impulse flemish sif

Summary: The Social Impulse Fund (SIF) was an initiative of the Flemish Community with the aim of supporting the municipalities in their policy for a more liveable municipality. A number of principles were central to this: Involving local actors in planning and implementation; The elaboration of a (policy) multiannual plan, which clearly indicates the coherence of the policy and the relationship between the regular policy and the impulse policy with SIF funds. The Flemish Community made the disbursement of the funds conditional on the achievement of certain results. The Antwerp Sif Policy Plan, which also included the VFIK (Flemish Fund for the Integration of Disadvantaged Persons) projects to be continued, was approved by the Social Welfare Council on 18 October and 15 November 1996 and by the Municipal Council on 18 November 1996. This plan was a multi-annual plan drawn up for a period of three years (i.e. 1997-1999). A new policy plan was drawn up for the period 2000-2002, in which existing initiatives were continued and new projects were given a chance. Although there was no real impulse area anymore, most efforts remained concentrated in the same neighbourhoods as in the previous SIF period. Purpose: Visualization and demarcation of the SIF_areas for the city of Antwerp. Creation: The SIF areas were defined on the basis of a score of the corresponding sectors in four areas, namely quality of life, environmental quality, well-being and disadvantage. In this context, the SIF offered local authorities the opportunity to work on the overall improvement of urban society through a two-track approach: on the one hand, the policy should benefit the entire population of the city (improvement of well-being) and the entire urban territory (improvement of the quality of life and the environment of the city), on the other hand, the policy should benefit specific target groups (combating disadvantaged people) and specific areas (improvement of the quality of life and the environment of deprived urban areas). This resulted in a clear break in trend compared to the earlier impulse policy initiated by the Flemish Government. This focused exclusively on specific target groups (VFIK) or disadvantaged districts (Revaluation areas, Social Renewal).