Uclg World Newsletter Vol 02 Year 2012

02/2012

ENGLISH VERSION

NEWS from the Global Network of Local and Regional Governments

Dear members, partners and colleagues, The World Secretariat of United Cities and Local Governments is happy to inform about latest developments for local and regional governments around the world.

Please feel free to forward the Bulletin to friends and colleagues. We welcome your comments and contributions!

Please note: NEXT UCLG EXECUTIVE BUREAU IN RIO DE JANEIRO 17 JUNE 2012 More info

NEXT EVENTS

TOP STORIES Cities and Regions together towards Rio+20 On 23 April, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and UN-Habitat, with the support of Cities Alliance and UNACLA gathered local and regional governments leaders and networks together to a meeting in New York where they presented the key messages of these groups for Rio+20 to both United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon, United Nations officials and the Group of Friends of Sustainable Cities.

More information Read the full report of the meeting Read the Joint Messages of Local and Subnational Authorities

Agenda of Local and Regional Governments in Rio: Urban Summit 18 June UCLG Executive Bureau will take place in Rio de Janeiro building on the political momentum about the need to consider the role of local and regional authorities in sustainable development. The Earth Summit will also have a strong Urban dimension presented by UCLG members and partners, emphasising the need to include culture as a fourth pillar, governance and cohesion among territories in the outcomes of the official conference. An extensive agenda is being prepared from 17 to 18 June and the main activities can be summarised as follow: Sunday 17: UCLG Statutory Meetings.

Monday 18: The Urban Summit: gathering all types of local and regional authorities, Tuesday 19: Side Event: Culture as Fourth Pillar, Side Event: Summit of Regions, Side Event: The Future Local and Regional Governments Want.

For more information on Rio+20 process, the local and regional actions in the preparatory process, please visit regularly: UCLG towards Rio+20

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www.uclg.org

MAIN ISSUES International Conference on “Support to Decentralisation process in Tunisia: Urban realities and future prospects”, Tunis, 28-29 May 2012 UCLG will be co-organising, together with the National Federation of Tunisian Cities (FNTV), the Tunisian Ministry of Interior and the Province of Barcelona, with the support of Cities Alliance, an international conference on “Support to decentralisation in Tunisia: Urban realities and future prospects”, to be held in Tunis on 28-29 May 2012. The opening plenary session of the Conference will introduce current problems and issues and will be followed by three workshops for a more thorough analysis of the situation and to suggest possible solutions.

More information Supporting Local Governments dialogue with regional institutions in Southeast Asia, Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 3-4 May Representatives of local governments from eight ASEAN countries came together on the 3rd and 4th of May in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in the framework of “the Regional conference on Strengthening decentralization and local governance in ASEAN countries through a Multi- Stakeholder Approach”.

The conference was organized by UCLG-ASPAC, in the framework of the UCLG project ‘Supporting Decentralisation in Developing Countries’ and in collaboration with ‘Partnership for Democratic Local Governance in Southeast Asia (DELGOSEA)’, both projects co-financed by the European Commission. The initiative brought together 70 participants from national and local government, international organizations and CSOs to discuss the regional recommendations to strengthen decentralization and local government across the region. Special areas of focus over the two day conference were Good local governance for better Disaster Risk Management, Financing Urban Economic and Infrastructure Development and Strengthening Cooperation between Local Governments and Civil Society.

More information 350 local and regional elected officials agree to reinforce the Istanbul Water Consensus On the occasion of the 6th World Water Forum, held in Marseille from 12 to 17 March 2012, 350 local and regional elected officials from accross the 5 continents have met to increase international the mobilization of local and regional authorities on the issues of water and sanitation and to reinforce the commitments agreed upon in the Istanbul Water Consensus.

More information Read the political messages of local and regional authorities UCLG at the 56th UN Commission on the Status of Women The UCLG delegation of the Standing Committee on Gender Equality lead by the Chair Anne Hidalgo Vice-Mayor of Paris was received today at the UN Women Headquarters by the Executive Director Michelle Bachelet. This meeting was followed by a working session with different sectors of the dedicated UN agency for gender issues.

