About the activity

Strategic Municipal Planning (SMP) offers considerable benefits to municipalities and to their communities. The SMP toolkit developed by the Centre of Expertise provides guidance on how to develop a strategic municipal plan based on five steps:

1) Preparation to undertake a Strategic Municipal Planning process

2) Developing a community profile (analytical analysis of the current economic, social and environmental characteristics of the municipality)

3) Developing and implementing a strategy for stakeholders’ engagement

4) Developing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and developing a vision

5) Developing an action plan to implement the vision

The Programme was implemented in Greece from September 2017 to March 2018 with the support of the Hellenic Agency for Local Development and Local Government.

 Methodology

The first workshop took place on 20 September in Athens. Representatives and local staff of 59 municipalities engaged in peer discussions and shared the challenges they face in developing effective business plans in Greece. This open event provided the opportunity to present the CoE methodology and launch a call for Greek municipalities to take part in the piloting phase of this activity.

Five municipalities were finally selected to receive technical assistance on stakeholders’ engagement and development of the action plan: Kavala, Domokos, Preveza, Thermi, and Tripoli.

Ad hoc workshops were organised on 9 and 10 January 2018 focusing on stakeholders’ engagement and the development of action plans, according to the preferences expressed by representatives of these five pilot municipalities. Participants were involved in group exercises and training sessions to explore different citizens’ consultation practices and improve strategic planning skills.

In February and March 2018, representatives of Kavala, Domokos, Drama and Thermi participated in a 2-day training to enhance their capacity to engage stakeholders in planning processes (5-6 March 2018, Thessaloniki); while local staff and elected representatives of Preveza and Tripoli were coached by Council of Europe experts to boost their coordination and planning skills.

See the final report for further information.