17.17 Infrastructure
Table of contents
Table of contents
About this document
Introduction
The need for change
Key elements of the 17.17 Infrastructure
History
Core principles
1. Alignment with city net zero and climate resilience targets
2. Place-based
3. Open to all people and organisations
4. Collective and equal ownership
5. Action-oriented and collaborative culture
6. Open source
Benefits of using the infrastructure
City government
Private sector
Residents
Infrastructure building blocks
1. Network of “front runners”
2. Local Infrastructure Partners
3. Stewardship team
Working groups
4. Formal structure
Members
Executive Board/council
5. Funding
Using the infrastructure
What is it useful for?
Strengthening existing projects
Building collaborative experiments and pilots
Addressing complex thematic challenges through Action Arenas
Sharing and connecting knowledge and available resources
Who can use the local infrastructure?
Building the infrastructure in a city
Exploratory phase (approx. 4-6 months)
Pilot phase (approx. 1 year)
Operational phase (long term)
An introductory description of the collaborative infrastructure for city transformation
17.17 Infrastructure
PDF document 4MB
About this document
The 17.17 Infrastructure consists of a number of existing and well known methods that are combined in a new and structured way to create a potent new approach to sustainable transformation.
The methodology has been developed since 2015 and has been operational in Oslo, Norway, as the local initiative “Pådriv Oslo” since 2017. It has since been replicated in two other Norwegian cities and Mauritius.
Introduction
The 17.17 Infrastructure is an open source methodology for collaborative action. It is an effective tool for cities who seek to empower and collaborate with communities and businesses to accelerate climate action.
The basic infrastructure can be set up in your city within 3-6 months, following a simple and proven process. During this time an initial geographical focus area is selected, and an initial group of residents, businesses and organisations are mobilised. A team of stewards who manage and run the infrastructure on behalf of all stakeholders are recruited, before the infrastructure is ready to be used by all residents and organisations (public, private, non-profit). Building a lasting infrastructure that is fully functional is an iterative process over 2-3 years.
The need for change
We need bold climate action that takes us towards a healthier and more sustainable future. Collaborative action is required. We’re on a tight timeline.
City governments are great at setting targets, creating strategies and passing legislation. They are designed to and excel in building sector specific initiatives - mobility, housing, recreation areas etc. But - in order to achieve the rapid transition demanded to reach local and global sustainability goals, they need all actors to come together to lead transformational change. These institutions have the common challenge of specialising in incremental change, where working in silos is beneficial. In contrast, transformative change demands cooperation between silos.
At the same time we see that a number of private and non-profit organisations are adapting more sustainable practises and developing more sustainable friendly business models. While most of these have set individual targets, many acknowledge the need for more collaborative action to accelerate and maximise the societal and economic effects of their efforts.
And even more importantly; numerous residents around the world want to contribute in transforming their neighbourhoods and cities, but are often left with limited options on how they can engage. Lobbying their city government representative and taking part in various participation processes can be useful, but many want to engage more actively to contribute on a more practical and ongoing basis.
To accelerate the transformation of our societies, it must become easier for residents, entrepreneurs, civil servants, businesses and academia to initiate, support and take part in collaborative action. We need a more structured approach if we are to increase the quality of collaboration that is necessary to create transformative change in our cities. This structure must be open to all, facilitate collaborative action and work on behalf of the whole society.
The 17.17 Infrastructure is designed to provide long-term value to people and organisations who are ready to create transformative change, making their cities healthier, cleaner and more sustainable.
Key elements of the 17.17 Infrastructure
History
The methodology was initially created as a response to a call-to-action for more holistic cooperation during the Lerchendal Conference in 2015.
Its development phase was financed through the The Research Council of Norway in collaboration between several partners, including the City of Oslo and SoCentral.
The development, and piloting and implementation of the 17.17 Infrastructure methodology has been done in Oslo under the name of “Pådriv” (‘front runner’ in Norwegian ).
Pådriv was officially launched in 2017 as a project residing with SoCentral. In 2019 it was established as an autonomous non-profit association.
Pådriv Oslo and SoCentral have from 2019 helped build the 17.17 Infrastructure under Norwegian “Pådriv”-umbrella in cities like Stavanger and Trondheim. Other cities in Norway are also planning to build a local 17.17 Infrastructure.
In 2021, the methodology was used outside of Norway, with the creation of Regeneration Mauritius. Regeneration Mauritius was officially founded, with 22 partner organisations, after a 6 month process.
This internationalisation created a need to update the methodology and make it both globally accessible and locally relevant.
SoCentral and Pådriv Oslo have taken on the task of updating the methodology in collaboration with C40 Cities network. Our common aim is to expand the use of the 17.17 Infrastructure in 2022, to test its applicability in more diverse cities and based on results develop a feasible model to support further global uptake.
