Democracy is often discussed from the centre: national capitals, institutions, elections, formal decision-making. MOVES brings this conversation closer to the communities where democratic participation is often most fragile, but also deeply needed.
In mountain, rural and peri-urban areas, civic life is often shaped by geographic distance, ageing populations, youth outmigration, limited access to services and fewer opportunities to take part in public decision-making. Yet these communities are not defined only by their challenges. They also carry strong local knowledge, community resilience and democratic potential.
MOVES – Mountain Voices for Engaged and Sustainable Democracy works to strengthen civic participation and inclusive local governance in Italy, Albania and Portugal. The project creates spaces where citizens, civil society organisations and local authorities can meet, exchange, learn and co-design responses to local challenges.
The Communities MOVES Works With
MOVES focuses on communities that are often underrepresented in public decision-making, but central to the future of local democracy.
This includes young people who feel distant from formal politics, women whose voices are still too often missing from leadership and public debate, elderly residents who hold important local memory, people with disabilities, minorities, civil society organisations and local authorities working in small or under-resourced territories.
The project does not treat these groups as passive beneficiaries. It works with them as participants, contributors and co-creators of local democratic life.
Listening as Democratic Practice
MOVES is built around a simple idea: participation should not stop at consultation.
Too often, citizens are asked for opinions without seeing how their input affects decisions. MOVES aims to move beyond symbolic participation by supporting practical formats where people can identify needs, discuss priorities, develop proposals and engage directly with local institutions.
Through participatory forums, civic education activities, co-design workshops, local action labs and transnational exchanges, the project turns dialogue into shared work. Citizens gain tools and confidence to participate. Local authorities gain methods to open decision-making. Civil society organisations strengthen their role as bridges between communities and institutions.
A Transnational Project, Rooted Locally
MOVES connects three territories facing different realities, but similar democratic challenges.
In Italy, the project focuses on mountainous areas in Lazio, where small municipalities often face limited civic participation and growing pressure on local governance.
In Albania, MOVES works in peri-urban and mountainous areas surrounding Tirana, where democratic participation, institutional trust and inclusive consultation remain key issues in the broader context of European integration.
In Portugal, the project focuses on rural and mountainous communities in the northern regions of Cinfães and Aldeia, where youth outmigration, demographic change and limited civic infrastructure affect local participation.
By connecting these places, MOVES creates a space for mutual learning between EU Member States and an accession country. Local experiences are not treated as isolated cases, but as part of a wider European conversation on participation, inclusion and democratic resilience.
What MOVES Aims to Change
MOVES aims to strengthen the relationship between citizens and local institutions.
The project works toward more inclusive civic spaces, stronger youth participation, greater visibility for underrepresented groups, better participatory tools for local authorities and more concrete opportunities for communities to shape local policy.
Its ambition is not only to produce events, reports or materials. MOVES aims to leave behind practical methods, shared knowledge and open-access resources that can help other communities build more participatory and resilient forms of local democracy.
At its core, MOVES is about shifting mountain and peri-urban areas from the margins of democratic debate to the centre of democratic innovation.