First day of the V Forum

The word that emerges strongly in various interventions on the first day of the Forum is "resilience". Everyone agrees that in the face of the pandemic, having resilient public services has been key, especially the health and education systems. And beyond the public sphere, it has been stressed that it is important to have strong and resilient societies and economies. Very resilient must be, explained Soudjata Radjassegarane, an overseas island like La Réunion. For this reason, the Regional Council of La Réunion has made a great effort to strengthen all local companies. What is the recipe for being resilient? There is consensus in the interventions that collaboration and cooperation are the key. At the inauguration, Manuel Calvo, deputy governor of Córdoba, and Abdessamad Sekkal, president of ORU Fogar, pointed out that a space such as the Forum is a privileged environment to promote this cooperation. Everyone agreed on the need for multilevel collaboration from all administrations. Pablo Jurado, Ecuadorian prefect and president of CONGOPE affirmed that, in a situation like the pandemic, people feel safer when they know that their mayors and regional governments are there, because they are the ones who know the reality and ensure the best articulation at the national level. The representative of the Association of Departments of Senegal, Baba Ndiaye, spoke of the importance of the well-known cooperation of the European Union, but also the less known of Morocco, for the reactivation of the territories of his country. Fernando Verdugo from ANCORE Chile argued that the resilience can only be given by empowering the rural world and its good connection with the urban world. Natalia Mas from the Generalitat de Catalunya pointed out the importance of public sector innovation having the complicity of the citizenship.