2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

17th Edition

Phase 6 of 7

Publication Preparation 18/09/2023 - 06/11/2023

Process phases

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Santa Fe: Las Redes as a territorial strategy of neighborhood scale

Official proposal

01/06/2023 18:36

The "networks" are formed as participatory spaces with the purpose of improving the living conditions of the neighborhood. There arise answers to problems, conflicts or concerns identified in each neighborhood and at the same time joint initiatives are generated such as urban projects, activities in public spaces and proposals that contribute to generating a qualitative change in the daily life of those who inhabit those neighborhoods. The spaces for participation can be diverse and their characteristics are also different in each neighborhood according to the actors that participate. Through these, the presence of the State is guaranteed, and a construction of citizenship from the bottom up. They are devices where “voices have weight and representation”, where shared senses and knowledge are built from the collective and from where solutions are managed. Community networks and areas of participation promote the exercise of citizenship, access to rights and the construction of human and social capital.

That is why, inspired by provincial initiatives such as the Open Plan and framed in the Integrar Santa Fe Plan to strengthen the sociability and participation component, the city government launched the Neighborhood Networks initiative in 2020, to territorialize Municipal public policies, through participation, discussion and adaptation of the same in the particularities of each territory.

Currently, work is being done on 25 neighborhood networks deployed in 40 of the 88 neighborhoods of the city, and involving 300 institutions. Participation is plural and heterogeneous, including references from health centers, family action centers, schools, municipal districts, municipal gardens, lots, neighborhoods, clubs, different religious organizations, civil associations, non-governmental organizations and social and community referents.

The municipality's work agenda with the institutions in the network is broad and diversified: it includes everything from environmental issues related to waste and recycling, to care policies.

It should be noted that this experience is based on the idea that networks already exist in the territories, so the innovation lies in the fact that the focus is on trying to recognize them and abandoning a paradigm of vertical coordination to think in terms of horizontality and trust. For this reason, the Redes Barriales initiative seeks to establish itself as a "toolbox" for social and urban management, surpassing a care vision focused on vulnerable neighborhoods, in which citizen participation has a real impact on public policies deployed in the city territory.

https://santafeciudad.gov.ar