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Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative: Urban Policies and Practices for Inclusion

Publication Date:

11/05/2026

Content Type:

Event Reports

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community tensionsInclusionTransatlantic DialogueTransatlantic Dialogue InitiativeUrban Policies

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This report provides a summary of discussions during the event and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Strong Cities Network Management Unit, Strong Cities members, event sponsors or participants.

Event Details

Description: A convening of the 15 metropolitan cities of Italy with 13 cities from other European countries, Canada and the United States for a transatlantic dialogue on city-led efforts to promote inclusion and cohesion.

Where & When: 6 – 8 May 2026, Reggio Calabria (Italy)

Cities Represented

• Austria: Graz 
• Belgium: Mechelen 
• Canada: Edmonton (British Columbia), Ottawa (Ontario), Toronto (Ontario) 
• Germany: Berlin 
• Italy: Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Messina, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Sassari, Torino, Venice  
• Norway: Oslo 
• Spain: Fuenlabrada 
• United States: Columbus (Ohio), Los Angeles (California), Newark (New Jersey), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) 

Partners Represented

• Italian National Office Against Racial Discrimination
• United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities (ICCAR) 

Key Takeaways

For Mayors & Cities

• Mayors, other city leaders and local governments more broadly should consider communities and community-based organisations as “force multipliers”: their access and credibility can help local governments reach more communities more consistently with positive messaging around inclusion and cohesion. 
• Cities should also consider partnering with educational institutions, extracurricular clubs and other youth “hubs” to a) raise awareness among young people of hate, discrimination and how they can report it, and b) gather youth perspectives, ensuring youth voices inform policymaking and anti-hate and discrimination projects.  
• More broadly, cities should invest in communities as co-governors through regular community engagement efforts, encouraging community members to come to public meetings to share their perspectives, conducting community surveys and more. 
• Cities should also ensure their internal policies and practices promote inclusion and equal opportunity.  

For National Governments

• National governments should regularly convene cities on a sub-national or national scale to foster learning and exchange between them on threats to social cohesion.  
• National governments should also consider working with local governments as interlocutors with community-based partners: they can help ensure national funding for local initiatives goes to credible actors and can help coordinate nationally funded projects in their cities.  
• National governments should shift away from project-specific grants to longer-term financial and other resourcing support for local actors, recognising that inclusion and cohesion can take a long time to build and sustain.  
   

For Partners

• Strong Cities, ICCAR and other city-focused initiatives should continue to provide opportunities for mayors and city officials to share with and learn from each other about threats to social cohesion and how local governments can respond, given how beneficial such peer-learning is to inform city policies and practices. 
• Donors and other partners should invest in city-level data collection and monitoring and evaluation tools to enable local governments to better understand the scale of hate and discrimination in their communities and the efficacy of their responses.  

Next Steps

• Strong Cities will work with the 15 metropolitan cities of Italy to integrate them into the Network’s relevant global and regional portfolios, including its Global Crises, Local Impacts and Transatlantic Dialogue initiatives.  

• Strong Cities will also work with UNAR and relevant Italian cities to capture and disseminate strong practices of national-local collaboration (NLC), including as part of Strong Cities’ recently launched NLC Working Group.  

• Strong Cities will also continue to work with other city-focused initiatives, such as ICCAR, to facilitate peer learning, capture city-led practices against hate, extremism and other threats to cohesion and inclusion, and to continue to advocate for local government-led action amongst relevant national, regional and international actors.

Additional Resources

• Transatlantic Dialogue Initiative, Strong Cities Network
• National–Local Cooperation, Strong Cities Network
• Global Crises, Local Impacts Initiative, Strong Cities Network
• Sixth Global Summit, Strong Cities Network
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network (Updated April 2024)
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network (Updated March 2025)
• A Guide for City-Led Response, Strong Cities Network (May 2024)

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