activities.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The Integrated Territorial Project of Nebrodi is an initiative for the territorial development, promoted by an aggregation of local actors (institutional and socio – economic) with the objective to valorise the specific potentialities of the territory, based on a “Idea – Strength” (“Idea Forza”) for the local development. To carry out the initiative, it is necessary the involvement and the integration of different actors who have the power to intervene and of the different local actors to the individuation of the objectives, during the project design and the management of the activities.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The objectives of the Forum, as an innovative tool of communication, have been: to involve and integrate the local actors; define, through a participated and shared process, an integrated Action Plan for the territorial development; support the partnership and the emerging of new ideas.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The objectives have been pursued through a strategy that foresaw the activation of several communication processes, from the capacity in “hearing” the stakeholders, to the information, to the consultation and to the sharing of an operative project proposal regarding the policies and the projects aiming to the realization of the territorial development.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The participated process that characterized the Forum made possible the positive integration of diversities, faced like an enrichment and not as a conflict, of the competences and the needs of achieving a common vision concerning the choices, enriched by the contribution and the confrontation on the territory ’s problems perceived by the participants, on the potentialities and the resources, on the definition of the orientations and of the strategic objectives.
The Forum as a communication tool has therefore determined:
a) The overcoming of conflicts and mistrust;
b) The sharing of the problematic and of the local critical points;
c) The process towards the construction of a common scenario for the definition of a shared and participated vision of the local needs;
d) The definition of strategic objectives to achieve and the setting of strategic indicators;
e) The setting of the necessary actions able to put them into effect.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The experience has been modelized. Its transferability concerns mostly the methodology adopted and the communication tools that have been implemented. In particular, in the Integrated Territorial Project of Nebrodi’s experience, both in the phase of programming – concertating and of implementation, it was possible to individuate some innovative aspects in the communication processes between the actors of the local development that make this experience of a great interest.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The “hearing” should have provided clear indications on the efficacy of the codes to be used with the different actors of the communication. Not all the actors to be involved used the same language and each language have a minimal inclination to the contamination and to the integration with new ones.The “hearing” should have taken into account the coexistence of subjective variables that some times hindered the efficacy of communication. It is needed, therefore, that the actor that designs and manages the communication strategy, develops a sensibility to the subjective variables of the communication process.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Parco dei Nebrodi
Institution Type:   Public Agency  
Contact Person:   Massimo Geraci
Title:   Responsabile Ufficio Unico PIT Nebrodi  
Telephone/ Fax:   +39 0941 705934
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   m.geraci@parcodeinebrodi.it  
Address:   Parco dei Nebrodi – Ufficio dei piani e della programmazione sostenibile delle risorse
Postal Code:   98076
City:   Sant’Agata Militello
State/Province:   Sicilia/Messina
Country:   Italy

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