The main activity consists in the development of an intercultural and integration strategy for the five-year period 2021-2025. The development of the strategy was entrusted to the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee (LCDC), a committee created in 2014 following the publication of the Local Government Reform Act. This activity has been granted full support by the Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu (in office until June 2021) who included it in the priority activities for 2021. This is the second strategic document prepared by the municipality on the issue of integration and the committee intends to make it a living document, a strategic plan consisting of actions already tested or in the process of being tested.
The implementation of the strategy requires the involvement of all departments and units of the City of Dublin. The works started in December 2020, when the City Council instructed its officer in charge for integration to collect proposals and comments in order to allow a review of the previous city integration strategy by the staff of the different municipal departments and by the main stakeholders of the Municipality (organizations and external groups working with the Municipality on the issue of social inclusion, including groups representing migrants and foreign communities).
Based on the opinions collected, the LCDC has developed a reference framework for the development of the intercultural and integration strategy 2021-2025 including vision, values and strategic objectives to be pursued. Unlike the previous strategic plan (2016-2020), particular attention is paid to the category of Dublin’s commuters and to the inclusion of nomadic cultures and the Roma population.
The next steps will consist in submitting the draft of the intercultural and integration strategy to a process of public consultation with the aim of maximizing the contribution of the entire population of the City of Dublin and to better identify the actions that will really make a difference in people’s lives. A call for collaboration will be forwarded to all stakeholders, both large organizations and small informal groups, and will also be disseminated thanks to the contacts of the Dublin Public Participation Network (PPN).
The publication of the strategic plan is scheduled for 2022. Its final version will express the city's commitment to anti-discrimination and social inclusion issues and will contain concrete actions, some already tested, others in the process of being implemented or to be implemented, to each section and department of the municipality.
Alongside the development of the strategic plan, the City of Dublin is carrying out a series of activities designed to support and enhance the future implementation of the actions envisaged by the intercultural and integration strategy: establishment and implementation of two networks of stakeholders active on the issues of interculturality and integration. The City of Dublin can rely on two stakeholder networks in the area of interculturality and social inclusion: an internal network and a network external to the municipality, composed by outside organizations and associations that collaborate with the municipality.
Starting from December 2020, both networks have been contacted to collect comments for the development of the strategic plan.
The municipality has prepared a map of local organizations, NGOs, groups and foreign communities, created an email address dedicated to the issue of integration and sent invitations from the Mayor. Following this first contact, 68 organizations participated to the first consultation for the strategic plan.
The City Council has created a new role, the Integration Officer, in charge of maintaining relations with local organizations, has launched a web portal dedicated to public consultation and regularly organizes communication campaigns to reach people who normally are not involved in associations or organizations.
This good practice has been drafted in connection with the project ITACA - Italian Cities Against Discrimination (n. 963374), co-funded by the REC Programme of the European Commission and implemented by ICEI together with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, the Municipality of Modena, Mondinsieme Foundation and ISMU Foundation.
