Metropolitan Commitment 2030 is the new strategic plan for the Barcelona metropolitan region with a 2030 vision for the real city of five millioninhabitants. It is made up of eight collective missions aimed at giving new impetus to local economic and social prosperity aimed at reducing inequalities and combating the climate emergency. It is the first plan that focuses on fewer ambitious, cross-cutting and transformative objectives and should serve as a guide for the coordinated action of a large number of actors in the region (the public administration, the private sector, research centres and academia, citizen platforms and the media).
Scope of action
The city of Barcelona is divided into 10 districts and 1.6 million people live there. The Barcelona metropolitan area consists of 36 municipalities, with 3.3 million residents and its own governing body, the AMB
The Barcelona metropolitan region has 160 municipalities, in which some five million people live. In accordance with the 2010 Metropolitan Territorial Plan, it includes the regions of Barcelonès, Maresme, Vallès Oriental, Vallès Occidental, Alt Penedès, Garraf and Baix Llobregat.
The real Barcelona is the metropolitan region, the city of five million, but it lacks governance instruments that make it possible to articulate common policies. That is why the scope of Metropolitan Commitment 2030 is the metropolitan region, but it works through missions that make progress in policies and projects while building governance from the bottom up.
In the Barcelona Demà process, the benchmark territory has been that of the Barcelona metropolitan region, to which the rest of the Penedès Vegueria, created in 2017 by law, was added by the will of the institutions.
Thus, the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan has contemplated 199 municipalities (127 from the metropolitan region and 72 from the Penedès Vegueria) in the process Barcelona Demà. Metropolitan Commitment 2030, where more than five million people live.
Missions
During the joint creation process of the new strategic plan, the PEMB has followed an approach inspired by the work of the economist Mariana Mazzucato and the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London: mission-oriented innovation.
A mission is a cross-cutting, ambitious and transformative objective that must serve as a guide for the coordinated action of a wide range of actors (citizens included). In the Barcelona metropolitan region, it will make it possible to promote and coordinate innovative responses to challenges on this scale.
A mission appeals to the ability to mobilise many different actors into action, so that resources and tools are also multiplied and diversified.
Barcelona Demà has been the process of reflection and collective debate to draw up the new strategic plan for the metropolis of five million: Metropolitan Commitment 2030, which must face the great urban challenges of the 21st century.
In order to define the missions, the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan organised the Metropolitan Cycles, discussions involving all the members of the quintuple helix aimed at extracting the main challenges for the future that laid the foundations for defining the missions that make up Metropolitan Commitment 2030.
See the rest of the process in this section. What are the missions of Metropolitan Commitment 2030?
The eight missions that make up the Metropolitan Commitment 2030 are:
Innovative and inclusive economy mission: promote technology transfer to improve the international position as an innovative region.
Sufficient income level mission: ensure that work allows you to sustain a life in decent conditions.
Environmental and climate emergency mission: mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure a healthy habitat based on a fair transition in the energy model and sustainable resource management.
Sustainable and safe mobility mission: improve the connectivity and efficiency of daily journeys with a reduction in unsustainable mobility.
Healthy food mission: guarantee access to healthier and more sustainable food for everyone, everywhere.
Territorial cohesion mission: reduce urban vulnerability and inequalities between neighbourhoods in the metropolitan region to guarantee equal opportunities for the entire population.
Adequate housing mission: to make housing affordable, efficient and comfortable as the foundation of the right to the city.
Cultural vitality mission: promote cultural rights to become a fairer, more equitable and sustainable metropolis.
Each of these missions has a specific commitment to achieve by 2030.
How to participate
There are several levels of involvement in Metropolitan Commitment 2030:
Joining. This involves publicly supporting the initiative, either as part of the General Council of the PEMB or as an external actor. The affiliated institutions, companies or organisations will receive all the information on the progress of the process and will be invited to participate in acts and activities that are carried out over time.
Project contribution. This involves incorporating into the Metropolitan Commitment 2030 database an initiative led by the corresponding institution, company or organisation that is aligned with one of the eight missions. Development proposals can be made on these projects: expansion of the territory of incidence, incorporation of new actors, replicability, etc. within the deployment work of each mission.
Promotion of new projects. Thus involves being part of the driving groups that will design and/or incubate new projects that help to roll out the missions of Metropolitan Commitment 2030.
All you have to do is fill out the membership form, where you must indicate which of the options you choose. Joining is always done in the name of an institution, company or organisation, so it must be done with the corresponding authorisation. The PEMB is not responsible for memberships that do not meet this requirement, although it will carry out significant verification work.
Projects eligible for inclusion in the Metropolitan Commitment 2030 database must invite action and be aligned with the levers that have been defined for each of the eight missions that make up the Commitment. In addition, they must have the following characteristics, to varying degrees:
To have an impact on or take the reduction of social inequalities into account or, in any case, to ensure that the project generates a positive social impact.
Have as broad a territorial scope as possible. If possible, it should be on the scale of the metropolitan region or, failing that, despite being local, the project should have an impact on the region or metropolis or be replicable across the territory.
Enjoy the collaboration of various actors of the quintuple helix: public administration, business sector, civil society and citizens’ organisations, university and research and the media.
Be underway or likely to be in the near future. Failing that, it should be the start of a project that responds to a key need for the territory.
