Stakeholders finally meet face-to-face for the first time during the “Adana Brings its Projects to Life” workshop
Within the scope of the PEP - Promotion of Economic Prospects Programme financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the last of the three-stage workshop series carried out by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, TEPAV and Adana Metropolitan Municipality, the “Adana Brings its Projects to Life” workshop was held on October 27th, 2021 at the Sheraton Grand Adana Hotel.
Adana Governor Süleyman Elban, Adana Metropolitan Mayor Zeydan Karalar, TEPAV and GIZ officials and representatives of various institutions, organizations and NGOs participated in the workshop and evaluated project ideas alongside their roadmaps with regards sustainable agriculture, manufacturing, and social life.
Adana’s current problems were identified in the first workshop held on 13-14 March 2021 in a participatory and inclusive manner under the overall scope of the “Development of Public-Private Dialogue Project.” During the second workshop, the 11 project ideas developed by TEPAV and subject-area experts in the fields of Sustainable Agriculture, Manufacturing, Tourism, and Social Life were presented to stakeholders. The presentations were held in an interactive manner in an environment where participants openly expressed their opinions on the project ideas. Through participant voting, by determining the priority areas, 3 project ideas that will shape the future of were chosen. During the application design workshop, the last of the three-stage workshop series, concrete roadmaps and work plans for implementing the 3 shortlisted project ideas were presented and discussed with a large and inclusive group of stakeholders.
The third and final workshop’s first joint session began with opening speeches. GIZ-PEP Entrepreneurship and Business Development Component Head Onur Azcan stated that Adana was a first in implementing public-private cooperation dialogue at the provincial level with Gaziantep and Istanbul to follow. Azcan also stated that the third workshop of the Adana component should be depicted not as an end but as a strong start for the implementation of the selected projects. Speaking afterwards, Adana Metropolitan Mayor Zeydan Karalar underlined that Adana will have a better future and that they were working towards planning it together. While expressing his excitement to see the contirbutions from various sectors to the workshops, Karalar defined the purpose of the process as correcting Adana’s structure, which was shaken by the pandemic conditions, and to be able to bring a quick, flexible and effective solution to meet Adana’s needs.He also expressed hope that the entire dialogue process would increase the strong and unifying influence of Adana Metropolitan Municipality and strengthen cooperation and coordination between the public-private sector and civil society. Adana Governor Süleyman Elban stated that they expect these studies on Adana to serve as a guide on what needs to be done in order to better evaluate potential and resources, and that the topics mentioned in the presentations in the first two workshops will be shaped to include concrete roadmaps during this final workshop.
Following the opening remarks, TEPAV’s Guven Sak began his presentation, “How did we get here? What are we going to do today?” Sak presented the outputs from the first and second workshop and discussed the preparatory work for the third. After the presentation, participants were directed to sub-sessions to discuss the three project ideas and their concrete roadmaps for Sustainable Agriculture – Smart Agricultural Pilot Applications for Producers in Adana, Manufacturing – Industry Adapting to the Green Deal by Digitization, and Social Life – Smart Transportation Planning: Mobile and Accessible Adana. Moderated by TEPAV’s Sibel Güven, Yakup Peker and Şenay Akyıldız, the three sub-sessions were conduceted simultaneously in three sub-sessions using an interactive method. During the sub-sessions, the moderators shared subject-specific presentations with participants, which included concrete roadmaps of project ideas and the development of plans, and the participants’ opinions and concerns on the processes and building blocks of the roadmaps were taken into consideration.
Following the sub-sessions, all of the participants met again in a joint session. This session of the workshop, presented by TEPAV’s Sibel Güven, provided a summary and overview of the roadmaps which were discussed in detail in the sub-sessions. Afterwards, representatives from Adana Chamber of Industry and Adana Metropolitan Municipality shared with all the participants the roadmaps they developed for other project ideas that did not make the shortlist, as they were voted out during the second workshop, but nevertheless remain important for the future of Adana. The workshop finished with an evaluation and closing speech made by Güven Sak.
“Facilitating Public-Private Dialogue Mechanisms”
Within the scope of the PEP – Promotion of Economic Prospects Program financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), carried out in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and TEPAV, the project envisions to establish a public-private consultation, coordination and decision-making mechanism in an inclusive, multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral manner for during and after the COVID-19 pandemic period in Adana, Gaziantep, and Istanbul to be led by their Metropolitan Municipalities. This mechanism will contribute to the development of a common vision for public and private sector actors, meeting the needs and expectations of stakeholders, increasing employment, improving the business ecosystem, improving the environment for domestic and foreign investments, and ameliorating job opportunities for Syrians and host communities under temporary protection. As such, the aim is to benefit from the potential of the region.
