Introduction

Agenda 21 is a spontaneous and voluntary process which was important in providing support to a methodological vision rather than to obtain practical effects in a short period. Effects will come from an acquisition of a common vision of problems to overcome tacks characterized by conflicts and complaints.

Objectives and target audience

To develop a decisional method to increase the value of needs of civil societies members (citizens, enterprises, citizens’ fellowships, professional societies, workers’ trades etc).

Financial Resources and Partners involved

Genoa’s Municipality, Genoa’s District Council, Liguria Region, ARPAL (Regional Agency for Enviroment), ARE (Regional Agency for Energy), European Union.  Agenda 21 is a project financed by the internal resource of Genoa’s Municipality and Social European Fund.

Process

Genoa’s Municipality joins the First Aalborg Charter in 1995 and the New Aalborg + 10 Charter in 2004.  The new Alboorg+10 Charter was a regulatory reference for development of the Agenda 21 Action Plan in Genoa.  Primarily, Agenda 21’s phase for Genoa’s territory was divided in 5 territorial ambits.  Process steps were the identification of social actors and the foundation of the Ambits’ forums.  Forums were worked to identify prior topics of discussion.  Moreover it was founded a plenary forum in which each Ambit’s forum presents interim reports on its works.

Results

A first result was the realisation of Agenda 21 Action’s Plan which included 24 prior actions  in the field of environmental sustainability.

Critical Success Factors / Challenges

A drawback of the participations processes are that it is difficult to maintain the coherence between statements and actions.  But the most important condition is make safeguard of the participative process: the worse enemy of Agenda 21’s process is that the statement will not be put into practice but the participation’s betrayal is the no-acknowledgement.  At Genoa, the Agenda 21 Action Plan was recognized by Municipal Council with a specific act.