The Porto Metropolitan Area (AMP) will promote, together with its 17 municipalities, an integrated intervention in disadvantaged communities, where various social and economic vulnerabilities are concentrated, through the Action Plan for Disadvantaged Communities in the Porto Metropolitan Area.

Drawn up under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Action Plan for Disadvantaged Communities will be materialised in six interventions of a territorial nature on a supra-council scale, aimed at promoting social and economic development, and a metropolitan focus on innovation, empowerment, participation and involvement of communities.

Fighting poverty and social exclusion in the Porto Metropolitan Area implies considering these phenomena within their complexity and the multiple facets and incidences they assume. In this sense, the approach adopted for the design and construction of the Plan began with the acknowledgement of the nature, dimension and incidence of the main problem situations affecting the most vulnerable social groups in this metropolitan territory, followed by the identification and characterisation of "Disadvantaged Communities".

The synthetic diagnosis and the territorial analysis carried out allowed for the geographical conformation of the six territorial interventions that reflect and frame the profiles of social vulnerabilities and that are shared by neighbouring supra-council territories.

This approach leads to the development of a multidimensional and multi-sectorial action plan that considers the diversified territorial expression of the Porto Metropolitan Area’s social problems, thus enabling the differentiated structuring and implementation of the interventions.

The AMP, together with the 17 municipalities and the Recover Portugal Mission Structure, among others, will be responsible for managing the implementation of the interventions, as well as their follow-up, monitoring, control, audit and assessment, among other obligations aimed at regulating and implementing the investments.

With an allocation of 121.5 million euros, the plan will be implemented between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2025 in the 17 municipalities of the Porto Metropolitan Area.

The funds will be covering immaterial interventions (culture and creativity; education; citizenship and empowerment of communities; employment and local economy; health; and social dynamization, for example) and material interventions (public space recovery).

The Territorial Action Plans are expected to be presented during March 2022.