BIP/ZIP (Neighborhoods and Priority Intervention Zones)

BIP/ZIP is Lisbon's Local Development Strategy for Priority Intervention Zones, built on a co-governance process. The City Council used statistical indicators to identify the 67 neighbourhoods and priority areas with the worst socioeconomic, environmental and urban-planning conditions, home to roughly 150,000 people — almost a third of Lisbon's population.

The strategy aims to involve residents in shaping public and community space, improve living conditions, build collective intelligence, create participation and co-decision mechanisms, foster a positive image of these territories, and encourage local entrepreneurship.

It combines four tools: BIP/ZIP Mapping (identifying priority territories via overlapping deprivation indexes), the BIP/ZIP Programme (funding local community projects), GABIP local offices (co-governance structures involving the municipality, boroughs and stakeholders), and a Collaborative Platform for Community-Led Local Development.

Between 2011 and 2020, the programme allocated €15,802,212 to 394 approved projects, involving 647 participating entities and generating 2,436 activities, reaching an estimated 107,400 residents per year. It also led to the creation of a dedicated Local Development Department in the Municipality (2015) and the Community-Based Local Development Network Association, which now has more than 170 members.

BIP/ZIP was named a Best Practice by the EU URBACT Transfer Network and has been shared with cities including Bari, Aalborg, Sofia, Ostrava, Lublin, The Hague and Lille Métropole, though its reported outcomes rest on municipal monitoring rather than an independent comparison.