FEDERACIÓN ESPAÑOLA DE MUNICIPIOS Y PROVINCIAS

We are more than 100 experts working at our HQ and count on a local, regional and European organizations’ networks available to work with. FEMP belongs to the European Council of Municipalities and Provinces (CEMR) and to the global Association of United Cities and Local governments (UCLG).

The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) is the Non-Profit Association of Local Entities with the highest level of representation, which includes City Councils, County Councils, Councils and Island Councils. A total of 7,324, representing more than 90% of the Spanish Local Governments.

It was constituted under the provisions of Additional 5th Provision of 7/1985 Act, in April 2, and was declared as an Association of Public Utility by means of an Agreement of the Council of Ministers of June 26, 1985.

FEMP is the Spanish Section of the Council of Municipalities and Regions of Europe (CEMR) and the official headquarters of the Latin-American Organization for Inter-municipal Cooperation (OICI).

Our foundational and statutory purposes are:

• the promotion and defence of the autonomy of the Local Entities;
• the representation and defence of the general interests of the Local Entities before other Public Administrations;
• the development and consolidation of the European spirit at the local level, based on autonomy and solidarity between Local Authorities;
• the promotion of friendly relations and cooperation with Local Entities and their organizations, especially in the European, Latin-American and Arabic spheres;
• the provision, directly or through companies or entities, of all kinds of services to the Local Corporations may need.

Our main working areas of expertise are the following ones:

From the area of Social Rights and Citizenship:

12 agreements are currently being developed regarding prevention of drug addiction, work for the benefit of the community, positive parenting, telecare, youth projects, performing arts, reading promotion, prevention of school dropout, working and private life balance, gender violence. Ageing society, inclusive cities and territories, security and countering measures to face radicalization, social householdings, migrant’s inclusion and protection, decent jobs, citizenship, coexistence.

From the Welfare State area FEMP allocates, coordinates and fosters resources devoted to social inclusion of vulnerable people: active ageing, minor protection, migrants support and universal social security card. Building up a joint know-how acting principles as well as management systems on social policies is our basic element. Regarding migrants, our capacities are focused on rising up new critical thought spaces and  meeting points to favour the exchange of experiences to promote and implement social inclusion, prevent potential risk situations and promote living together regardless origins and culture.

Inquires, research, studies and initiatives on Sports, youth and leisure are developed to build local capabilities and promote their implementation as well as the improvement of facilities and means.

The aim of the equal opportunities area is its promotion within all local public policies and to include the gender perspective throughout the whole local life: breaking the glass ceiling, empowering women to participate in taking decisions bodies, networking… and promoting equality and new roles of men.

Building reflection spaces and meeting points to favour exchanges on social inclusion to prevent risks and promote coexistence at local level through common management principles are our basic tasks.

FEMP has a permanent commitment to eradicate the great scourge of our society: violence against women and girls. To this end, we promote the development of municipal plans and programs and work with the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality to develop awareness and support programs for women victims of gender violence and their children. We also extend these measures to prevent attitudes of violence among the youth population.

FEMP is paying special attention to urban policies according to OD as source of quality of living, employment, energy efficiency and inclusion. From our Mobility and Accessibility Area our mission is to foster local policies under the universal access and plan for all premises to make people enjoy an independent life and use all public services, places and products within their surroundings.

We also offer a new public procurement service that enables any local or regional entity to take out any kind of services or supplies. FEMP provides a help desk firms and local governments support service and a transparency and free competition framework that foster innovation through an IT procurement platform that follows standardized forms. Urban lighting and fuel supplies, connecting services, circular economy, social blockchain, ITC, NT, greening, etc.

We also foster and support socially responsible consumption and trade of good and services as ways of wealth and innovation. The Transport and infrastructure area is focused on sustainable mobility, road safety, collective urban transportation. Our participation in the Metropolitan Mobility Observatory gives us a full view about the use of resources and the way public authorities strengthen efficiency measures to better public transport services in a sustainable way.

International cooperation activities are focused on empower and boost the good will of the Spanish local bodies. Our know how, experience and global networking are at their service to develop decentralizing, governing and local autonomy projects.

FEMP is also focused on Rural development, depopulation and preservation of rural life.

As fostering sustainability is a priority, FEMP encourages the implementation of Agenda 21 at local level: renewal energies, recycling, waste and water management, mobility plans, nature preservation, etc. Universal accessibility and all-inclusive mobility conception are also common and important challenges to overcome.

From our Culture corner we build up useful and friendly-user toolkits to plan and assess local cultural policies and we provide a common good practices platform to foster exchanges, training and research and empower local cultural managers. This work targets the key role of local governments in the cultural arena, the need of a well-structured inter-administrative cooperation, a joint assessment index and the coordination of the existing cultural labs and observatories and finally, the promotion of public & private cultural cooperation programs.

Our Employment and Economic development area supports local employment services and their coordination with the regional and national services, specially focused on vulnerable people. Entrepreneurship and working out well for SMEs are special important factors as revitalizing actors in local economies.

Social dialogue practices to drive public service workers’ career and skills to better public services is a core dimension to strengthen municipalization based on quality and active citizenship.

Spreading the information society and ITC within the local bodies and their functioning is a big issue as the electronic public services administration will change our way of life. Taking advantage of new means to better relationships among citizens and the public administration is our priority.

Tourism’s FEMP area is focused on promoting touristic destinations through studies, strategies and value local resources from a bottom-up line where citizens, social partners and civil society are engaged. Our aim on this topic is to promote and disseminate tourist destinations and building up local products’ strategies to value local resources in a coordinated way. We also deliver a framework for exchanging good practices and benchmarking on tourism initiatives to foster and spread them as real agents of change and development.

FEMP know-how and expertise is based on a wide local, regional, national, European and international reliable thematic, geographical, horizontal, sector networks to better our societies and environment.

To make real-life solutions through an accurate implementation of the circular economy strategy to empower local governments to fight against pollution and waste  is also well connected with our international, local and regional experience anchored on public and private services to promote sustainability at local level. Our capacity and closeness of city governments, local firms and local based knowledge and the possibility of connecting, compile and compare local and innovative experiences may give you an outstanding platform to contribute to create a strong and real impact.

Our national and international networking experience is a real asset to develop accurate and well-structured building capacities and explore new means and partnerships.

I hope this brief description could be useful for you and will foster a strong joint cooperation.