Project BhENEFIT @Italy’s 20th National Assembly of Local Agendas21 Coordination – Mantova (Italy) October the 5th-6th 2017

“Changing our world: objectives for sustainable cities”

The BhENEFIT project was presented in a national workshop on strategies for the sustainable development of cities, organised in the occasion of the annual assembly of the network of cities having adopted Agenda21 strategies. Within the programme of the event, project BhENEFIT enjoyed a prime position within the first panel, ‘Sustainable Development Goal 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities’, on day one.

This work session aimed at gathering experiences and ideas connected to European projects contributing to Goal 11 of the UN Urban Agenda. The project was presented by Adriana Nepote and Emanuela Medeghini as a positive experience of the City of Mantova within a workshop / workgroup leading our local community to a more sustainable approach to the City management.

Being the event organised only few months after the start of BhENEFIT (July 2017), the main purpose of the presentation was to inform the audience about the general idea of the project, its partners, activities and final outputs. However, the presentation gave also the chance to raise awareness amongst local stakeholders about the project and presented the opportunity to enlarge the local networks of key actors and players in the field of sustainability and historical areas, on which the project is centred. 

We expected the event to raise awareness amongst the local stakeholders and foster their participation to the project activities, thing that has in fact happened as the works of the Local Support Groups can prove.

The project was also presented as one of the European / Cooperation projects active in Italian Cities and able to contribute tot he UN and EU Urban Agenda objectives. We expect tob e contacted and involved in the future in similar conferences at national level that will help up disseminate the project results.