Foreword Dear Colleagues and Friends, It is our great pleasure, as co-chairs the UCLG Committee on Development Cooperation and City Diplomacy and as past president of the lead organisation that prepared the paper, to present to you the UCLG Policy Paper on Development Cooperation and Local Government. In the past decades, local governments and their associations have increased and enhanced their involvement in development cooperation, with a view to contributing to capacity development of local governments, to facilitate and strengthen decentralization and local development processes, and to contribute to poverty reduction and the attainment of international development goals. The donor community is increasingly recognizing the considerable contributions that local governments make to development. This paper therefore takes stock of the variety in partnerships between local governments and their associations, while showing their added value and complementarity to other development cooperation interventions. The paper assesses the strengths of and opportunities for local government development cooperation, describes the various models of intervention and looks at the need to continue creating innovative approaches and focusing on concrete tangible results and impact. The Policy Statement provides political recommendations to the international community and local governments themselves. It emphasizes the need for the full recognition of local and regional governments as development partners occupying an equitable place in international development cooperation and it calls for substantially increased financial support for local government development cooperation programmes, designed to match their specific role and contribution. The background document provides more in-depth analysis. A longer version of this paper can be found on UCLG’s Capacity and Institution Building (CIB) Working Group website. On this website, also the larger versions of the case studies that are illustratively included in the paper can be found, as well as many more examples of how local government development cooperation has impacted and led to concrete tangible results at the local level for the benefit of citizens. The Policy Paper is the result of a research led by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) in partnership with the UCLG’s CIB Working Group and the UCLG World Secretariat. It has received contributions from UCLG members and partners through various consultation rounds and was adopted by the UCLG World Council in December 2012. The paper contributes to building a common understanding and position among members of UCLG and will be used, in particular, as formal policy position for international advocacy. We hope we can count on your support and participation in meeting the challenges that are detailed in the policy paper. Yours sincerely, GÊrard Collomb
Annemarie Jorritsma-Lebbink
Berry Vrbanovic
Co-Chair of the Development Cooperation and City Diplomacy Committee
Co-Chair of the Development Cooperation and City Diplomacy Committee
Past president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Mayor of Lyon
President of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG)
Councilor of Kitchener
Mayor of Almere