Shaping the future of European cities: the INCLUCITIES's Approach to third-country national integration
Think of a city where the streets are filled with people from all over the world speaking different languages. This is the future for many European cities as thousands of migrants and asylum seekers keep searching for a better life. But making these cities inclusive for the new arrivals can be challenging for local communities, especially in smaller towns that don't have a lot of resources or funding.
To address these challenges, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and national associations of local and regional governments have started INCLUCITIES, a three-year project funded by the European Union's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).
The goal is to make it easier for Third-country Nationals to integrate by sharing knowledge between mentor and mentee cities, building the capacity of medium-sized cities and associations of local and regional governments, and making national associations stronger so they can better coordinate with different levels of government and share knowledge.
The project pairs cities (with their associated local and regional government groups) in mentoring relationships, with a town acting as a mentor and the other as a mentee. These associations of local and regional governments play a significant role by spreading good practices from one city to the rest of the network and representing local and regional governments to central governments.
The strength of the IncluCities project is its ability to take concrete solutions and lessons learned from individual cities and apply them on a larger scale.
By focusing on what works, the project hopes to influence EU integration policies better to suit local needs. This is done by setting up mentoring relationships to improve integration in less experienced cities, with Migration Work acting as a facilitator. Specific action plans are created based on EU-wide standards to improve the long-term integration of third-country nationals in intermediary cities, increasing cooperation between cities and associations of local and regional governments and building the capacity of these cities and associations.
The partners in this project are national associations of local and regional governments and their accompanying cities. The CEMR team, in collaboration with the creative unit of the branding agency #pageinextremis, created the INCLUCITIES brand.
#pageinextremis, based in Brussels, has over 29 years of experience helping organisations define and communicate their unique identity and has a history of building strong brands for leading organisations, European associations, and EU-funded international projects.