Under the EU / CoE joint project "Building an inclusive integration approach in Finland", five Finnish municipalities received an online training on 23-24 March 2023.

The well attended training gathered the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, European Commission DG for Structural Reform Support, the Council of Europe, participating municipalities of the project (Hämeenlinna, Tampere, Turku, Vaasa and Vantaa), the municipalities of Barcelona, Limassol, Riga and the project experts.

During the training, participants heard presentations from a theoretical background as well as practical examples on good relations concept in Finland, the Council of Europe’s intercultural approach, intercultural competences, municipal local policy development groups, integrating intercultural competences, and the Intercultural Cities (ICC) Index.

Further, there were also peer-learning elements based on the experience of Barcelona and Limassol municipalities on creating an intercultural strategy and an intercultural municipality.

The project will continue to have a strong peer-learning and capacity-building element through a number of capacity building actions on intercultural strategy-making and multi-level governance, intercultural and good relations principles and how to turn them into successful policies and intercultural competence as well as intercultural communication.

The joint project “Building an inclusive integration approach in Finland” is co-funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe in co-operation with the European Commission.