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Launch of the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation On March 28th 2012, the Press Conference and Launch Ceremony for Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation was officially held in the city of Guangzhou, China.

Documents for the Guangzhou Award Application are available on the official website of the Guangzhou Award at: http://www.guangzhouaward.org

UCLG Mentoring Programme: Strengthen city to city Partnerships in Mozambique A mission to Mozambique in march supported the cities of Xai Xai, Lichinga, Manhisa and Maputo to coordinate their strategies and involve partners through précising and negotiating areas of support and decentralized cooperation. Besides Porto Alegre, the mission was joint by 2 networks CIMES (intermediary cities) and arquitects without borders (ASF), that support the mentoring approach in Mozambique.

More information

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www.uclg.org

NEWS FROM UCLG SECTIONS 6th Latin-American Congress of Cities and Local Authorities In presence of the UCLG President and Mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topbas, as a special guest, the 6th Congress of the Latin-American Federation of Cities, Municipalities and Associations (FLACMA, the Latin-American Section of UCLG) was opened on 21 March 2012 in Santiago de Chile. The Congress gathered more than 1,500 participants from more than 23 countries of Latin America, as well as representatives from other regions.

More information UCLG welcolmes the installation of the UEMOA Council of the Local Governments UCLG notes the installation of the UEMOA Council of the Local Governments, an important advance for dialogue between local and regional authorities and regional institutions in Africa.

More information PLATFORMA invites the European Commission to clarify its strategy of collaboration with the local and regional authorities During its Annual Forum, PLATFORMA invites the European Commission to clarify its strategy of collaboration with the local and regional authorities for development cooperation.

More information CEMR general assembly: discover the draft programme in 3D The draft programme of CEMR general assembly taking place in Cádiz, on 26, 27 & 28 September 2012, is now available.

It includes information on every session (leaders’ roundtables, workshops, plenary or parallel), the themes of each debate, as well as the details of the speakers. The draft programme is yet available in English and French.

More information The Metropolis Initiatives kick off - Take the Initiative!

The Metropolis Initiatives launched in 2012 constitute the main lynchpin of the new Action Plan of the Metropolitan Section of UCLG to foster specific projects and services for cities in conjunction with institutions and companies.

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NEWS FROM UCLG COMMITTEES Rio+20: all ingredients exist to connect sustainability and culture Since the beginning of the century, in almost all corners of the Earth, voices in the academy, the activism and the policy making have advocated for the inclusion of an explicit cultural component in the paradigm of sustainability. Transforming a three pillar model (economy, equity, environment) into a square, in which culture becomes the fourth pillar, deserves serious consideration by the international community. Rio+20 should be the place. The Rio+20 Conference will focus in the green economy and the new institutional framework for sustainable development, but it will also analyse emerging topics.

More information UCLG Working Group on Local Governments and Cooperation in Middle East The “Local Governments and Cooperation in the Middle East Working Group”, created on December 9th 2011 in Florence, within the City Diplomacy and Decentralized Cooperation Committee focuses its attention and efforts on issues and questions linked to the Region. In this respect, officials from Turkey, Italy and Spain took part on the third French-Palestinian meeting on the decentralized cooperation held in Hebron on January 23rd and 24th, where more than 200 officials from the French and European local authorities were present.

For more information, please contact: Simoné Giovetti s.giovetti@cites-unies-france.org UCLG Committee on Peripheral Cities process towards to the Forum of Peripheral Local Authorities The UCLG committee “Peripheral cities” launched a process of co-development of next world Forum of Peripheral Local Authorities, planned in June 2013 in Canoas (Brazil). This process of common construction is based on meetings and exchanges between peripheral local governments, through seminars/conferences at local, national, regional and continental level.

