The municipality of Bilbao, together with Castellò de la Plana, Tenerife and Donostia/San Sebastiàn (Spain) have been awarded one of the grants opened by the Intercultural Cities programme for inter-cities projects.

The project presented by the four Spanish ICC members aims to develop the intercultural skills of public administration staff as a key element for advancing further in the building of strong intercultural cities and territories.

The Intercultural Cities Index incorporates intercultural competence as an indicator of intercultural cities’ performance. As a matter of fact, public officials in an ideal intercultural city should be able to detect and respond comprehensively to the challenges posed by cultural differences, and modulate their approach accordingly, rather than trying to impose a single model of behaviour on all actions.

An intercultural competent staff at the service of the public administration will favour better municipal services, increase users’ satisfaction and contribute to greater trust and sense of belonging.

The concept of intercultural competences has been developed in different fields of intervention, such as foreign languages’ learning, education, intercultural mediation or the business sphere. However, research and practical tools generated in relation to the development of intercultural competences for technical and political staff at the service of local administrations are scarce.

The Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities (RECI) is already working at deepening the analysis and generating common understanding on the concept of intercultural competences for public officials, particular for those responsible for the design and implementation of intercultural policies.

The project proposed by the cities of Bilbao, Castelló de la Plana, Donostia-San Sebastián, together with the island of Tenerife represented by its Cabildo, aims to complement RECI’s annual programme of work by: i) contributing to designing a practical handbook for city officials, ii) transposing the concept of intercultural competence and mainstreaming it into practical language for the project design of the local administration officers, iii) defining the basic keys of an intercultural competent public action related to the project design, iv) and training their respective local administration staff.

Among the project partners the awarded municipalities can count on the support of La Laguna University and its Foundation, specialised in the promotion and transfer of knowledge, as well as the Asociación MATIZ, a social entity specialised in Education in values for social, economic and environmentally sustainable coexistence.

The project will be implemented in a participatory manner and its expected results will be transferable to the whole Intercultural Cities network namely through the production of a Handbook in English, the testing of a training module, and the production of audio-visual tools.

Congratulations to the happy project team!