A Local Action Plan is an strategic paper where the local corporation mission is explicitly and specifically expressed, and so on those actions with which that mission will be carried out.
A mission is a definition of how the city’s future is thought. It will become the strategic axe for the local government politics. Those politics that may be implemented will have to be contrasted with it in order to choose the ones that will allow us accomplish that mission; this way, we will also be able to avoid the other ones that would make that mission be impeded.
The main action or strategic axes are those huge areas onto which the local efforts will focus. These areas should become a base with which the competences were distributed within the local government staff; in other words, there should be coherence regarding all those problems to be faced and how the local government is organised to solve them.
Strategic planning methodology also implies constant assessment and redesign functions. Apart from that, we have to evaluate the politics outcome and to what extent these politics have had influence on the mission development. Furthermore, we have to bear in mind and assess the context impact on the local reality.
The political agenda articulation by means of a plan becomes essential for coalition governments, not only to increase their action unity, but also to obtain the most ideological and operative coherence in all those adaptations and corrections that may be taken in order to keep this agenda updated.
An action plan has to embody all those changes from the context that condition its development, so we can redesign it in order to adapt it to reality. We also have to add the assessment results, so the plan is under constant update.
Among other things, one of the strategic work main advantages is the will to involve the local economical and social actors into this process. From the very start, an strategic plan is often carried out counting with their involvement: this is the most interesting question of this type of planning, as this way the strategic planning becomes the key in promoting participation and a tool to know the population demands and needs and to involve them into their solution.
Another advantage in using this methodology is that allows us to do those actions that contribute the most in the plan achievement, and at the same time it allows us to rule out the other ones that do not really help us in our goal. All this being aware of every meaningful variable, as from our city as from our context, and evaluating the actions influence.
The local action plan guarantees coherence between the mission and the actions, provides an structure that allows us to explain why we do what we do and at the same time why we do not finally do certain action, and as a last resort offers the possibility to discuss all this in a global and objective way.
Once this plan is defined, it has to be known by population, most of people would know it and adopt it. Finally, this methodology also provides several tools to influence other institutions and organisations activity: the city’s future depends on many actors action, not only on the municipal activity.