Success Stories
Intendencia de Cerro Largo - Uruguay
Municipio de Aceguá - Brasil
Municipio de Candiota - Brasil
Municipio de Peñalolén - Chile
Municipio de Presidente Franco - Paraguay
Municipio de San Bernardino - Paraguay
Municipio de San Isidro - Argentina
Implementation of the working agendas linked to the Political Dialogue Meetings
Summary of the case:
Thanks to the project, Thematic Meetings have been designed and carried out to address the subjects prioritised in the Political Dialogue meetings with the political representatives of each partner municipality, considered as a lesson learned that can be found in this Knowledge Bank of the ADELANTE Programme. Thanks to the correct identification of the subjects prioritised in the Political Dialogue Meetings by the project's coordination team, several Thematic Meetings were successfully organised, including two of great impact on SDG 5, especially aimed at women entrepreneurs.
After the first meetings of Political Dialogue in Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, assistance to women entrepreneurs was identified as a subject to be prioritised. The project's coordination team activated the triangular cooperation mechanisms, taking advantage of the strengths of the partner municipalities and identifying other actors from the academic and the private sector who could provide training, technical assistance and expert advice to various groups of women entrepreneurs. As a result, the first Thematic Meeting of Women Entrepreneurs was organised in Paraguay, with the support of the municipality of Peñalolén (Chilean partner with extensive experience in entrepreneurship with a gender perspective) and the Universidad Privada del Este (Paraguayan partner with a strong academic focus). At this meeting, in addition to exchanging information on gender policies, a group of leader women from several partner municipalities were trained and made aware of production, marketing and financial administration techniques.
After the success of this first meeting and given that the topic continued to be a priority for several municipalities, the second Thematic Meeting of Women Entrepreneurs was organised, this time taking advantage of the platform of the ADELANTE Programme, with the collaboration of the EDEM project. On this occasion, direct technical assistance was provided to women from several municipalities in Uruguay and Brazil and the working techniques developed with entrepreneurs in Mesoamerica were disseminated among the different municipalities.
Main learning and recommendations:
The importance of coordinating local government policies with the needs and interests of the final beneficiaries, creating the necessary conditions for empathic dialogue, involving the greatest number of actors and developing bonds of trust.
Achieved impacts and objectives:
- A strong contribution to SDG 5 (Gender Equality) has been made by promoting "women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life" (Target 5.5).
- Partner countries have been able to see the success stories (policies, initiatives, tools) of other countries as an opportunity for themselves.
- It has been possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of working together at the political level and at the technical level, contributing to good governance in the partner municipalities.
- It has been possible to strengthen the partners and leave installed capacity among the final beneficiaries.
Key success factors:
- Strong leadership of the project coordination team that was able to translate the challenges raised at the Political Dialogue Meetings into adapted solutions through the Thematic Meetings.
- A strong commitment of local authorities and leaders in each municipality to the project.
- The successful experiences and strengths of the Mirada Ciudadana project's partners and the involvement of the EDEM project, as well as the other knowledge providers, which have been used by all the actors involved.
The added value of Triangular Cooperation: (more information here)
1. Building ownership and trust.
2. Promoting complementarity and increasing coordination in development cooperation.
3. Sharing knowledge and learning jointly.
4. Co-creating solutions and flexibility.
5. Enhancing the volume, scope and sustainability of Triangular Cooperation
6. Achieving global and regional development goals through strengthened partnerships for sustainable development.
RELATED FILES
The National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), which coordinated the project, had an extensive experience of good cooperation with the European Union (and other international donors) and had its own procedures in place. However, preparing to undertake a project under the Triangular Cooperation modality for the first time revealed the need to adapt these procedures and posed a challenge for the institution, which wanted to prepare itself in the best possible way by creating a methodology adapted to this modality, which was agreed upon with all project partners.
One of the main components of the Mirada Ciudadana project are the Political Dialogue Meetings, which consist of meetings between the authorities of the partner local governments to exchange ideas about the reality of their municipalities and their main challenges, promoting open dialogue and encouraging the joint creation of solutions. After the experience of the first meeting at the beginning of the project, the management team realized that, while it was important to promote exchanges between municipal authorities, it was also necessary to accompany them with thematic working-enabling environments to involve a greater number of stakeholders, including the final beneficiaries.
Thanks to the project, a consolidated methodology has been developed and implemented for the joint creation of work agendas for peer-to-peer visits aimed at compiling best practices and issuing recommendations. Different visits have been successfully carried out using this methodology, showing a real appropriation of the tool by the recipient country and a high level of commitment, knowledge exchange and technical trust from all participants. One of the most prominent was the visit to Paraguay, during which the project raised the possibility of providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Childhood and Adolescents, focusing on the design of a census of homeless children and adolescents. This generated new lines of work beyond what had been planned with a clear triangular cooperation approach.
Defining and organising, within the framework of a methodology, a series of essential guidelines aimed at identifying the final beneficiaries and establishing the lines of work with them in the face of the challenge of working directly with small producers in different countries and very diverse environments.
At the beginning of the project, there was a theoretical framework for "Peer-to-Peer technical visits": one of the pillars of the project which consists of visits to each of the partner countries, including political and technical representatives from other countries involved, in order to collect best practices and make recommendations. This theoretical framework has, gradually and thanks to the lessons learned from each visit and the experience and global vision of the project team, become a consolidated methodology whose main characteristic is to bring those involved into the limelight.
Sharing the project's products with peer entities in order to contrast and enrich them.
Applying principles and mechanisms of collective or group building throughout the cycle of training and technical assistance, in order to guarantee the active and balanced contribution of all participants, thus improving the learning and its application.
Thanks to the project, the first unique tool for the assessment at the regional level of transversal and socio-emotional competences has been created, which will allow the collection of data from different countries in order to compare them and get a comprehensive view of the subject.
Thanks to the peer-to-peer dialogue promoted by DIALOGAS, the National Technical Tables for Institutional Coordination in Transversal and Socio-Emotional Competences were created in Argentina, Paraguay and Guatemala and the conditions for the creation of the Tables in Chile, Panama and Uruguay were settled.
