Sonthofen - August 2010 

The administrativ district "Oberallgäu" and the organization "Allägu-Initiative", who is responsible for regional management, are project partners of DEMOCHANGE. In Sonthofen, they organized the DEMOCHANGE kick-off event forthe region Allgäu. The participants were responsibles along the municipal level and the fields of economy, tourism and social development.

Approx. 470.000 people live in the region called "Allgäu" and appreciate it as a high-quality area for working and living. Because of that, there is a need to stabilise the future development of the region with regard to the demographic changes.The goal is to form the demographic change in a positive and sustainable way for the own region.

This workshop was the first milestone unifying responsibles of different fields. The aim was to encourage them for the DEMOCHANGE project. Facts about the future and past development of the Allgäu and its administrative districts, towns and cities were presented to catch the responsibles attention. A discussion about demographic efects was coming up. The main topics were job market, education and tourism. 

Now the idea is to form steering groups, which specialize on different topics to work out pilot actions for the project-partner-regions. The kick-off event was successful in providing information, creating interest and forming steering groups.

However, the knowledge about demographic development should not be just for the regional responsibles and administrations. The main idea is to provide the information about demographic change and the results of the steering groups to everyone who is interested in demographic development in the alpine regions and especially in the Allgäu.

Reporting (only available in German)