Bilbao City of Values

The local experience

After an economic, social and environmental crisis experienced in the 80s, Bilbao has led an urban transformation and has become a reference model for the whole world. The new Bilbao is the result of public-public commitment and collaboration, with the union of all the administrations, as well as collaboration with the private sector and the citizens themselves, in a common task aimed at the transformation of the city.

From the profound urban and economic development of Bilbao, the identification of the renewed social values of its citizens was seen as a fundamental exercise to position the city in the context of the most advanced and collaborative European areas.

Under this framework, Bilbao City of Values - Bilbao Balioen Hiria was born as an innovative project based on extensive processes of co-creation and citizen participation. The process has had 4 phases that include the elaboration of the vademecum of values, the approval of the Bilbao Charter of Values, the approval of the axes and actions of the values development plan and the development of the Bilbao Balioen Hiria Roadmap 2019-2023.

The Bilbao Charter of Values gathers 17 values, aligned with the 17 SDGs, which make up that common framework to drive the city's development and action frameworks.

You can visit the official site of Bilbao Balioen Hiria (Bilbao City of Values) here.

Read the Charter of Values of Bilbao in English here.

The Charter of Values is also available in Basque, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Romanian and Portuguese.

Locally-driven

Bilbao Balioen Hiria has been created from a space for analysis, dialogue, reflection and collaborative work between institutions, social and cultural entities, business, media, schools and citizens to promote a framework of shared values in Bilbao. The project is based on participation and co-creation with citizens, economic, social and cultural agents and with the University as a collaborating agent in the design, execution and monitoring of the project.

The Local4Action HUB initiative aims to share and scale the methodology used so that local governments and cities can co-create their own charter of values from participation, as well as the roadmap established for the deployment of the charter at local and international level.

Tools

In this section, we will share information about the different tools that were used during the City of Values project in Bilbao.