The Municipal Plan for Social Inclusion is the result of an extensive number of processes and contributions. In 2002, Barcelona Social Welfare Council (CMBS) approved the preparation of an action plan to tackle the issues of poverty and social exclusion in Barcelona. In 2003, the European Commission established the territorial dimension (regional and local) as a basic component of the European Social Agenda, by means of which the EU set out a strategic framework to serve as a benchmark for social inclusion. In 2004, Barcelona’s Plenary Council approved the 2004-2007 Municipal Action Programme, which expressed the City Council’s firm commitment to draw up a Municipal Plan for Social Inclusion.

The Municipal Plan for Social Inclusion was designed from an overall perspective of the city, with two key features: participation and cross-cutting organization. Participation to incorporate all institutional and community players as well as associations (and in this respect, the CMBS and the Working Group on Inclusion have played a determining role) working in the field of inclusion. And cross-cutting to include all social-inclusion actions promoted by the City Council in different sectors and districts of the city. In this respect, the process has received cooperation from the municipal departments of Social Welfare, People with Disabilities, Culture, Education, Women’s Affairs, Civil Rights, Healthcare, Youth, Sports, Labour, and Housing and Town Planning.

The CASE Project (Cities Combat Against Social Exclusion), promoted and financed by the European Commission through Eurocities, made it possible to find out about and analyse the initiatives of many city associations from the perspective of social inclusion. The conclusions of the CASE Project were reported in a document in the form of Guidelines for Good Practices in the Fight Against Social Exclusion at the Local Level, which provided a comparative analysis of European cities and described the best initiatives (good practices) of each city participating in the project. The results extended further than the local scale and led to a set of recommendations drawn up by Eurocities and the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) and submitted to the European Union to promote work on social inclusion by local governments.

The text of the Plan is thus the result of many ideas and contributions made by, among others, the City Council’s inter-sectoral teams, Barcelona Social Welfare Council, the technical and political coordination areas of the Personal Services Sector, the Culture, Education and Social Welfare Commission and the different parties and cities participating in the CASE Project.

The objective of the whole process was to obtain approval of a Municipal Plan for Social Inclusion with the broadest political and social agreement possible, to be adopted in the short term through the signature of a far-reaching Citizen Agreement for an Inclusive Barcelona. The Plan is structured to reflect and express the general perspective, the values on which the strategy is based and the specific action commitments.