The 17.17 infrastructure is rooted in goal 17, target 17 of UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.
Target 17.17: Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.
Core principles
The 17.17 Infrastructure must be built and adapted to the local context. The detailed configuration will therefore differ slightly from city to city, but the following principles must be followed in order to use the 17.17 Infrastructure name and take part in the network of cities using the methodology.
1. Alignment with city net zero and climate resilience targets
The 17.17 Infrastructure has been designed to support both top-down initiatives from city government, and bottom-up engagement from residents and organisations. By making the city's democratically set agenda for inclusive climate action, and net zero and climate resilience targets part of the infrastructure mandate, all activities taking place on the infrastructure will lead the city closer to its goals .
The infrastructure also provides support to new strategies developed by the city. Giving cities an additional tool to implement strategies in areas like circular economy, social inclusion, green jobs and biodiversity.
2. Place-based
Focusing on specific geographical areas within a city is key to making the methodology work. This relatively well known method called “place-based approach”, means that the infrastructure is built to fit a local and concrete context. This makes it easier to engage residents and local organisations, and create tangible results.
3. Open to all people and organisations
Every person or organisation who wants to take part in the development of their city can apply to join and be part of the infrastructure.
- Every resident who is eager to contribute.
- Every civil servant who needs to initiate or take part in collaborative action to fulfil their mandate.
- Every entrepreneur who is developing solutions for a more sustainable city.
- Every local business or NGO who wants to take part in the sustainable transformation.
All of these can benefit from resources that exist in the infrastructure to gain new insights, develop partnerships and create viable solutions.
4. Collective and equal ownership
The infrastructure in a specific city is owned by the stakeholders in that city. This could be organised in an association with organisations and/or residents as members. All members should have an equal stake, independent of financial and political power.
5. Action-oriented and collaborative culture
Most network organisations connect people or businesses in the hope that these connections create action. The 17.17 infrastructure includes a stewardship organisation as an active part in connecting both people, organisations and projects. The stewards have an active role in developing and managing projects on behalf of all stakeholders. In addition, they are tasked with building an action-oriented culture where the focus is on what can we do now, what can start next week, and how can we create change while continuing the discussion and dialogue.
6. Open source
Knowledge, information and project results created within and funded through the infrastructure is open and accessible to all. This assures equal footing and trust between all stakeholders. This does not mean that partners and participants have to share “trade secrets”, but simply that everything that is created commonly is shared openly. This facilitates speedy adoption of new knowledge created within the network.
Benefits of using the infrastructure
City government
- Cost effective approach for giving all residents and businesses a real opportunity to contribute to reaching net zero and climate resilience
- Amplify and strengthen existing initiatives in a city
- Better collaboration within the city organisation
- Increase trust and alignment on inclusive climate action between stakeholders, which speeds up the transformation process
- Low management cost and increased funding options for sustainable initiatives, as private funding can be leveraged
- No procurement needed to build the infrastructure
Private sector
- Easy and effective access to knowledge and potential resources that can help in the development of sustainability projects
- Receive input from stakeholders otherwise unavailable to the company
- Finding and forming new partnerships
- Identifying and testing new innovation opportunities
- Develop and mature markets (e.g. circular economy)
Residents
- Channel motivation or ideas to improve your community
- A place to share your knowledge, skills and expertise, and be connected to initiatives where you are needed
- Access to a community of like-minded residents who are ready to connect, support and contribute
- Access to resources, knowledge and potential partners
Infrastructure building blocks
Grounded in these core principles, the 17.17 infrastructure comes together in the form of several building blocks that combined, and tailored to local needs, creates a city specific infrastructure.
1. Network of “front runners”
Transformative change can happen when people come together. The most important part of the infrastructure is people.
All residents (also professional) can join. Together with allocated employees among the organisational Partners (see below) they form a network of front runners.
When joining, front runners indicate how much time they are willing to contribute each month, and detail their interest, experiences and expertise. This gives the stewardship team an opportunity to connect people with initiatives and projects in which they can support, positively challenge or take part in concrete action.
All front runners have full access to all information that flows through the infrastructure, participate in workshops and are connected with relevant projects within the initiatives portfolio.
Inclusion of residents in real projects and workshops in collaboration with organisations creates an unique opportunity to gain valuable insight before decisions that ultimately affect the public are made.
2. Local Infrastructure Partners
Local Infrastructure Partners are organisations that contribute to and support the local infrastructure. This is done by allocating employees to the network of front runners, engaging in thematic working groups (see below), and by providing yearly financial support to operations of the infrastructure. To strengthen a holistic approach, a wide range of organisations from all sectors should be mobilised as Infrastructure Partners. This includes national government bodies, branches of city government, private companies of all sizes, and NGOs. All partners have a stake in creating inclusive climate action that is needed to achieve a net zero and climate resilience city.
