Portfolio

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” said the Red Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” by L. Carroll, a lecturer of the Oxford University. And she was very right.

Work is underway on the Wroclaw Development Strategy for 2050. This is a SUPER-IMPORTANT plan that will determine not only the directions of Wroclaw’s development, but will also influence the development of the Wroclaw metropolitan area and even the region.

When in February 2023 I was finishing a two-day training on strategic governance of city development for the authorities and management of Miasto Jelenia Góra, the Mayor Jerzy Łużniak asked me: “Will you support us in building a new Strategy?”

Can public strategic governance be learned? Or do you have to be born with a talent for it?

We ALL need educated public authorities and officials, at all levels, from state to municipal. And it’s not about some education, but about good quality education, appropriate to the duties, real, modern, practical, solid and regularly updated. Private and professional life, prosperity, environment, space and safety of EACH OF US depend on it.

“Manage the public affairs as if you had no private interests” and “Liberty can not be sold for all the gold of the world”. These two mottos, visible (to this day) on historical buildings of the authorities of the Republic of Ragusa (today’s Dubrovnik), together with excellent strategic governance, brought it centuries of prosperity and undisputed power.

During the European Economic Congress Katowice, Poland, I will have the honor of presenting awards to the winners of TOP Municipal Investments. This is a Poland’s nationwide competition for the most pro-development, bold, strategic investments of municipalities, counties and regions. We, as the Consultative Board, have already chosen our favorites, but your opinion also counts

One of the conditions for developing a good strategy is to listen to residents and entrepreneurs, especially leaders and decision-makers.

I don’t just develop city development strategies. Mayors also let me review their projects. I’ve done two recently. The idea is that I find their imperfections, the authorities correct them and the strategy becomes better – for residents, business and the environment.

A draft amendment to the *Environment Protection Law* has just been submitted to the Polish Parliament, obliging the authorities of all 2477 communes to set not only social, economic and spatial strategic goals in their strategies, but also “climate and environmental” ones!

Roseto is a small city in the USA (PA) that surprised scientists in the 20th century. The mortality rate of its inhabitants, Italian migrants, was approximately 1/3 lower than the average. This phenomenon could not be explained for a long time.

The recent amendment to one of Polish legal acts determined that the MASTERPLAN takes into account in particular the spatial policy of the commune specified in the commune’s development strategy or the supra-local development strategy of communes.

As part of my travels in search of local development and inspirations for local & regional governments, I had the honor and pleasure of talking about Maltese local governments with the Acting President of Malta Prof. Frank Bezzina and with the Director General for Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta, Natalino Attard

A lot is happening in politics, law, economy, technology, society, environment, etc. How can you find your way in this with your commune/city? What its development strategy you should develop, adapt and implement?

There are few things only that can teach you as much as a solid, but well-thought-out failure! This also applies to strategic governance of the cities’ & communes’ development.

The Development Strategy of the Dobrzyniewo Duże Commune for 2023-2033, prepared by me, was adopted unanimously. I also prepared the previous one, and within its framework the authorities and employees of the commune managed to achieve a lot.

As many as several dozen professors and doctoral students came to my lecture at Manisa Celal Bayar University. Self-government is also a hot topic in Turkey, so current Polish reforms in the field of development strategies of communes are of great interest here.

A quarter of a century of work on city/commune development strategies and hundreds of training courses I have given on this subject tell me one thing. Poland needs thousands of highly qualified and motivated local authorities and self-government managers.

So it happened! Yesterday, the President of Poland signed an act that not only revolutionizes our spatial planning, but also gives a superior role to commune development strategy (we have 2477 communes), making it mandatory soon.

The book I reviewed for AOSIS Scholarly Books describes the methods of promoting sustainable economic development used by South African local authorities.