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Gruppo di Azione Locale Val D'Anapo - Agenzia di Sviluppo
Italy

The Problem

Through the activities carried out, from the year 1986, and the creation of the Development Agency of the Canicattì Consumers and later with further experiences, the public – private local partnership succeeded in creating a participation system steadily organized through which is guaranteed the involvement of the local population in the main choices for the local development of the vast area. The six principles that inspired this participation action where:1) Definition of an integrated plan for development for the local vast area (Integrated Plan for Sustainable Development), with the aim to: a) have a general reference for the local development of the area; b) connect the interdependent planning actions with the governance instruments of the territory. 2) Realistic plans for the implementation of the programmes aimed to make effective the responsibility of the local development actors, to improve the quality of the projects and their impact on the territory, to promote assessment activities. 3) Administrative Innovation to foster the impact of the public and private actions towards the collective interest. 4) Permanent relationship with interest groups (Active Local Partners) in order to involve the productive sectors in the design and implementation of the actions.5) Capacity in the cooperation with others Institutional actors in order to foster the decisional and authorization procedures that involve different institutional levels.6) Transparency of the decisional process..The development process activated permitted the creation and the implementation of a local economic and social development bottom – up planning, based on the real local potentialities and aware of the real needs of the citizenship; according to that, in an internal and disadvantaged area, has focused in the creation of an integrated productive district, with strong environmental and historic – cultural characteristics, respecting an integrated sustainable development shared with the citizenship and validated by the different competent institutional levels.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The general objective of the Social, Cultural and Productive actors of the Comprensory of Val d’Anapo, in promoting a development process for the area was to design and implement an active participation mechanism able to create a bottom – up public programming for economic and social development, aware of the needs of the local population and coherent with the potentiality of the territories involved. This was the mission achieved from the local actors in 1986 when they created the “Development Agency of the Consumers of Canicattì”, in a territory characterized by a strong contradiction of an economic and social distress from one part, and from the other an enormous concentration of cultural heritage, quality handicraft products and rich agriculture products.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The relevant activities of the action contributed from 1986 to 1997 to the following: 1) Identification and proposition to the competent Institutions a scheme for an economic and social development plan for the consumers of Canicattì, using the methodology of the “integrated plans of the area”; 2) Approval of this methodology from the Regional Direction for Planning;3) Identification of the homogenous vast area of reference in order to create an integrated plan; 4) Identification and involvement of an Economic and Social Partnership; The activities that characterized the year 1997: 5) Creation of the GAL “Val d’Anapo”; the connected experimental Development Agency of Canicattì evolves in Development Agency of the territorial unity of Val D’Anapo; the Province of Siracusa becomes project leader of the public partnership composed by Municipalities, the Chamber of Commerce and the Provincial Agency for Tourism. The activities that characterized the years from 1997 to 2006: 6) Definition together with the Partnership, through a bottom – up process, the “Integrated Plan for the Sustainable Development of the Territorial Unit Anapo - Cassibile”.

