Projects

PROJECT CIRCLE

CIRCLE was an entity established by Federico II University of Naples, which was born in partnership with the United Nations (UNDP, UNOPS, and UNESCO) to carry out training, technical assistance and internationalization projects for local socio-economic development to fight against poverty, social exclusion, and to promote territorial competitiveness compatible with human development and safeguarding the environment in the era of globalization.

CIRCLE involved highly qualified and committed references to promote the link between the academic world and the international cooperation world, and between Northern and Southern countries, contributing in guiding science, politics and experiences towards human development.

CIRCLE capitalized and collected experiences and skills from ILS LEDA network developed in more than 10 years of international cooperation programs for local economic development in cooperation with several UN Agencies, as well as training, technical assistance, and internationalization.

CIRCLE project operates through:

• a network of universities, including the Autonomous University of Madrid, Bilbao, Grenoble, Toulouse, Lecco-Varese, Piacenza, Tor Vergata, Federico II Naples, Durham, Sussex, Toronto York, London School of Economics; Seville, Buenos Aires, The Andes of Colombia, Fort Hare of South Africa, CREAD of Algería;
• a network of international entities, among them EURADA (European Association of Development Agencies,) OCSE-LEED, the network constituted by 50 local economic development agencies promoted by the United Nations, FORMEZ Italy;
• the partnership established through the UNDP with cooperation programs and initiatives in countries of Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa;
• competences and relationships made available by Federico II University.

The main objectives of CIRCLE are:

• Feeding the debate on the quality of policies, programs and methodologies in terms of local socio-economic development.
• Improving capacity building of human development operators at the local level and guiding university curricula and specialized training, stimulating the link between theory and practice.
• Providing technical assistance to countries and cooperation programs, which pursue processes and strategies for socio-economic territorial and human development.
• Promoting and sustaining international partnerships, which are based on the contribution of local actors from North and South of the world, also with reference to the link between university and territory.

The following programs were implemented through CIRCLE:

• Support to UNOPS programs in Albania, Serbia, and Colombia
• A decentralized cooperation program in Serbia commissioned by the Campania Region
• A map of academic skills in international cooperation commissioned by the Campania Region