On 23 March the ICC programme and the Intercultural Regions’ network had their first meeting online. Participants included representatives of nine regions from Sweden, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Romania, as well as representatives of the Assembly of European Regions and the ICC Team.

The meeting identified the fields in which the ICC programme and tools can provide tailored made assistance to address the needs of intercultural regions. These are namely the following:

1) Awareness raising and capacity building on intercultural competence for staff and public officials;

2) Empowering community participation at regional level;

3) Intercultural strategies building and development.

Besides, participants got acquainted of the latest progress within an EU funded project that consists of the mapping of Regions’ needs with the view to prepare an Intercultural Regions Index, based on MIPEX and ICC Index. Such an Index would allow regions to measure their progress towards becoming more intercultural. It should be ready for testing as of September this year.

Finally, participants discussed the preparation of the event on “Agenda 2030: Transforming Regions, Changing the World”, so far scheduled to take place at the European Parliament Headquarters in Strasbourg on 24-25 June. The event will gather the Intercultural Regions, AER members, the ICC programme, and SDGs’ partners. Cities have been involved - and are very active - in the “localisation” of SDGs since long time, while the role of regions has not been yet duly emphasised or fulfilled. The event will showcase the experience of regions that are well advance in their contribution to SDG 11 and put forward a roadmap that will mark a strong political step towards a deeper involvement of the regions in this field. During the event, the ICC programme will facilitate a workshop on the contribution of cities to sustainable development, with a particular focus on SDG 11.