Bilbao, with around 350.000 inhabitants, is the capital of Biscay and the economic, social and cultural centre of the Basque Country. Due to the profound crisis in the 80s that affected its fundamental economic sectors (metallurgy, steel and naval), the city needed to reinvent itself and face great challenges: high rates of unemployment, environmental and urban degradation, strong internal emigration and the emergence of social marginalisation issues. Bilbao was able to achieve a transformation thanks to local political management, public-private and inter-institutional cooperation, and its success was acknowledged on the world stage: the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize (2010), the European Public Sector Award (EPSA) 2011 for the project “Political Management based on Financial Rigor and Strategic Budgets”, culminating in the World Mayor award bestowed on mayor D. Iñaki Azkuna in 2012.

City status
Population diversity
The most important ethnic group of Bilbao –people with Spanish nationality– constitutes 91.85% of the city’s inhabitants. People with Spanish nationality could be foreign-born, but national/non-national are the categories used by the Spanish administrations. Only 8.15% are non-nationals: this figure has notably increased in the last 10 years. In 2003, foreign population in Bilbao constituted 3.1% of the city’s inhabitants. There is no minority group that represents 5% or more of the population, although nationals from Latin-American countries represent 48.3% of foreign population. The largest minority groups originate from Bolivia (1.19%), Colombia (0.72%), Morocco (0.71%), Romania (0.67%) and China (0.53%). As of 1 January 2013, the estimated percentage of foreign-born nationals resident in the city was 2.48%.
Profile and activities

Similar to other European cities that have developed successful strategies through the creative management of diversity, the city hall of Bilbao designed and executed the Municipal Plan for Diversity Management BI-OPEN (2011-2013) to construct a city that is educative in values of coexistence and open to diversity. In its evaluation, the result of citizen participation (both natives and foreigners) and the participation of RECI enabled the design of a Local Strategy of Diversity Management, the execution of which is scheduled for the coming years. The final objective: fostering integration, social cohesion and coexistence from an intercultural perspective.

Intercultural Cities Index
Good practice

Back Local plan for citizenship and diversity

To have a global interdepartmental local strategy to promote Intercultural city, diversity, coexistence and social cohesion

During 2017, the II Local Plan for Citizenship and Diversity was approved by the Local Government Board and contains therein the municipal intervention strategy planned for the next three years.

Approved by the City of Bilbao, this plan has been designed taking into account the areas of intervention and indicators defined in the framework of the Intercultural Cities Index. Likewise, the recommendations of the latest Bilbao reports resulting from the ICC analysis have also been incorporated.

The plan is divided into two parts. The first part is intended to provide a conceptual framework for intervention in which the concepts, principles and tools of the intercultural approach (as defined by the Council of Europe’s Framework of the Intercultural Cities Programme) have been included.

Intercultural Approach

  • Fundamental rights and equality
  • Respect and diversity recognition
  • Participation and interaction
  • Membership and neighbourhood

Principles

  • Intercultural citizenship
  • Coexistence and social cohesion
  • Development, innovation and quality of life
  • Gender perspective

Instruments

  • Mainstreaming
  • Participation
  • Knowledge and information
  • Evaluation

The second part contains a description of actions divided in different areas of intervention:

General areas of intervention:

Commitment, governance, intelligence and competence, international perspective, language, media, welcoming, community prevention and mediation and anti-discrimination.

Sectoral areas of intervention:

Education, neighbourhoods, public services, culture and leisure, public space, business policy and the labour market.

The plan incorporates several actions in each area. The structure of the plan has been aligned with the scopes and structure of the Index of Intercultural Cities.

The evaluation of the impact of the Plan will be based on the following tools:

  • Results of Bilbao in the Index of Intercultural Cities;
  • Results of Bilbao in the Barometer of perceptions and attitudes towards foreign immigration;
  • Index of tolerance towards immigration;
  • Specific evaluation questionnaires with stakeholders

Regarding the design of the plan, several processes of participation have been developed with the social network and with Municipal Departments. Specifically, for the associations, a mixed methodology of focus groups and questionnaires was developed. The Municipal Departments took part in seminars, in-depth interviews and structured questionnaires.

Regarding the implementation of the actions, considering that mainstreaming is one of its principles, all Municipal Departments have a fundamental role in its development. Likewise, the collaboration of the municipal social networks is also foreseen for the implementation of actions and projects.

For more infomation
Three years - 2017, 2018 and 2019
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mayor

Juan María ABURTO

Network - Spain
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