After several preparatory activities the Prozvet Project in Russia comes into full action.
"PROZVET, that means “Promoting Sustainable Development in Zabaikal and Karelia districts of Russia”, is an European Union project aimed at enabling innovative forms of cooperation among civil society organisations (CSO), Local Authorities (LA), and non-traditional stakeholders. The project will last three years, and is conducted through a partnership between the Karealian NGOs Resource Center, the Zabaikal Union of Women, the Russian NGO Zvezda Nadezhdy, the Italian Association FELCOS-Umbria (the project leader), and LEF-Italia, Italian Coordination of the European Women’s Lobby, an European no profit organisation and ILS LEDA.
The first capacity building workshop of the PROZVET project took place on May 22, 2020, 10.00-13.30 ECT.
This webinar was the first of 11 on line workshops foreseen in the alternative Action Plan prepared by Project partners in order to carry on the capacity building activities during the Coronavirus crisis. In fact, according to the original Plan, the workshops should have carried out in Moscow (during the 1st consortium meeting and kick off events), and in the Zabaikal and Karelia Districts. Instead, due to the restrictions to mobility and gathering of people associated to the Coronavirus crisis in Russia and in the EU, partners decided to run these activities in a on line format, through Microsoft Teams platform. This platform functions as a persistent workplace and allows communication and collaboration among the staff of all partners involved, providing also facilities for video meetings, file storage and collaboration on files, and chat. The webinar was introduced by Giancarlo Canzanelli (ILS LEDA), Francesca de Paula (Felcos), and Ludovica Bottarelli (LEF ITALIA) . Other participants were:
1) Ksenia Chumak. Karelia NGO Resource Centre
2) Nicolaj Oskin. Karelia NGO Resource Centre
3) Aleksandr Konovalov, Karelia NGO Resource Centre
4) Valentina Podoynitsna, Zabaikal Union of Women
5) Olga Vadimirova Kostina, Zabaikal Union of Women
6) Natalia Vorontsova, Zvezda nadezhdy
7) Olga Prokudina, Zabaikal Union of Women
8) Nina Vorontsova, Zvezda Nadezhdy)
9) Vincenzo Milo, ILS LEDA
10) Luca Tesei Li Bassi, ILS LEDA
The teaching methodology of the workshop consisted in lectures and case studies, followed by Q&A sessions and practical exercises to allow for debate among participants.
This first workshop aimed to outline the general theoretical and operational approach of the project. As such, it covered a number of basic notions and concepts of territorial development, particularly in the field of tourism, namely:
1. competitive advantages in the field of tourism: main assets, recognizing specific differential characteristics, their territorial roots, also through international examples
2. the role of the territory: place where proximity plays a relevant role for impacting development strategies
3. the role of local actors: the importance of territorial relationships in order to foster coordinated decisions and actions
4. the key components of Local Economic Development: governance, strategy, implementation
5. the case of industrial districts in Italy, cradle of local economic development: coordination and specialization as key factors of their success
6. gender mainstreaming in local economic development
The goal was not only to share with the Russian partners the necessary tools for the next phases of the project, but more in general to develop a strategic way of thinking necessary to identify and collectively promote territorial value and capital – both economically and socially defined – throughout and beyond the realization of PROZVET.
In light of the nature of the PROZVET project, a particular highlight was given to the role of women as social and economic actors in local development processes.
The overall plan for the PROZVET first year webinars foresees the following 10 ones:
o Governance towards a territorial alliance (addressed to the partners)
o The operational tools: the actors data base (addressed to the partners)
o Importance of a comprehensive territorial service system (addressed to the partners)
o The project approach for strategic development (the RESCO tool, addressed to the partners)
o How to establish a comprehensive territorial system (operational tool, addressed to the partners))
o The European and international experience on LED (addressed to the project target organisations)
o The European and international experience on gender mainstream (addressed to the project target organisations)
o The tourism value chain assessment (individual and collective interviews, addressed to tourism value chain virtual focus groups)
o The tourism development strategies in Karelia and Zabaikal (addressed to the constituting territorial alliances of actors)
o The project priority actions (addressed to (addressed to the constituting territorial alliances of actors)
