New Governance for New Spaces - NONA

Unsustainable land use is threatening quality living areas in the Danube region. There is a need to re-evaluate the value and potential of existing assets, including degraded areas (Das), to prevent new land take. The revitalisation of DAs can contribute to a more sustainable territorial development. The process is hindered by a lack of capacities and efficient governance to mainstream investment in new, greener, more responsible land use in line with ecosystem capacities. The project's main objective is to develop a new multi-level governance model for mainstreaming green investment into sustainable territorial development in the Danube region. By functional cooperation of public authorities, civil society, and the private, investment and financial sectors, the model will lead to improved capacities of cities and regions for triggering and implementing investments into more responsible land use practices as a basis for a new green and just economy. 

This will be achieved by delivering a robust, scalable Model for Green Investment, a set of tools that will empower cities in the Danube region for mainstreaming green investment. A robust, scalable and replicable model will be developed through bottom-up participatory processes on 3 different spatial scales in 10 pilot areas, reflecting the diversity of socio-economic realities in the Danube region. 

• Pilot action for testing of common methodology on the urban-rural functional areas in the Stuttgart Region (DE), Cluj-Napoca Metropolitan area, Romania (RO), Chisinau Municipality, Moldova (MD), Odessa Ukraine (UKR).
• Pilot action for testing of common methodology in mid-sized cities of Gabrovo (BG), Veszprem, Hungary (HU), Cazin, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA), Šabac, Serbia (RS)
• Pilot action for testing of common methodology in border micro municipalities of Ravne na Koroškem, Slovenia (SI), and Virovitica, Croatia (HR)

NONA offers a new outlook on development. It delivers a new governance model to support the implementation of a paradigm shift in development planning, opening opportunities for both the public, the private and the investment and financial sector to re-evaluate investment principles and recognise the potential of green investment for achieving more sustainable territorial development in the Danube region. It will be upscaled and mainstreamed through the NONA Academy, supporting local communities in the Danube region in planning and funding their green and just transition processes, and enabling access to green investment through the Danube Green Investment Hub. NONA is the flagship project of the New European Bauhaus on the Danube NEB Lab which aims to showcase in practice concrete solutions that enable the green transition in line with NEB values in the Danube region. 

Background in the EU green transition process: Process of transformation of all societal processes on a new set of values and principles. The ambition of the Green Deal to reconcile the values and principles with the overall wellbeing of human and the natural environment under the principle of a sustainable economy. The holistic value-based planning process is presented as a political ambition by the EU in the form of the New European Bauhaus.  

The ambition of understanding the process: Rethinking the new whole to deliver new particular solutions. New dynamics and potential in cooperation between public and private sector. Re-setting the financial sector. Efficiency and effectiveness of proposed solutions. 

Delivering tools NONA Academy platform as a catalyst for transition. A community of experts available to work together on real-life cases on a particular solution, under the same overall principle/ambition.