Infrastructure Partners are essential to build and operate each local infrastructure. They are also important to achieve the scale of change needed.
The city government should be one of the founding partners, contribute with co-funding and participate in the council and relevant working groups. The city government is in this way one of many co-founders and members of the local infrastructure. Each branch in the city government is encouraged to participate with and use the local infrastructure in ways best suited to create tangible transformation within their domains.
Local Infrastructure Partners must show real commitment - it’s not enough to use their involvement as CSR.
As a Local infrastructure Partners an organisation has access to a neutral platform where they can have real impact on real issues, and find relevant inspiration and collaboration opportunities.
3. Stewardship team
The number of stewards needed will differ between cities, but 3 full time equivalents (divided between 4-6 people) is a good starting point. Stewards can be engaged as employees or freelancers - or a combination.
Working groups
To support the stewardship team, strengthen diversity and increase the impact, a set of working groups can be utilised. Working group is typically populated by employees from the Infrastructure Partners. Each working group should be facilitated by one of its members. Through regular meetings, the working groups provide support and strength to the stewardship team, by working on specific thematic areas, initiatives or programs.
4. Formal structure
The local infrastructure must be organised outside and separate from the formal city structures. This is necessary to secure neutrality and allow for the infrastructure to be co-owned.
A city initiative using the 17.17 Infrastructure is best structured as a non-profit association. Local law will guide the legal setup of each local infrastructure, but templates for by-laws with guidelines for necessary elements are available.
The guidelines secure the core principles of the infrastructure, including giving all members one (1) vote in the association's general assembly and clearly stating that all members have an equal say.
Members
The 17.17 methodology opens for at least two forms of membership structure in the association that is created.
- Either Infrastructure Partners can be official members of the association, and residents more loosely connected as front runners;
- Or Residents can be the official members of the association, and Infrastructure Partners more loosely connected as supporters/sponsors.
Executive Board/council
The board of the initiative decides on strategy, budgeting and direction. The board can consist of both internal (partners/individuals) and external members.
The Executive Board engages a Stewardship Leader, who hires / engages a stewardship team.
5. Funding
The primary source of funding for daily operations of a local infrastructure is financial contributions from local infrastructure partners. Membership fees and grants can also be used to increase the funding.
Each city using the infrastructure decides if the financial contributions from its local infrastructure partner is a set sum based on relevant criteria, or if they are allowed to choose their own contribution. A general membership fee can also be used. It is recommended that the bar of entry for residents is as low as possible.
The Stewardship Leader provides the executive board/council with a budget for the next fiscal year, and the general assembly approves the budget. The budget should be grounded in a strategy document approved by the board/council.
To involve local infrastructure partners in the strategy development and budget approval process is recommended, as it creates ownership, improves outcome and increases the willingness to provide funding. It is recommended that the city government, as a local infrastructure partner, contributes a substantial amount of the yearly funding, but it should not exceed 50% of the total budget as co-funding is important to build a true sense of co-ownership.
Funding is primarily used to cover the labour cost of the stewardship team. Projects and initiatives that are built on the infrastructure should be funded separately.
Using the infrastructure
Each local infrastructure can mobilise multiple stakeholders within a city through a range of activities. They can use the infrastructure in multiple ways.
What is it useful for?
Strengthening existing projects
Existing projects in a city can benefit from the infrastructure. Projects can be anything from small scale experiments, to full blown production and realisation of city strategies. As long as a project is aligned with the city's agenda for inclusive climate action and net zero and climate resilience targets, it can use the infrastructure to find knowledge, resources, partners etc. The goal is to amplify the impact of the project beyond what the project would have in isolation, without using the infrastructure.
In practice a project owner contacts the stewardship team with a brief description of the project and what it is looking for. If the stewards find the project to be aligned with the city´s targets, they actively connect the project with relevant people and organisations in the network. It is then up to the project to pursue further dialogue.
The local infrastructure creates impact through improved alignment, coordination and equal access to network and resources in a portfolio of existing projects in a city, making it easier for more residents and organisations to contribute.
Building collaborative experiments and pilots
There is often a need to build experiments and pilots to learn more about how an opportunity or challenge can be addressed. In many instances no single stakeholder is willing to take the financial, technical or political risk to run these kinds of projects. By using the local infrastructure stakeholders can initiate a collaborative experiment / pilot, and receive support from the Stewards in finding partners and funding.
It is the job of the stewards to source, coordinate and develop such projects. The stewards should mobilise (incl. hire) resources to run the project on their behalf, when possible. Results and knowledge created in collaborative experiments and pilots are always made openly available.
