Pnrr: LIBenter, an alliance to train citizens, civil society and administrators

In recent months, initiatives by civil society to monitor the implementation of the National Recovery and Resistance Plan have multiplied in Italy: this is certainly a reassuring sign. However, we need to be cautious: this time involving citizens cannot be limited to an invitation to participate, even if preceded by that civic engagement so much emphasized in conferences and in the media.

It must be said with great clarity and intellectual honesty: the PNRR is extremely complex and even just following its progress requires preparation that cannot be improvised, both on the part of citizens and experts. Many active citizenship organizations already have internal skills and experience in civic engagement and monitoring, which will certainly come in handy on this occasion as well. But this time both the engagement and the training of citizens, in order to understand and follow the implementation of a Plan that has no precedents in our country, requires profound and specific preparation, which starts from the study of the Plan, also from an technician, and from the production of an instrumentation ad hoc that makes monitoring serious and reliable.

This does not mean that monitoring the progress of the Plan must remain a matter for insiders, but that, on the contrary, it can and must be extended to anyone who wants to add a further effort to their goodwill and competence: that of equipping themselves with a toolbox focused on the PNRR. This is why LIB was born last Januaryenter . The intent was not to add to the many and very valid CSOs of our country, but rather to complement them: the Catholic University of Milan, in fact, has involved the Fondazione Etica e Libera, together with the CNEL, among the promoters of LIBenter.

To do what?

• First, to process a monitoring and evaluation model of the implementation of the Plan, based on the guidelines, scientific and at the same time understandable to anyone, created in the Catholic University by teachers and experts from civil society organisations. After a thorough civic involvement action, that model will allow local communities and expert groups to adequately follow the implementation of the reforms and investments envisaged in the PNRR. It will also make it possible to guarantee the homogeneity of the monitoring for the purpose of the overall final evaluation.
• Secondly, LIBenter aims to train both citizens and CSOs, as well as local territorial bodies. The PNRR, in fact, even before being evaluated, needs legs to walk, and these legs are the public administrations. However, we all know the "state of health" of many Italian Municipalities, especially the small ones: the concrete risk is that many of them will not even be able to obtain the many resources that will be put out for tender, rather than distributed, or that , even if they win some, they are then unable to spend them. The Italian Public Administration, so varied and fragmented, is experiencing many difficulties in understanding the dynamics underlying the functioning of the PNRR. Precisely for this reason, the Government is hiring temporary staff and preparing various forms of technical assistance: all right, but this time the opportunity should be taken for structural interventions, and not just emergencies.

It is from here that LIBenter decided to prepare a training activity to the PNRR and of targeted operational support to small Municipalities (but not only), with the respective "large areas" of provincial and metropolitan dimensions as leaders.

On the one hand, the aforesaid activity envisages training for managerial staff and municipal secretaries and mayors on: contents of the PNRR, operating mechanisms and methods of access to resources; how to raise the administrative capacity of the institution; how to enhance the specific features of the territory involved (as in the case of mountain communities and inland areas).

On the other hand, the activity includes targeted operational support to deal with the different phases of use of the resources of the PNRR, to constantly inform citizens, as well as to evaluate the impact of the projects financed on their territories.

It is evident that all these activities that LIBenter is carrying out constitute a work of enormous scope, which can only succeed if choral. This is why LIBenter from the outset, it has positioned itself as open and inclusive, thus gaining the support of partners of great value, such as, just to name two, the University of Turin and the Gran Sasso Science Institute.

Its intent is not to collect partner logos on the website, just to say more representative than others. This is not the time to compete, but to actively collaborate, for a "call for action” that concerns not only the institutions, but also citizens, trade associations, companies, banking foundations, financial operators and any other subject who cares about the country and the opportunity for recovery that lies ahead.