ECOSOC Integration Segment: Side event

Decentralised Cooperation: Contributing to the Post 2015 Agenda

28 May, 13h15-14h30, UN Headquarters, New York
Co-organised by the CEMR, CLGF, UCLG and PLATFORMA
with the support of the European Commission

CONCEPT NOTE

Local Authorities in urban areas have a decisive role to address the
challenges related to urbanisation [] The EU should continue to support
and coordinate decentralised and cross-border cooperation.

EC Communication Empowering Local Authorities in partner countries for enhanced
governance and more effective development outcomes, May 2013


Background of the Session:

The United Nations (UN) and the international
community have embarked on a journey of designing a
new framework that will guide development policies for
the next 15 years. The foundation of this framework
will be the so-called Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), called to follow and end the work of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and implement
the outcomes of the Rio+20 Summit of 2012.

Cities and urban centres represent both the greatest
challenge and the greatest hope for a sustainable
future.

Precisely because urbanisation has arisen as one of the
major challenges of the 21
st
century, local and regional
governments worldwide have called for a stand-alone
SDG on sustainable urbanisation.

That being said, whether it is to address this challenge
or any other that the SDGs will contemplate, cities and
regions will be key in delivering the SDGs. Even as the
national governments have an important role to play in
ensuring an adequate level of self-government,
capacity development and financial resources, the
collaboration and cooperation between local and
regional authorities themselves, is key in this process
and to promote human rights, democracy, rule of law,
equal opportunities and equal and sustainable growth.

In Europe for example, what started as a movement to
promote a peaceful, democratic and united Europe
evolved over time, into a more structured and
systematic approach to support counterparts from all
over the world to reduce poverty, support
decentralisation processes, democracy and local
governance, and basic service delivery to the people.

Decentralised cooperation, peer to peer learning,
municipal international cooperation and other similar
means have been helping to enhance and build
capacity of local governments in the global south
Objectives of the Session:

The main objective of the session is to understand
how peer to peer learning and decentralized
cooperation will contribute in achieving the Post
2015 Agenda.

The session will review
how to enhance a multilevel, multi stakeholder
approach where every sphere of government and
every actor contributes to advance towards better
distribution of wealth, environmental
sustainability, human rights and peace.
what can the networks of local and regional
governments do to create an enabling
environment for implementing the new global
agenda.
the need for an increased collaborative dialogue
among networks of local and regional
governments and actors from multilateral funds,
southern donors, other development sectors and
social movements, to shape the future
development cooperation agenda.

Key Questions:
1) How have local & regional governments
contributed to the MDGs?
2) What does the future of decentralised cooperation
look like?
3) How can decentralised cooperation be scaled up to
take on assume the new challenges?
4) Is fragmentation a risk for development
cooperation if it is done through decentralised
cooperation?
5) Does decentralized cooperation promote
innovation?
6) Can the networks of local and regional
government provide a framework to respond to
the wide variety of needs that need to be
answered?
7) What is the role of Civil Society Organizations
(CSOs) in decentralized cooperation?



Panelists:

Josep Roig is the Secretary
General of United Cities and
Local Governments since
September 2011. He is a
founding member of Metropolis,
the metropolitan section of
UCLG, in 1985, becoming
Secretary General of the organization in 1999. Josep Roig
has held the posts of lecturer in Urban and Regional
Planning at the Department of Economics of the University
of Barcelona (1977-1985) and Director General of the
University of Barcelona (1990-1994). Graduated in
economics by the University of Barcelona (1967-1972) and
Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Southern
California (1974-1977)
Berry Vrbanovic is the Vice-
President of the Federation of
Canadian Municipalities, and
Councilor from Kitchener
(Canada). He is also Deputy
Treasurer of UCLG. From 2005-
2007, he served as Chair of
FCM's Standing Committee on International Relations. He is
also FCM's governance representative on post-tsunami
programs in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, both of which address
the question of local government strengthening in conflict
and post-conflict contexts.
Carl Wright has been the head
of CLGF since it was founded in
1994/5 and has been
responsible for initiating key
programmes such as the CLGF
Good Practice Scheme and
establishing the organisation as
one of the key Commonwealth
organisations. He has served on specialised Commonwealth,
UN, EU, OECD and other international committees and
expert groups and has been a senior delegate, secretary or
chair at many international conferences. He has been an
election observer in Ghana, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Frdric Vallier is the
Secretary General since 2009
of UCLG European Section, the
Council of European
Municipalities and Regions
(CEMR), which among other
things, hosts the Secretariat of
PLATFORMA, the network of European Local and Regional
authorities for development.
Frdric Vallier became Head of the European Service of
Nantes Metropole and City in 2008 after having worked for
Nantes international relations for 3 years.









With the support of the
European Commission












Contacts:
Nestor Vega PLATFORMA:
+32 47 28 29 29 1
nestor.vega@ccre-cemr.org
@platforma4dev