This type of project is funded separately on a project per project basis (i.e. not covered by the yearly operational budget for the local infrastructure.
Addressing complex thematic challenges through Action Arenas
In an Action Arena, a consortium of stakeholders focus on a specific thematic topic within the larger goal of the infrastructure, with an aim to increase trust and spark action. This is done by first looking at the challenge from different aspects, and then relatively quickly agreeing on 2-3 pilots and experiments that the consortium believes is important to move forward. The Action Arena then builds these experiments, while continuing to share knowledge and discuss possible large scale solutions. These arenas are managed by the stewardship and are funded separately through funding from relevant stakeholders with interest in each arena.
Sharing and connecting knowledge and available resources
The local infrastructure hosts a myriad of activities both for members/partners and the public at large. The aim being to strengthen the network, build trust and trigger action that can help achieve the city's net zero and climate resilience targets. These activities could be workshops, seminars, open air discussions or other events. The stewards should actively communicate with all front runners, partners and the public . This is normally done through a combination of digital and physical tools.
- Building a stronger network and increasing your knowledge
- Experiencing that your contribution makes a difference
Who can use the local infrastructure?
- Residents who want to take part in the developments of their own neighbourhood and get access to networks that simplify starting their own projects.
- Entrepreneurs who want easier and faster access to insight into the challenges they want to solve, an overview of available resources, or contact with potential partners who are motivated to develop new solutions.
- Innovation clusters that need a better approach to collaboration with the public and private sectors, as well as access to test arenas to develop new solutions.
- Private business looking for new business models and solutions in sustainable urban development, by giving them better access to insights, opportunities and partners who want to develop sustainable solutions for society and new industries.
- Landowners who want more effective access and dialogue with key stakeholders in areas to be developed - including access to the public sector - and can turn counter-forces among local actors into "co-forces" with the intention of developing better neighbourhoods, faster and more profitably.
- State / municipality / city to mobilise more forces and resources to work for the existing set climate and sustainability goals, and thereby increase the implementation power of these strategies.
- Agencies and public enterprises that seek an adapted and safe arena for exploring new forms of cooperation and development in partnerships, and where a stronger culture of innovation across disciplines / sectors can emerge.
- Sport/culture/faith organisations that seek to resources, partnership and collaboration in building more thriving neighbourhoods and communities
- Universities and R&D environments that want to get closely involved in the field of practice, and be an active partner in the development of new solutions by using the local infrastructure to connect to business and a local community that can be unique resources in e.g. research projects.
- Students and pupils who want to make their education close to practice, and thus use the study time to actively contribute to the development of society.
- Volunteerism and civil society who want to start and collaborate on projects for social innovation that help to strengthen the city.
Building the infrastructure in a city
The process of setting up a local infrastructure can roughly be divided into the following steps:
Exploratory phase (approx. 4-6 months)
A process where the city government or other stakeholders
.1explore the methodology and its potential fit to the needs of the city
.2create a network of potential founding partners
.3gauging the participatory interest of residents and relevant stakeholders
The phase starts with an initial and non-binding meeting between residents and organisations. The meeting will normally be initiated by the city government, preferably in partnership with a few other organisations.
This meeting (or subsequent meetings if necessary) should create a working group “of the willing” responsible for leading and managing the phase.
Funding for the exploratory phase is often minimal. If any costs occur the funding is usually provided by organisations participating in the working group with the city government as the main contributor.
The goal of the exploratory phase is to establish a common understanding and intent to build a local infrastructure (not necessary to create a formal structure yet) with a specific geographic focus, secure funding and create a strategy for the pilot phase. At least 2 partners must commit to providing resources and funding to the pilot phase.
Pilot phase (approx. 1 year)
The pilot phase follows the strategies set by the exploratory phase. A first batch of local infrastructure partners is now part of the infrastructure. The pilot phase works as a tool to explore the feasibility of a long-term and sustainable infrastructure.
A new / revised working group is created who works towards:
- Recruiting additional local infrastructure partners
- Setting up a strategy with ambitions and targets
- Creating plans for an operational process towards a long-term infrastructure
- Approving budgets and securing funding for year 1
- Involving residents
- Founding organisation (setting up legal structure)
- Employing / contracting a stewardship team
The goal of the pilot phase is to establish a structure and formally launch the local infrastructure. The working group disbands on completion, or continues as a working group supporting the stewardship team.
Operational phase (long term)
The operational phase starts when the formal structure is in place and the number of local infrastructure partners, front runners and funding is able to create sufficient forward momentum.
There is always the risk of a slow start, as securing funding can be demanding in the first part of the operational phase. Having the municipality committed to a long-term partnership will help open doors to sufficient funding from other partners.
The development of long-term strategies and operational mechanisms for inclusion and activation of residents will help to create a footprint of real and tangible change.