Regional perspective of urban talks

As countries in the V4 region are in a similar position as regards economics, history and progress towards sustainable development, they do often effectively work together to trigger novel methodologies in urban planning and development. Visegrad cooperation takes place on various levels of public policy, including the municipality level and civil society. Regional dimension of urban-related issues is just as important in the Western Balkans and Eastern Partneship countries (ever more so after the conflict in Ukraine is over). Knowledge-sharing about the different strategies and planning methodologies is the most fundamental principle of any regional activity, however, its added values is in merging different perspectives and working together towards new solutions and competencies in the future development. The aim of the event is to create a brief, though intensive, interactive networking platform: the International Visegrad Fund together with other grant organisations will present existing granting schemes and priority topics; experienced grantees will present their experience and mainly results of their work, as created in close multilateral cooperation of civil society organisations. Their experience is diverse and that is what we want to present in the first place: partnerships should not be limited to one city-one problem-one solution. Given the cross-cutting nature of urbanism, cross-border implications and cross-cultural aspiration of any urban reflections, it is necessary to have diverse actors on board with deep knowledge though different experiences. The event will follow a model of moderated panel discussion – introducing various project examples in financing mechanisms e.g. participatory budgeting; modern urban planning; industrialization and de-industrialization of regions and changing urban patterns, digitalization of planning systems – with open floor for discussion with the participants from the audience as well as collecting questions from the online followers. The Fund is very apt to facilitate also future bottom-up dialogue between the past and potential future applicants and we will be there throughout the whole event and also later to answer individual questions about the types of activities, project orientation and creation of cooperation networks.