Uses of Time

Barcelona City Council is one of the partners of the project, called Time4All, which includes the Network of Local and Regional Governments for Time Policies, and wants to promote time policies and ensure the recognition of the right to time as a right of citizenship .

Next Tuesday, February 21, all associated organizations will meet in Bergamo (Italy), the municipality that administratively coordinates the Time4All project. The aim is to promote cooperation between citizens, towns and cities around time policies, to motivate their implementation and ensure the recognition of the right to time as a right of citizenship.

Time policies promote better organization of time to improve health, equality, productivity and sustainability, as well as increase democratic participation. Local and regional institutions can respond to a common demand in recent years – which calls for a more sustainable and egalitarian life, and a new relationship between paid work, care work and life -, through a new organization of time

European municipalities have been pioneers in promoting weather policies since the nineties and, in order to collaborate, in 2008 they created the Network of Local and Regional Governments for Weather Policies. Now, with the Time4All project, the network aims to: 1) expand, deepen and intensify cooperation and exchanges between municipalities and regions to improve the uses of time; 2) promote weather policies among European municipalities contributing to building a new narrative for Europe; 3) promote citizen participation in the definition, implementation, and evaluation of weather policies. The project is led by the city of Bergamo and the Barcelona Time Use Initiative for a Healthy Society (BTUI), the international organization that promotes the right to time and which currently manages the Technical Secretariat of the Network.

“Time is an extremely unequal resource in our society. It is urgent and necessary to recognize the right to time for a more balanced use, which brings more equality, more well-being and more sustainability. Weather policies are a source of unexploited benefits for society, which must have a central role in the local and regional agenda of the 21st century in Europe”, declared Marta Junqué, co-secretary of the Network. Ariadna Güell, co-coordinator of the BTUI, has declared that “Time4All will help us expand time policies in Europe and position the right to time as a fundamental pillar of social rights within the EU”.

Barcelona, ​​as a member of the Network of Local and Regional Governments for weather policies, has been one of the drivers of the European project and will occupy a prominent place, as the organizer of the European Time Summer School, which will be held in 2024, where training will be offered both to people from local and regional institutions, as well as citizens and entities interested in developing time actions.

Women, young people and local institutions are the main beneficiaries

The Time4All project is part of the CERV program of the European Commission, which subsidizes projects that promote social equity and citizens’ rights. The project hopes to reach 1,700 participants, specifically women and youth, who are the groups that suffer most from time poverty. The project will last two years, between 2023 and 2024, and will carry out different activities aimed at public decision-makers, citizens, research institutions and other social agents:

• Launch meeting in Bergamo. The Time4All project starts with all participating municipalities and regions.
• Annual networking events to raise awareness and establish common priorities for the Network, including the International Time Use Week in 2023 (from October 16 to 20) and the 2024 edition, both in Barcelona.
• Events for the exchange of good practices in weather policies. Based on these events, a publication will be drawn up (the Local and Regional Agenda) and one of them will also include Latin American experiences to enrich the European approach.
• Events to raise public awareness of the importance of time, including the World Capital of Time Policies (Bolzano, in 2023); promoting citizen participation and organizing training (the European Summer School in Time, which will take place in a hybrid format, online and face-to-face in Barcelona)

The Network includes, among other cities, Barcelona, ​​Milan, Bolzano and Strasbourg, and is open to all municipalities interested in joining.