There are more than 210 million Europeans who are physically inactive, leading to annual healthcare cost of €80 billion, informed Laurent Thieule, President of Sport and Citizenship. This has become a major challenge for individuals and local decision-makers. However, among the latter,only 66% are aware of the scale of the challenge. Mr Thieule underlined the crucial role of municipalities in addressing this challenge, as the local level has a direct and stronger impact compared to national policy. However, this level of governance has so far been ignored by physical activity research.

Detlef Dumon, Executive Director of the ICSSPE, explained the PACTE project's 'PASSPORT survey' which gave essential local policy information and content for the development of the Matrix for Change. Collating 633 survey responses between April and August 2018 this survey showed 54% of municipalities which have an activity policy is  separate to the national policy. While the survey highlighted the effectiveness of governance networks in sharing knowledge to achieve desired results, it also revealed a lack of engagement with targeted workplace interventions. The survey brought attention to the fact that the promotion of physical activity requires addressing the status of and the personal and contextual settings in which policy takes place.

“An active city promotes physical activity where people are. Active cities are places where there is a strategy, where all are aware of the benefits of activity and the challenges of inactivity, a place where the silos have been broken and where there is interaction among stakeholders of all levels.” Jean- François Laurent, Junior Director TAFISA.

Jean- François Laurent of TAFISA underlined the effectiveness of municipalities in targeting and reversing trends of inactivity. Cities are the closest level of governance for people, the places where life is lived, and creating new and targeted responses requires this level. Nicky Yates, Strategic Physical Activity and Sports Development Manager at Liverpool City Council, presented the success story of Liverpool’s Active City Strategy. Ms Yates emphasized that it is not only sport that should be targeted but inactivity, through cross-sectoral inclusion of stakeholders from education, health and community safety. Particular attention should be paid to vulnerable communities and areas and marketing strategies help in awareness. Paula Nogueira of the Guimarães municipality in Portugal echoed this approach. The municipality has a double-pronged approach, focusing on competitive sport and "Sport for All". Both require a long-term strategy and an iterative approach, leaving room for new requests and demands.

Michael Gross of Evaleo underlined the importance of building up partnerships and giving support for individuals and small groups in creating Active Cities. “There is no linear approach or chronological process” said Mr Gross, “...it starts with people and depends on where they come from: public, private or civil society”. Collaboration, partnerships, and alliances are crucial in the early stages, and programmes should be considered as a process rather than a result.

Froso Christofides, Members & Networks manager of ECF, stressed that successful implementation of an active mobility strategy requires it to be part of a shared vision towards greener, healthier and more liveable cities. Cooperation is essential across departments on a local level, across sectors, and levels of governance. On a local level,  departments working on environment, health, sport, education, and transport must come together. Cities partnering with civil society and the private sector encourage ownership, uptake, and participation. Public-private partnerships are key, as in the case of our Cycle-friendly Employer Certification (CFE). The scheme is implemented in 17 countries by predominantly civil society organisations which have achieved success in partnering with local authorities to deliver CFE certifications to employers (see article here for more information).  Ultimately, active mobility strategies have to also be efficiently integrated into national action plans. While cycling is often perceived as a local issue, national and regional legislation can significantly affect the ability of local authorities in providing coherent, safe, direct, comfortable, and attractive cycling infrastructure.

Cycling was singled out for its enormous benefits by Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, one of the keynote speakers of the webinar. In London increased physical activity was achieved through increasing the cycling network. London aims to double the number of daily cycle users from 750,000 to 1,500,000 in 5 years, and the COVID-19 crisis has allowed the city to create an additional 90km of cycling infrastructure in 4 months, more than doubling the 50km of network. The opportunity created in designing more cycle-friendly cities and to induce more active citizens was something touched upon by Ms Christofides who remarked that more than 2300km of new cycling infrastructure has been announced this year (see ECF’s Cycling Measure tracker for more information), of which more than 1100km has already been implemented. Mr Norman acknowledged that it is necessary to design and embed physical activity into daily lives, not only cities. It is necessary to bring all sectors together, as active citizens and active cities are not only good for the health but for business, economy and society, as agreed with by keynote speaker Roland Faraks, Policy Assistant with the Sport Unit at the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, which funds the SHARE initiative, one of the many ways which take place at the EU level to enable concrete changes for activity at the local and regional level.

The Matrix for Change was created to directly deal with the requirement of addressing the status and the personal and contextual settings in which policy takes place when it comes to activity policy. This freely accessible and easy-to-use interactive tool guides and assists local authorities and municipalities in creating a tailor-made Active City Action Plan  to help municipalities realise their potential as providers of sport and physical activity.

For more info on the PACTE project click here.