In more than 30 years of Interreg, the stakeholders participating in the programmes have become diverse. Indeed, the role of citizens and civil-society organisations (CSOs) is getting more and more important as they can be a relevant force in making public investment more efficient and effective. Citizen’s participation and empowerment is an essential element of legitimacy and accountability in policy-making This drive for efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and ownership very well aligns with the partnership principle: a key principle that applies to all the stages of the programming: in designing, implementing, and evaluating programmes and projects.

The genuine and meaningful involvement of citizens and civil society’s organisations into the programmes can be a clear example of how Interreg not only works for the people, by encouraging regions and countries to tackle challenges together, but also with the people.

This cooperation between citizens, civil society actors and institutions can be strongly supported and promoted through different fields of actions in the new Interreg-specific objective “A better cooperation governance”.

The meeting aims to highlight good practices from both cohesion policy and Interreg programmes, by showing

• the DG Regio initiatives;
• the OECD research and studies;
• the two pilots of Interreg programmes that already started developing tools and/or participation processes; and
• direct experience of citizens and civil society organisations involved in Interreg/EU funded programmes

Target group

We warmly invite Interreg programme bodies and civil society organisations to attend the event.