Several meetings are planned right now in Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, France, Africa, and Latin America… Moreover, some international events (Rio+20, 6th World Urban Forum, Mercociudades summit, Africités) constitute as many opportunities to organize meetings of peripheral local authorities and thus to collect the experiences and the point of view of peripheral cities on metropolitan development.

More information

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www.uclg.org

CIB Working Group to meet in Bergen – Norway on 11-12 June 2012 The CIB Working Group will meet on 11-12 June in Bergen (Norway) and will discuss the following main topics: Information sharing and tool exchange : (Latest developments of programmes and projects of CIB members, main conclusions and recommendations of evaluations in Finland, Flanders, Norway and Canada) Parallel sessions: (A comparison of programmes in Africa and identification of coordination possibilities; New ways of cooperation, such as South-South and triangular cooperation; Obstacles and opportunities for coordination and new initiatives; a managerial session on the national contexts and lobby, the relations with members and the cooperation with other departments of the domestic LGA.) Policy and advocacy: (Key note speech and debate on the New Aid Paradigm and decentralized cooperation: How is aid developing and what are strengths and weaknesses of our kind of cooperation; Key note speech and debate on developments in the donor agendas regarding local governance; Presentation of the UCLG Policy Paper and Advocacy Strategy on Development Cooperation; Presentation of the UCLG’s new strategic agenda on cooperation More information 1st World Forum of Cities for the Right to the City The UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights, the city of Saint-Denis and the conurbation authority of Plaine Commune will be organizing the "1st World Forum of Cities for the Right to the City" from 12 - 13 July 2012.

This event will follow on from the conferences of the European Charter for the Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, which have so far been held in Saint-Denis (2000), Venice (2002), Nuremberg (2004), Lyon (2006), Geneva (2008) and Tuzla (2010), but on a renewed basis and facing new challenges. Today, besides the European Charter, it exist the Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City, adopted by UCLG at the Florence World Council (2011), as well as other local human rights charters adopted in various cities of the world. There are also some cities that have yet to adopt either charter, but are implementing interesting policies in the field of human rights. The "1st World Forum of Cities for the Right to the City" will be an arena for sharing and discussing these experiences and sending a joint message in favour of the right to the city.

For more information, visit the website: www.uclg.org/CISDP Contacts: antonio.aniesa@ plainecommune.com.fr and /or e.chueca@uclg.org The Committee of Digital and Knowledge-based begins its collaboration with other committees For the first time since its creation, in December 2011 the Committee of Digital and Knowledge-based Cities organized a joint meeting with the Committees of Strategic Urban Planning and Urban Mobility. (...)

More information Read the: Contributions Rio + 20

NEW PUBLICATIONS UCLG Peer Learning : Unlocking Knowledge in the Southern Cities Discover how peer learning is uniting cities and public administrations globally in exchanging knowledge and facing contemporary urban challenges. You can now access the published report on our action peer-learning event hosted by Sao Paulo State and City, and organized

by UCLG in coordination with Metropolis, in November 2011.

More information Decentralisation Newsletter 29 The Decentralisation Newsletter is published by the Decentralisation and Local Self‐Government Committee of United Cities and Local Governments to disseminate current news on decentralisation processes around the world.

More information NEWSLETTER Nº11, May 2012 Fostering Learning The UCLG’s Committee on Urban Strategic Planning is pleased to present you with the latest news of the Committee with an emphasis on learning.

More information

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www.uclg.org

Beyond Smart Cities How Cities Network, Learn and Innovate© 2012 Tim Campbell This book draws on quantitative and qualitative data with concrete case studies to show how networks already operating in cities are used to foster and strengthen connections in order to achieve breakthroughs in learning and innovation.

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Newsletter published by United Cities and Local Governments - UCLG Carrer Avinyo 15- Barcelona (Spain) T. +34 933 428 750 – F. +34 933 428 760 - E-mail: info@uclg.org Website: www.uclg.org May 2012