The Virtual Office for the Demographic Challenge (OVRD), created to combat depopulation and strengthen the administrative capacity of municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, has become an essential tool. Since May 2025, it has received 762 aid requests from 41 of the 47 municipalities included in the depopulation strategy, representing 87% of these town halls. The platform, developed by the public company Gesplan and the Ministry of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion, and Water, assists in drafting contracting files, writing tax ordinances, processing subsidies, and unblocking urban planning licenses.
The OVRD emerged as one of the 51 measures proposed to address the demographic challenge and promote sustainable development in the Archipelago. The initial diagnosis revealed that these municipalities lacked sufficient personnel for basic tasks. The platform was conceived as direct support for town halls, offering solutions to this structural deficit of technical staff.
Since its creation, the platform has registered 762 requests, of which 573 are specific files and 189 are for template documents. In 2026, it received 387 requests, surpassing the 375 from 2025. The report highlights that municipal license processing is the most critical area, accounting for 259 files (45% of specific requests). This is followed by drafting tax ordinances (55), subsidies (54), tender documents and budgets (53), and contracting files (51). Approximately 78.7% of specific requests have already been addressed.
By island, Tenerife leads usage with 467 specific requests (over 81%). It is followed by Gran Canaria (96), La Palma (81), Fuerteventura (53), La Gomera (39), Lanzarote (19), and El Hierro (6), according to data up to June 15, 2026. A total of 201 technicians and staff from town halls and island councils have registered. Municipalities such as Fasnia (102 requests), Buenavista del Norte (69), and Arico (66) in Tenerife, and Vega de San Mateo (37) in Gran Canaria, are the most active.
The OVRD's methodology focuses on transforming individual problems into common solutions. When recurring queries are detected, generic content (guides, templates, flowcharts) is created and made available to all local entities, complemented by learning forums and audiovisual material to enhance municipal technical capacity.
