The Local Agents of Castellón province discuss how to improve participation in local development initiatives.

On October 4, the 6^th Conference of local development professionals of the province of Castellón was held at the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, organized by the professional association of local development agents of the Valencian Region (ADLYPSE) and the Inter-University Institut for Local Development (IIDL). This year the topic chosen for this forum for discussion and exchange of experiences was citizen participation in local development processes. Throughout the day, attendees were able to see first-hand experiences such as the  associations’ school from the City of Castelló, the Participatory Governance Strategy of the Castellón Province Authority or the Co-Create project of the City of Valencia.

Conference “Lights and shades from participation in local development initiatives” given by Marc Caballero.

The final conference of the day, with the title “Lights and shades from participation in local development initiatives” was given by Marc Caballero, partner of notus Applied Social Research. In it, the role of participation in local processes over the past 20 years and, above all, the model of intermittent and reactive participation dependent on subsidies (Guadiana Model) that seems to be consolidating in many populations was reviewed. Given this, Marc advocated the construction of stable participation frameworks adapted to the characteristics of each territory and participatory processes consistent with these frameworks.