Swedish partner: Gävle kommun

The overall objective of the Good Governance Decision Making project is a more democratic society – improved decision making powers of local government, its citizens and groups within the community in order to find sustainable ways to meet social, economic and environmental needs and improve the quality of lives for all who live in the municipal area.

The Buffalo City and Gävle Partnership aims to implement global strategies such as the Millennium Goals and Agenda 21 locally. By working together through different forms of exchange of experiences Gävle and Buffalo City Metro Municipality will have improved their service delivery for their citizens and bettered dialogue with citizens, NGO´s and enterprises.

The objective of the project is increased knowledge and capacity of elected representatives and civil servants in Multi-level governance, Steering and Management and Public Private Partnership work.

The project tackles the issue of the challenge of including youth in the local democratic processes. In today`s situation, the strategic and political decisions in the municipalities concerning youth are not always knowledge-based. The knowledge on the situation of youth, their opinions and how they lead their lives, is inadequate. In addition, the knowledge and information at hand is not being used efficiently.

Due to the lack of innovative platforms for youth influence in both municipalities, Buffalo City and Gävle have a challenge of including youth in the democratic processes – youth councils, elections, public participation and citizen dialogue. The municipalities need effective tools to reach and include youth in local democratic processes.

Today both municipalities face a risk of higher number of youth that experience social exclusion, and also increased youth unemployment level. If youth are not included in the society, long term effects like increased poverty, crime, violence and inequality can emerge. In addition to that, there is the risk that educated and motivated youth move away, to find better opportunities. Both municipalities need to build trust in local government and institutions and achieve youth participation in local government processes. The project will carry out activities that aim to achieve that strategic and political decisions on youth related matters to be more knowledge-based.

Innovative platforms for youth influence will be implemented, and the Youth Councils capacity will be strengthened to be used as a tool for the Municipalities to reach and include youth in local democratic processes.

The ”Non-Discrimination in Local Governance” project aims to reduce intolerance amongst local communities especially related to vulnerable groups (different races/gender/displaced/refugees/foreigners/sexual orientation/disabled etc) and strengthen integration of these communities for a more united society and non discriminating community.

The project objective is to strengthen municipal knowledge, understanding and capacities on issues of discrimination in order to improve policies and platforms for integration in the municipality.

This will be achieved through study visits, workshadowing of partners, workshops, seminars, and presentations. The aim is also to create improved platforms for communication and dialogue on discrimination in the municipality. The activities will aim to raise awareness as well as spread knowledge and experience on non-discrimination in a wider perspective in the organization.

Discrimination runs against the most fundamental values of a modern society. In fact, it is a threat to democracy, which is predicated on the idea of a society in which arbitrary hierarchies and preferences based on, for example gender, ethnic origin, and wealth have been eliminated with a view to achieving equality. Democracy recognizes worth and equal rights of all whereby, equality prohibits discrimination which is also the cornerstone of human rights.

Discrimination not only forms a menace to the society, but also to the individual who is subjected to such an adverse treatment as it is a direct denial of the equal worth of the victim. It is a violation of a person’s identity. The consequences of discrimination match the severity of the offence, a causal link to alienation, exclusion, radicalization and decreasing psychological well-being.