Presentation of the PADIT Platform to decentralized cooperation actors

On December 9, it took place in Havana (Cuba) a presentation event of PADIT, a joint platform for national and international stakeholders that wish to coordinate their respective activities in support of local development processes, as prioritized by the "country’s guidelines for social and economic policies" for 2015-2018. The PADIT takes into account the results and lessons learnt from various initiatives undertaken in the past in Cuba related to local development, including the Program for Local Human Development (PDHL), the Palma program and ODM Joint Programme "New decentralization initiatives and productive stimulus in Cuba”, Agro-chains, BASAL, among others.

The presentation of PADIT was organized by the government of Cuba and the UNDP Country Office in Cuba, in collaboration with the Global Coordination of the ART Initiative of UNDP Brussels that provided support for the mobilization of local governments’ networks and partners operating at the local level.

The PADIT’s presentation event gathered Cuban national and local governments, representatives of global networks of local and regional governments, international NGOs, Cuban and international universities, diplomatic representatives of Canada, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, and the delegation of the European Union in Cuba. It is noteworthy that the Swiss Cooperation Office has already formalized its decision to support PADIT with 4 million euro.

Currently, 34 cooperation entities have officially informed about their interest in participating in the process of territorial programming, which PADIT is activating from January 2015.

During the morning session of the event, the different parties involved in the PADIT presented their respective role; while in the afternoon, a debate on the details of operational procedures took place. Hereinafter the main emerging elements of the presentation and the debate are summarized:

• The platform of territorial coordination arrives at an opportune time, when the country is concentrated in the complex task of implementing the two aforementioned guidelines and the international community reflects on how best to be present and contribute to the quality and innovation of its implementation.
• All interventions have emphasized the complexity of this challenge, which reflects the reality of local development and local economic development processes and should be faced with "new tools and according to the Cuban reality".
• For this reason, the debate underscored the concrete support needed to face not only the challenge of "what" to do but also of "how", being necessary: i) to have an innovative multi-actor approach that involves both, the multiplicity of actors present in the territories and the international cooperation; and, ii) a multilevel approach to operate according to a national strategy perspective, rather than a logic of isolated local projects, which are not replicable and might be disconnected from the strategies and tools necessary for the whole country.
• The important qualitative and quantitative response of the bilateral and decentralized cooperation and of NGOs to this proposal (34 accessions) demonstrates the relevance of the instrument that "Joint Platform PADIT" proposes to face the challenge that Cuba, as other northern and southern countries, have taken on to ensure a consistency between the local development processes and the national strategies and programs.
• In the afternoon discussion, it was specifically mentioned the importance to consider the PADIT as a space for an ongoing dialogue between the "reasons" of the national and the local level. A space that also facilitates the international cooperation to work on supporting specific initiatives that will result from this dialogue and ensure their permanent connection to the global debate on local development.
• It was also emphasized the importance that the demand, prioritized by the territories, is of quality and an effective expression of diverse and multiple actors. It was also analyzed the different modalities to facilitate that this structured demand is shared with the cooperation actors to jointly program responses through specific projects.
• To this end, it will certainly be very important that from the beginning, the PADIT ensures a wide participation of all regional actors to the Municipal and Provincial Working Groups; and consequently, their representation in the future implementation and sustainability.
• In order to prevent that the actions, which accompany the processes prioritized by the country, are transformed into multiple isolated initiatives, PADIT shall organize local programming cycles coordinated in the time, conditions and procedures for approval and reporting with municipal and provincial development plans of the identified territories.
• The proposals, developed by the Cuban territories in the framework of the PADIT, should be submitted for discussion: firstly, to national programs and ministries; secondly, to the attention of the international cooperation – including the bilateral cooperation and specifically, to the EU Delegation in Cuba considering its strategy for Local Authorities, which precisely promotes the capacity building of the binomial of local authorities, and the social and economic actors of the territories.
• It was also relieved how the UNDP Cuba should coordinate its various projects, operating in the four identified territories, to demonstrate the added value - in term of strategic impact - of operating through the PADIT platform.
• It was also suggested that UNDP Cuba could offer to other UN Agencies to use PADIT to localize their actions in the same geographical areas to generate greater impact and provide an integrated response.
• In this regard, the Coordination of the ART Initiative of UNDP Brussels confirmed its willingness to provide support in organizing the presentation of the integrated demand of the Cuban territories – international guidelines - to the European networks of decentralized cooperation, as well as in facilitating missions of decentralized cooperation partners, interested in responding to the cooperation demand. This shall ensure that demand in origin is harmonized with the operational coordination on site.
• As next steps, it was agreed to organize: i) territorial programming workshops in each of the four Cuban territories identified by the first phase of PADIT; ii) a workshop on the tools for local economic development, which will aim to present the best experiences in the field.

 

For further information about the event, we invite you to visit the website of UNDP Cuba and read the Workshop Program, its report, presentations, list of participants and find some pictures.

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