State of the alliance · August 2026
What the alliance built between Mendoza and Donostia
RITA is not a programme run from a centre. It moves when a territory decides to organise itself and commit to something. What follows is some of what has been happening across the alliance since the Mendoza Declaration — some of it signed, some still in motion. It is not the full picture: territories are moving faster than we can document them.
Our working premise
We start from a hypothesis: three forces are converging
We do not take it as settled that economic change has already happened. We work on the conviction that these three reinforce one another, and that a territory holding all three at once competes differently.
Raising the purpose
The common good at the centre of a territory's decisions, as competitiveness rather than compensation.
Economic innovation
Social and environmental value built into how companies, economic vehicles and markets work.
Multi-stakeholder collaboration
Government, business, academia and civil society in the same conversation, as a habit rather than an exception.
Building the system
Seven working groups. Three have delivered a first draft
First draft delivered
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Minimum standards
What qualifies a region as a region of impact.
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Governance
How the alliance decides, how it is run and how it is protected.
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Economic model
How the system sustains itself financially over time.
Under construction
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RIO identity
The identity of regional origin and impact that markets can recognise.
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Independent verification
Making impact claims credible, auditable and shared.
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Digital platform
Where the network becomes visible and makes action possible.
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Sustainable competitiveness index
Comparing regions by their impact potential.
The seven are not a ladder. They are conditions that reinforce one another and advance in parallel — the building blocks described under How we work, with their status as of August 2026. Three catalytic organisations have offered Chaco, the city of Córdoba and Chiapas as the first places where the draft conditions can be tried against a real territory.
Catalytic organisations
Who actually moves a region
Behind most of the commitments on this page there is an organisation that helped convene the actors, held the process together and kept it moving between gatherings. Fifteen of them now work across the alliance, and over the past year they have started operating as a community of their own rather than as separate local efforts.
- Shared practice across regions that have never met
- The difficulties of the work, discussed openly rather than after the fact
- Working manuals, so a region starting now does not start from zero
- Lessons learned, fed back into the drafts above
Traction
Thirty territories in motion. Six have already given it an institutional form.
Each of the six chose a different vehicle — a regional council, a bioregional manifesto, a multi-institution agreement, a destination pact — and all of them point the same way. Fourteen months separate the first from the last. These are the commitments we can currently document; others are under way in territories that have not yet made them public. None of them was signed by RITA. They were signed by the territories, convened by their own catalytic organisations.
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Mendoza
Where the Declaration was born, on a structure already in place
Universities, nine business chambers, the Diplomatic Forum and every municipality in a cooperation agreement for a climate pact, with clear regional objectives, carbon reduction and a focus on sustainable economic innovation. The underlying structure had been building since 2022.
First Ibero-American Meeting of Regions and Impact Trade -
Maule
Chile's first Regional Council for Sustainable Development
More than ten actors signed. The governance it installed sits in the Maule Sustainable Development Council, where institutions from all four helices take part: a permanent body, not an event. The Maule Declaration was signed afterwards.
Regional catalyst Junta del Maule
Maule Sustainable Development Council -
Pampa Atlántica
Five municipalities organised as a single bioregion
General Pueyrredón, Alvarado, Balcarce, Pinamar and Mar Chiquita. RITA Week brought together more than 150 leaders from different sectors and closed with the signing of the Bioregion Manifesto. The work continues to add concrete actions.
Local catalyst Kausana
Manifesto of the Pampa Atlántica Bioregion -
Valparaíso
Twenty-nine institutions signed an ambitious agreement
Public sector, private sector, academia and civil society: the quadruple helix in action, convened by the Sustainable Business Hub at UNAB. Weeks before Euskadi they signed an agreement to move towards a Climate-Resilient and Regenerative Economy.
Twenty-nine institutions · UNAB Sustainable Business Hub -
Euskadi
The Second Catalytic Encounter confirmed the Basque Country's pioneering role
A territory driving RITA's growth not only in Europe, but as a global platform for territorial cooperation. One year after Mendoza the gathering changed continent without changing method: full delegations, working sessions, and agreements that leave the room.
Bilbao plenary · Second Catalytic Encounter, May 2026 -
Cozumel
Three days of a festival that closed with four commitments and a convenor
The third edition of Cozumel Vivo Fest ended with agreements rather than conclusions. The Mexican Caribbean Hotel Council agreed to set up a citizen observatory and a water-quality monitoring pilot, with Centinelas del Agua, Healthy Reefs for Healthy People and the Coral Reef Alliance. Parley for the Oceans, UQroo Cozumel and Jóvenes MaB launched Phase I of Cozumel Circular across nine public schools and the municipal building. The national protected-areas commissioner opened a direct dialogue with tour operators on the Cozumel Reefs National Park, and the water utility confirmed new investment in treatment plants.
Underneath all of it, the Destination Management Body was strengthened as the convenor between sectors, and the state government committed to a permanent multi-sector table and a Regenerative Cozumel 2050 Plan.
Cozumel Vivo Fest, third edition · Quintana Roo -
Where the minimum standards meet a real territory
- Chaco
- Córdoba
- Chiapas
Proposed by catalytic organisations as the first testing grounds for the minimum verification conditions.
Between the milestones
The part that never gets signed
Agreements are the visible layer. What makes them possible is slower and harder to record: delegations walking a city together, conversations that carry on over dinner, people who stop being a name on a list. It is why a delegation in Talca and a delegation in Vitoria-Gasteiz now know each other well enough to pick up the phone.
Institutional structure
ALMA · UN Local2030
The Bilbao Blueprint, stewarded by the United Nations Local2030 Coalition, as a framework and a working tool for continuing to build the alliance and support territorial work.
The network today
Thirty territories: active, connected, in motion
- 30
- Territories
- 15
- Catalytic organisations
- 7
- Working groups
- 50+
- Potential exchanges and agreements
Of those thirty, six have already formalised an institutional commitment with a date and a public document. The rest take part in plenaries, working groups and bilateral conversations at different stages.
- Mendoza
- Maule
- Pampa Atlántica
- Valparaíso
- Euskadi
- Cozumel
A living alliance
RITA is no longer an idea. It is being built region by region, agreement by agreement.
For territories
Join the plenary, share your model and your interest, and activate a multi-stakeholder delegation.
For catalytic organisations
Accompany a region, organise an exchange, mobilise capital, and steward a line of work within the system.
For partners and funders
Support the structure, protect the integrity of the system, and extend the reach of the alliance.
State of the alliance · August 2026 · globalrita.com