(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 Development Agency of the Consumers of Canicattì was created as an organization participated by the social, cultural and productive actors contributing to the planning of the economic and social development, with the aim to identify methodologies and operative solutions to face the critical points connected with the development of a vast area; the Agency subscribed an Agreement with the Province of Siracusa.Researches on the planning of vast areas have been carried out, have been analyzed the critical points connected with the local development and have been identified the methodology of the “integrated development plans”. Have been identified and shared the homogenous territorial unit of the Valli d’Anapo and of the Cassabile, who have been included in an integrated planning of sustainable development; has been identified the public and private Partnership with whom has been designed and shared the “P.I.S.S. of the Comprensory of Val d’Anapo.In the framework of the European Community’s Programme Leader II were created the G.A.L. “Val d’Anapo” e “Leontinoi”, concertative organizations between public and private actors for the bottom – up planning. The experimental Development Agency of Canicattì evolved as Development Agency of the territorial unity of Val D’Anapo” becoming leader of the private Partnership. The Development Agency of Val d’Anapo” transferred its know how to the G.A.L. Val d’Anapo, in order to establish and activate the participation body able to carry out the actions of the “P.I.S.S. of the Comprensory of Val d’Anapo” through the active participation of the social, cultural and productive local bodies.The public and private Partnership established for the carrying out of the Leader II Programme have given an operative continuity to the actions of the P.I.S.S. Anapo-Cassibile, the general planning instrument that foresees 19 axes of intervention, strictly integrated and interoperated, composed by may integrated actions.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The Development Agency Val D’Anapo’s main target is the enforcement and the stabilization of the participative method started by the Development Agency Bacino di Utenza del Canicattese, by means of which local population managed to take active part in the territorial programming decisions.Thanks to the Programme Leader +, the private partnership of the Agency Val D’Anapo managed to participate to a public-private programming and implementation body, the Local Action Group Val D’Anapo, and this enabled the Agency to work officially with public institutions. The actions realized are: investments for the development of an Integrated Touristic Offer; integrated services; introduction of the quality system UNI ISO 9000; creation and enhancement of activities linked to typical local products; systems HACCP; creation of a common “selling point” for local products; local development system guidebook.Moreover, it was established a Common Office in order to simplify administrative procedures connected to the realization of new factories and to the promotion of the area.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
In order to strenghten the participation process, the implementation instruments activated are:
a. The Territorial Pact of the Val d’Anapo agricolture sector: the overall investment amounts to € 30,000,000, 54 projects have been financed (the implementation of most of them has been completed).
b. The Territorial Integrated Project Hyblon-Tukles: its aim is to coordinate and give value to the factors that can activate the Regional Operational Programme innovative tools. The Territorial Integrated Project is focused on: 1) enhancement and coordination of environmental, historical and cultural aspects (economic and social integration of local communities, networking of environmental, historical and cultural sites, development of complementar services; 2) improvement of local production and fostering of products and services functional for the development of environmental, historical and cultural features; 3) Organize and qualify local human resources. The Territorial Integrated Project is characterized by a strong administrative innovation and its management is aimed at: a) activate an efficient and efficacious participation and take into account the emerging local needs; b) strenghten the Coordination Office. The Coordination Office is a very innovative instrument: the municipalities involved in the Integrated Project devolve functions to the Coordination Office, thus creating a single interlocutor and semplifying the implementation of the development programme.
c. MOTRIS – Integrated mapping of the touristic offer in Sicily: the Local Action Group/Development Agency cooperated with the Region for the mapping of the touristic offer in Sicily and the development of tourism in internal areas. At this regard, the district Anapo Cassibile resulted to be the only “active” internal area.
d. Measure 3.01 of the Integrated Project – Multifunctional Work Agency: it is the only attempt at regional level to identify innovative methods of work orientation and of matching between work demand and offer.

(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
Since in the area of Syracuse there was no overall strategy capable of linking cultural assets and private activities connected to them, the Hyblon Tukles Leader + Local Development Project aims at putting together environment, nature, history, culture, agricolture and local handycraft in order to compose an integrated offer which represents the whole territory and then communicate it to external subjects by means of innovative techniques.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The participated programming implies innovative ideas such as active partnerships, creation of institutional and social and economic networks, etc. The participation activated is circular: everyone is involved in local development and everyone needs the expertise of the others. This flow can be interesting also for other territories. The Integrated Sustainable Development Plan of Val d’Anapo has been mentioned at national and regional level as best practice in the Southern Italy Development Plan and as a mid-term target in the Economic and Financial Programming Document 2000/2002. Moreover, it was certified by the Sicilian Public Investments Evaluation and Audit Board and was declared compatible with the regional development plans by the Region Sicily.Private investments have been accomplished: implementation is at 100% and expenditure at 75%.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Public-private partnership process and the institution of the Hyblon-Tukles Coordination Office has deeply innovated the public programming system and the follow-up of local enterprises. In order to answer to local economic and social demands, the following step should be the decentralization of functions nowadays proper of the Region. A further improvement shold be the consolidation of the Territorial Integrated Project by inserting it in a regional integrated model. This process, already attempted with the Regional Integrated Project, underlines the need to implement administrative innovation. This relational innovation is already in progress: operational protocols have been devised and they will enable joint participation of different institutions and the connection of local actions and best practices in a single territorial integrated programme.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Gruppo di Azione Locale Val D'Anapo - Agenzia di Sviluppo
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Sebastiano Di Mauro
Title:   Direttore  
Telephone/ Fax:   0039(0)931541138/39
Institution's / Project's Website:   0039(0)9315
E-mail:   posta@galvaldanapo.it  
Address:   Via P. Iolanda 51
Postal Code:   96010
City:   Canicattini
State/Province:   Sicily/ Siracusa
Country:   Italy

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