Speaker
Description
The proposal draws on Italy's National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI), a place-based policy designed to address the multifaceted development challenges faced by Italy’s inner areas, which are often characterized by demographic decline, geographic isolation, and inadequate access to essential services. SNAI represents a novel policy framework in Italy that emphasizes the importance of participatory development, particularly through its co-design phase, which seeks to involve local communities and stakeholders actively in shaping developmental trajectories. This approach underscores a combination between top-down policy implementation and a more inclusive, bottom-up model aimed at fostering local development of marginal areas, through the improvement of essential service such as health, education and mobility.
Central to the research is a qualitative evaluation of the SNAI’s co-design phase implemented in an inner area of Aosta Valley, a mountainous region in Northwestern Italy. This case study highlights critical limitations both in the national application of the policy and within the specific local context. Using qualitative research methods, the study examines the participatory frameworks employed by the SNAI and compares these with the LEADER approach implemented by LAG EVV operating in a mountainous territory in the neighbouring region of Piedmont, to identify key lessons and transferable practices. Rather than suggesting a wholesale integration of LEADER principles into the SNAI framework, the analysis focuses on specific mechanisms, such as fostering local networks and leveraging community assets, that could potentially strengthen the participatory dimensions of SNAI.
| Keywords | National Strategy of Inner Areas; LEADER; multilevel governance; Participation |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
