Territorial Public Services of Proximity - NUTS III Cávado's Intermunicipal Action programme 2007-2013

The programme establishes the priorities for local intervention in the Cávado NUTS III territory for the period 2007-2010 covering several typologies of public equipments and services. The approach involves the intermunicipal scale and a multi-sectorial strategy, identifying the actions to be developed to increase in a sustainable way the efficiency and quality levels in delivering the most important services, combining objectives of increasing endowment and designing innovative partnerships and management models for each of the thematic services.  The methodology combined thematic and sectorial planning perspectives with regional development and spatial planning principles for the Cavado valley. The following issues have been analyzed: (i) The ongoing economic, social and territorial trends, tue strategic framework for cooperation between municipalities and and other institutions; (ii)  The development objectives and goals (sectorial and transversal);  the actual competences of the municipalities and their associations. The establishment of sectorial priorities are progressively integrated in transversal orientations. In each field of intervention, analysis and proposals are focused on the service concept itself, identifying the structures able to deliver it, and not in the programming of the equipments and services network, which is a more traditional methodology to establish priorities.