123 Spanish cities receive funding to develop Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategies

The first round of funding showed that the development of DUSI strategies was an unprecedented challenge for local authorities, not merely due to the amount of financial resources allocated (triple that of previous periods) but also because of the need to present a Comprehensive Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy for the Municipality.

The effort made by Spain in this field has been highly significant. In fact, all municipalities of over 50,000 inhabitants and 44% of those with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants presented strategies in the first round of funding, resulting in almost 70% of municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants being able to propose and implement sustainable and integrated urban development strategies.

From this second round of funding, it should be noted that all municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants that could opt for this funding have presented strategies. As was the case in the first round of funding, all strategies were assessed entirely independently by three different ministerial departments (State Secretary for Budgets and Expenditure, Regional Authorities and Ministry of Public Works). They were also examined by three sectoral departments with expertise on the issues of Information and Communication Technologies (Red.es), Transition towards a Low-Carbon Economy (Energy Diversification and Saving Institute [Spanish acronym: IDAE]) and Social Inclusion and the Fight against Poverty (ESF), as well as by the specific networks responsible for Environment Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

The meetings held by the Assessment Committee were also attended by all those involved (over 30 specialists), as well as representatives from the European Commission. All the assessments were validated and ratified by the members of the Assessment Committee.

Allocation of resources

The current round of funding includes financial support for 30% of the total provision scheduled in the Operational Programme on Sustainable Growth, i.e. 301.4 million euros of ERDF funding. When combined with the first round of funding, this totals 1.01 billion euros of ERDF funding included under the Urban Axis.

This second round of funding has maintained the three funding categories that were previously defined by the Assessment Committee during the first round of funding, which are based on population as follows:

• For cities or functional areas with over 100,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit will be 15 million euros
• For cities or functional areas with over 50,000 inhabitants and less than 100,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit will be 10 million euros
• For cities or functional areas with over 20,000 inhabitants and less than 50,000 inhabitants, the co-financed funding limit will be 5 million euros

Of the 40 strategies selected, 13 are from authorities with over 100,000 inhabitants, provincial capitals or regional capitals to be managed by the Subdirectorate-General for European Regional Cooperation and Urban Development, while the other 27 strategies will be managed by the Directorate-General for Coordination with Regional Governments and Local Authorities.

New round of funding for DUSI Strategies

With the first and second rounds of funding under the ERDF resources initially scheduled for this Urban Axis now complete, the Ministry of the Treasury and Public Function will soon announce a third round of funding to follow the final decision from the second round.