The Committee on the Action Plan for the Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area Strategy to 2030 project has a new chairman following the appointment of Piotr Grzelak, vice-president of Gdansk, at a meeting of the committee last week.

The meeting began with Michal Glaser, Director of the Gdansk-Gdansk-Sopot Metropolitan Area Association, making a short speech on the role of the committee in monitoring and evaluating the action plan. This was followed by the election of new members of the committee where in a unanimous vote, Peter Grzelak was elected as the chairperson of the committee and Mateusz Szulc, Director of the Strategy and Development Department in Kartuzy, was elected a vice-chairperson.

This was followed by a presentation by Katarzyna Drozd-Wisniewska of Gdansk City Hall, whose responsibilities include coordinating the work of the Operational Programs for the Development Strategy of the City of Gdansk in 2030 Plus. Ms. Drozd-Wisniewska shared insights related to practical issues such as the construction and structure of the team responsible for developing the Operational Programs; workflow and the involvement of a broad group of partners involved in the process.  She also summed up the advantages and disadvantages of the adopted method of work.

Referring to that presentation, Mr Grzelak, who participates in the work of the Operational Programs, indicated that this work was valuable. "We have seen the interaction between directors of individual departments. Many people became involved in addition to their daily responsibilities. The creation of such a dedicated and interdisciplinary team will be very important in our work on the Action Plan for Metropolitan Strategy 2030” he added.

In another speech, Marcin Nowicki from Institute for Market Economics, talked about the key assumptions in building any kind of action plan. He spoke of how it was necessary, among other things, to create a sense of shared responsibility of all stakeholders for the process of preparing the action plan as well as its effects. He also stressed the importance of facing the challenges created due to the number of partners and different interests that must be taken into account when planning the development of a Metropolitan Area.

A discussion then followed where representatives of local governments gave their opinions on what the most rational and effective structural model of the action plan ought to be. It was suggested, among others, that it would be appropriate to establish working groups defined by the various themed committees to work on coordination and the framework of the action plan in these areas. It was also suggested that forums to allow dialogue to take place ought to be created as this would make work on specific projects easier and improve the dialogue with residents of the metropolitan area.

The next meeting of the committee will be held on December 14, from 12:00 -13: 30 at the headquarters of the Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area Association.