News
En route for Katowice to talk cross-border cooperation!
January 2022
The PFVT (Partenariat Français pour la Ville et les Territoires – French Partnership for Cities and Territories) is French urban development players’ platform for discussion and promotion of their expertise internationally.
In the same way as a think tank, its members1 mobilise through workshops to draw up proposals for international events such as the World Urban Forum on cities and sustainable territories.2 With the 11th World Urban Forum taking place in June 2022, during France’s presidency of the EU, in the border territory of Katowice in Poland,3 the MOT agreed to co-facilitate with the ESPON programme a working group on "territorial and cross-border cooperation initiatives".
This multi-player partnership, whose technical secretariat is provided by the FNAU (French Network of Urban Planning Agencies), is supported by the Ministries of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Territorial Authorities, the Ecological Transition and Culture.
The working group coordinated by the MOT met three times during 2021. It was the only one to bring together both French and European and international partners, notably: the Lille, Strasbourg and Nice metropolises; the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs; the canton of Geneva; Villes de France; CESCI; the University of Victoria (Canada); the AFCCRE – French Section of the Council of the European Municipalities and Regions; and DG REGIO.
Using a forward-looking approach aimed at rethinking and implementing the "New Urban Agenda" and meeting sustainable development goals, and at projecting a desirable urban future and the tools to be employed to achieve it, the group explored the following set of issues: In a world of "growing interdependencies" confronted by a "functional mismatch" between the reality of development and administrative constraints, what scenario(s) can be envisaged for territorial cooperation up to 2050? How can these scenarios be reflected, how can they be transposed in cross-border territories, veritable laboratories for interterritoriality?
A booklet to be published in the coming weeks in French and English will set out the group’s findings with respect to the following three questions:
- What are the issues for today and up to 2050?
- What is/are the possible and desirable future(s) over this period?
- What are the pathways and strategic milestones that should not be missed?
1. Territorial authorities, businesses, professionals, NGOs and government researchers.
2. Held every two years by UN Habitat.
3. Under the slogan "Transforming our cities for a better urban future", https://wuf11.katowice.eu/
