A NEW REALITY THAT REQUIRES NEW ANSWERS
The world as we know it has changed. We live in an inter-connected world, at a time of complete transformation. All regions across Europe face the impact of global economic changes.
New challenges arise every day in this new global context: climate change and energy industry restructuring, demographic changes and ageing, education in the digital environment, new technologies and cybersecurity, smart cities, etc.
Besides, the economic crisis has posed a scenario full of uncertainty and has exposed the welfare system’s weaknesses, and reminded us that the successes of the past are no guarantee for the future.
The worlds evolves very quickly and Gipuzkoa does as well.
Gipuzkoa is an advanced territory, with a high degree of development and social cohesion located in the Basque Country, one of the most competitive European regions.
However, the profound and accelerated changes in the global context also mean that Gipuzkoa faces great challenges.
At the beginning of the legislature, in 2015, the Provincial Council of Gizpuzkoa conducted a survey to the citizens that highlighted:
- The profound disaffection of the citizenship towards politics. 85,5% want to change the relationship between institutions and society
- The citizens’ concern for the future, for their own future and for that of their closest people. Citizens ask themselves how they will get older, who will care for them in the future, what their children will be working on, how technological changes will affect them, etc.
In this context, where we are faced with these increasingly complex challenges, it becomes more necessary than ever to think about responses, both for the present and for the future. Responses that demand that public administrations have to push a new political agenda and do things differently.
The Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, from the conviction that to build a better future for the territory it is necessary to change the way of doing politics and involve the society of Gipuzkoa in the construction of that future, bets to launch the ETORKIZUNA ERAIKIZ initiative, an open and collaborative governance model to build an own future bringing people together with the public institutions.
A governance model aimed at promoting reflection in the medium and long term, with an approach aimed at action and experimentation and in a shared and cooperative way.
Definitely, it means a large-scale exercise in social innovation, which aims to build the Gipuzkoa of the future from today and, above all, to do so by involving as many agents and citizens as possible.
WHAT IS ETORKIZUNA ERAIKIZ?
ETORKIZUNA ERAIKIZ is not a plan. It is a model to DETECT our next challenges, DESIGN ways of overcoming them, and EXPERIMENT with them in real-life environments to draw conclusions and APPLY what we have learned to the rest of Gipuzkoa’s society.
This model is based on:
OPEN AND COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE
It is a new model of open and collaborative governance that involves organisations, businesses, associations, and universities working together to achieve a more equal future for everyone. It forces politicians to abandon theory and bureaucracy, and relearn how to apply real solutions to real-life scenarios. It forces us to manage things in a different way.
MULTI-STAKEHOLDER REFLECTION
Part of this project is defining how we want to build Gipuzkoa’s future together for the next 10 years (Gipuzkoa 2026), in an open and participative society. We must jointly address the uncertainty of contemporary societies to build, thus, a better and sustainable future for all.
Besides, we transform Gipuzkoa into a laboratory of advanced experiences for the future.
CITIZENS INVOLVEMENT
It is also our way of getting citizens involved. This is a model where every citizen’s voice is heard, building the structures necessary for interaction. It is not only a tool to listen to citizens, but a proposal to work together with them to respond/face the most important challenges of the territory. It is an invitation to design and build our future together, based on the premise that tomorrow starts today.
ETORKIZUNA ERAIKIZ is based on a relationship that promotes the reflection and experimentation that characterizes this project, building public policies that guarantee the regionÕs economic, social, and political future. This in addition to addressing the overall challenges that will impact the general publicÕs day-to-day lives.
Ultimately, it is a model that works to find new answers based on our values in Gipuzkoa, the values of cooperation and teamwork that define us and have brought us to where we are today.