The Algarve Regional Council is promoting this Friday, September 11, in Loulé, a session specially dedicated to the discussion and voting of the Regional Strategy Algarve 2030, with the presence of Ana Abrunhosa, Minister for Territorial Cohesion, and Carlos Miguel, Assistant Secretary of State and Regional Development.
As part of the strategic reflection promoted by the Government on the future of Portugal and the Algarve in the medium and long term, it was “an exercise of the greatest importance”, in the words of Francisco Serra, president of the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR Algarve) , translating into a document in which “the major objectives and priorities for the region, as well as the public policies that compete for them” are listed.
This session of the Algarve Regional Council, CCDR Algarve's consultative body, closes a set of fifty hearings and public consultations held since 2018 to debate and build the Regional Strategy for the Algarve 2030, in a process that directly involved around 1.200 participants from the institutional, economic and social sectors in the region.
The process was based on a critical reading of the balance of interventions by CRESC Algarve 2020, in particular its smart specialization strategy (RIS3 Algarve), and on the documents produced and contributions received from entities operating in the region's territory.
Francisco Serra stresses that “preparation for the next programming period presupposes the development of a prospective diagnosis that allows us to frame the regional reality, in terms of its constraints, its capacities and the existing or foreseeable opportunities”.
This exercise #supports the revisiting of regional strategy documents and naturally bears in mind what are the guidelines of national and community public policy for the medium term, and is therefore developed in a specific conceptual framework and in a format that is intended to be systemic", adds.
In parallel, "this exercise takes place in a context marked by the needs of societal transition (in a context of effective and efficient use of available resources), as a response to the challenges arising from structural changes, which require integrated and urgent responses ranging from changes to the digitization of the economy”.
"The issue, while not new, now requires a more effective, urgent and transversal approach, and it is crucial that the region prepares and positions itself for change, bearing in mind the relevance and demands that these matters will have in the design of the future, now questioned by the pandemic of the new coronavirus, for which emergency responses were made available to companies, workers and families, facing the multiple socio-economic impacts, whose real gravity is yet to be known”, says Francisco Serra.
“The moment demands increased responsibility on the part of regional actors, with a view to valuing strategic assets, endogenous resources and installed skills that have not been shaken, and which must be placed at the service of the recovery and affirmation of the Algarve. Committing to a long-term strategy with immediate response approaches, which fit into their own instruments, already activated, can generate consequences as severe as those of the crisis itself”, says the president of CCDR Algarve.
In this sense, "taking into account the technical experience of the CCDR Algarve services and the articulation with the sectoral dimensions and with the inter-municipal level, we sought to identify, whenever possible, the lines of force that aim to implement the strategy", concludes the president of the CCDR Algarve, assuming “sustainable development as a macro design of the vision that is desired for the region by 2030, it is necessary to look for in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more current than ever, a strong correlation and transversal involvement of all, in line with what was widely desired by the participants in the process of collecting contributions carried out by the CCDR Algarve, within the scope of the Portugal 2030 discussion.”
Considering the constraints and limitations imposed by the pandemic context, the session of the Regional Council of the Algarve will take place at the Cineteatro Louletano, in Loulé, at 10 am, under the presidency of Vítor Aleixo (president of the Regional Council and of the Municipality of Loulé).
The election of members of the Standing Committee (vice-chairman and member) and the Algarve representative on the Economic and Social Council, to be elected from among the representatives of the Algarve's Local Authorities (Municipalities and Parishes) are also included in the work agenda.
At the end of the session, the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, the President of the Algarve Regional Council and the President of the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission will be available to make statements to the Media.
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