There is a gap between the needs and demands of the cities that should develop and implement SUMPs, and higher administrative institutions who should prepare the ground and provide programmes to encourage cities to develop and implement SUMPs.

The aim is to close the gap and develop national SUMP support programmes in all participating countries – that are tailor made for the needs of cities and really help them, e.g. through knowledge building and sharing, financial and institutional support, standardisation, common evaluation criteria, etc.

The main concept of the CIVITAS-PROSPERITY project is to activate the national and/or regional level to develop policy frameworks that will improve or start up National programmes.

To prepare the development or improvement of National programmes, CIVITAS PROSPERITY started with the analysis of the current status of national or regional support programmes in EU member states.

This analysis aimed to identify and assess:

1. the status of National programmes in EU member states;
2. successful existing National programmes and their key contents;
3. key problems hindering SUM-planning in cities, regions and countries;
4. needs of national level representatives in developing and improving National programmes

The results of the analysis which has been carried out in a joint way with the sister project CIVITAS SUMPs-Up is now available for download as report.