Two Lazio towns join the IURC network for global best practices

Latina and Colleferro will engage in cooperation with non-European cities for a 3-year period

Last week, the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policies of the European Commission selected two Italian towns, Latina and Colleferro, to join its IURC project on international cooperation. The IURC stands for International Urban and Regional Cooperation, an initiative that has the aim to create a large-scale global network for the exchange of good practices in terms of municipal innovation and sustainability.

Decentralizing local impetus is one of the goals of the network

The program will allow municipalities to carry out missions, international and training activities funded by the European Commission in the three-year period (2021-2023). These will concern concrete cooperation between regional stakeholders with those from non-European regions (in particular Asia and Australasia) for beneficial exchanges on the issues of innovation and sustainability.

The Latina Councilor for the International City Cristina Leggio explained it this way: “European projects such as the International Urban and Regional Cooperation represent a great opportunity for cities because they stimulate comparison and connection with very distant localities. They allow us to further strengthen our development strategies by making our experiences and best practices available to other regions of the world”.

The Municipality of Colleferro has recently promoted the Smart City Labs, a living lab which, thanks to a private-public partnership, integrates research and innovation processes. Naturally, this project will actively participate in the IURC. The Municipality of Latina will bring to the exchange network the skills included and tested in the Upper project, an innovative experience of integration and multidimensional action in territorial development processes.

“I thank the Municipality of Colleferro with whom we have carried out this interesting project. It is not the first one, since we have already had the opportunity to develop synergies together in other sectors, such as culture, with the Integrated System of Foundation Cities. Networking between municipalities once again proves to be a winning card,” stated Latina mayor Damiano Coletta.

Both of these towns are in the Italian region of Lazio, which is home to the capital Rome. The news represents an encouraging development as it shows that the network is starting to focus on smaller localities, as well.

IURC pairs up EU cities with non-EU cities so that they can form mutually beneficial partnerships. The same approach is taken for regions.