City Integration Audit Toolkit

Migrants continue to be drawn to cities in search of a better quality of life, greater job prospects and ease of access to urban infrastructure and services. City authorities are increasingly realizing the potential benefits of integrating migrants. What practices can cities put in place to promote integration of third country nationals? What practices can minimize the risk of alienation from the local communities and radicalization? What policies are paving the way towards a cohesive, inclusive society?

The project INTEGRA seeks to improve the process of long-term integration of third-country nationals (TCN) in five EU Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, and Slovakia) through city-to-city knowledge and experience sharing. The project aims to promote deeper mutual understanding between migrant communities and the host societies against the rising political discourse of securitization, and to improve urban integration policies.

The INTEGRA project has created a toolkit to help cities: elected officials, municipal officers, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, migrant and TCN organizations and the community-at-large audit their city integration policies and practices, ask and answer some fundamental questions, identify bottlenecks and opportunities for TCN integration at local level and develop recommendations for further improvements. 

The City Audits are designed as participatory, multi-stakeholder activity, engaging local communities of citizens and migrants, public bodies and civic experts in consultations, mapping and assessment exercises.

This toolkit contains several diverse tools for a city’s self-assessment and charting progress. It can be used by stakeholders to evaluate the current practices of a city to be welcoming, inclusive and integrating, identify deficiencies in policy and procedures, set goals and foster communication within the community about its practices. For the city integration audit to be effective, third country nationals and migrants must be involved as full partners, sharing their own experience of the city’s positive characteristics and barriers. They should play a role in suggesting changes and in implementing and monitoring improvements.

The toolkit outlines four audit methods: desk research, focus groups, city walks with checklist and photovoice. It also contains instructions for the content of these methods and the analysis of their findings, to cover essential features of TCN-friendly cities:

  • City Vision and Services for TCN;
  • Civic Participation and Social Inclusion of TCN and Migrant Communities;
  • Urban Environment;
  • Attitudes towards TCN and Migrants.

Please, feel free to download the toolkit and use in your city!

In case of any questions, please contact: Lenka Czikkova, czikkova@ke.etp.sk