The Best Practice Awards discuss essential issues on the global agenda

The VI Regional Good Practices Awards, scheduled by UNDP and ORU Fogar -awarded on December 2- highlighted the labour of 5 regional governments in issues that, nowadays, are fundamental in the development agenda and that, in addition, continue some lines of work very marked in the dynamics of ORU Fogar.

After years of insisting on the potential of technologies, two of the awarded projects were dedicated to extending connectivity among the entire population, in an exercise that seeks to bridge the digital divide. The “Free Wi-Fi” project, presented by Mexico City (it has the status of an intermediate government), aims to bring the connection to all corners of the city, which results in the benefit of the poorest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The project "Guayas is reborn with connectivity", presented by the Autonomous Provincial Government of Guayas not only seeks to cancel the digital divide at the social level, but also aims to do so at the territorial level, ensuring that the connection reaches all the towns of this Ecuadorian province.

If ORU Fogar has worked on one issue throughout its history, with a Côre Group started in 2008, it has been food security. The Department of Antioquia, Colombia, a territory that has suffered the disaster of war, credits a long work in this area. In fact, it was in Antioquia where ORU Fogar organized its II Zero Hunger Regions Summit. And Antioquia has already won a Regional Good Practices Award with the Mana project. Now, then, continuing that path, the Department has won one of the 2021 awards with the project "Family food security productive units under the greenhouse modality".

The fourth awarded project was the one presented by the State of Rio de Janeiro “Patrulla Maria da Penha - Guardians of Life”. With this project, the State Police is fighting against gender violence, which affects the poorest neighbourhoods in this Brazilian state in a very acute way. Thus, during the reception of the award, its leaders explained the alert policies against cases of violence, as well as prevention.

Finally, the Pyrenean Observatory on Climate Change was also awarded, an initiative of the Pyrenees Work Community which, as is known, comprises the Spanish regions of the Basque Country, Navarra, Aragon and Catalonia, together with the French regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie, and Andorra. The Observatory seeks, with a work that integrates the university world, to provide information that allows the development of a climate change adaptation and mitigation policy.

The event was attended by Gonzalo Pizarro on behalf of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and was closed by the president of ORU Fogar, Rachid El Abdi. The president of ORU, who is also president of the Moroccan Regional Council of Rabat Salé Kénitra, showed the satisfaction of continuing to work with the UNDP, congratulated the winners and regretted that in this edition no African practice had won either, committing to intensify dissemination of the 2022 call for the award among the associations of African regions.

With this edition, there are already 30 good practices awarded with this announcement that, since its first edition, was convened by ORU Fogar and UNDP. Thirty practices that make up the Bank of Good Practices on the ORU Fogar website. A space in which the regions can seek inspiration, as well as information to replicate the projects in their respective territories.

Video of the ceremony