Analysing Co-creation and Co-production Initiatives for the Development of Age-friendly Strategies: Learning from the Three Capital Cities in the Basque Autonomous Region

Abstract

Driven by the ageing process taking place in the Basque Autonomous Region (BAR), the ‘Age-Friendly Cities and Communities’ (AFCC) initiative has become a major political reference for the development of ageing policies in the territory. This article addresses this subject by means of a qualitative study that analyses how the three main capital cities in the region are implementing age-friendly strategies, with a focus on co-creation and co-production processes. The article examines the challenges they are currently facing in the development of the aforementioned participatory processes. Our research suggests that political involvement, even if necessary, is meaningless if the strategy is not embedded in the work of influential stakeholders. Moreover, the success of communities in becoming more age friendly will, to a large extent, depend on whether older people, including those facing social exclusion, become involved as key actors in future research and policies around age-friendly developments.