Understanding collaborative governance of biodiversity-inclusive urban planning: Methodological approach and benchmarking results for urban nature plans in 10 European cities

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 aims to restore Europe's biodiversity for the benefit of people, climate and the planet. Target 14 mandates that cities with at least 20,000 inhabitants should develop an ambitious urban greening plan. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework promotes biodiversity-inclusive urban planning through a stronger governance approach, that includes people and public participation across all levels and sectors. Recent policies encourage cities to develop urban greening plans, together with mechanisms for monitoring the progress toward EU and global biodiversity targets. This research proposes quality criteria against which EU cities could be evaluated while establishing ambitious urban nature plans An analytical framework was developed consisting of 30 criteria across six macro categories: urban biodiversity goals and targets, collaborative governance, institutional support, public participation, financing mechanisms, and monitoring and evaluation aspects. The framework was applied to assess urban green plans for a sample of ten cities with existing urban green or nature plan for at least 3 years. Policy and research experts were consulted on the selected criteria and the cities’ results. It emerges that public participation and collaborative governance are rarely considered integral part from the beginning of established plans except in a few cities despite EU guidelines advocating for adoption of co-creation approaches. Only 4 out of the 10 cities performed well across all the 6 macro categories. Moreover, 7 out of the 10 cities showed evidence on a lack of monitoring and evaluation, and financial mechanisms to promote urban greening and collaborative governance of biodiversity. These results can help local authorities to build ambitious, yet robust, urban greening plans and support national/regional authorities to monitor progress toward EU and global biodiversity policies.