Further recognition of the role of local governments in the Global Partnership on Effective Development Cooperation

9th Steering committee of the Global Partnership on Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC)

UCLG to host GPEDC workshop on 21-22 June

How do partners of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation concretely work to achieve better development results on the ground? UCLG is pleased to announce that it will host the Global Partnership Initiatives (GPI) acceleration workshop in Barcelona on 21-22 June 2016, to discuss among national states, civil society organisations, trade unions, parliamentarians, private sector and foundations which approaches and partnerships work best to achieve sustainable development.

Global Partnership Initiatives are voluntary initiatives of comprising “coalitions of the willing” to advance specific Busan commitments, as well as progress in new and innovative ideas around the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. GPI represent voluntary, member-led implementation vehicles to spearhead the achievement of results at country and regional levels.  It is an opportunity for UCLG to demonstrate the added value of local governments in development cooperation and the strategic role they can play supporting international cooperation programmes. 

This was decided at the 9th Steering Committee (SC) meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) which took place in Malawi on 29 February-1 March 2016, which was attended by UCLG Champion Berry Vrbanovic and UCLG CIB secretariat member Jessie Post.

Acknowledgement of role of local governments

In the SC meeting, Mayor Vrbanovic congratulated the co-chairs and Steering Committee on its inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach: “UCLG applauds that the current Steering Committee is exploring the option of adding a non-state actor to the co-chairs, and that consultations with broader GPEDC stakeholders are to become standard practice”.  However, in the field of monitoring, local governments remain unrepresented: “We still advocate an adjustment to the monitoring exercise, where local governments have not been mentioned so far; not in the indicators, nor as important stakeholders for discussions”.

“UCLG applauds that the current Steering Committee is exploring the option of adding a non-state actor to the co-chairs, and that consultations with broader GPEDC stakeholders are to become standard practice”  said Mayor Vrbanovic

The way forward

From the 28th of November to the 1st of December the second High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership on Effective Development Cooperation will take place in Nairobi (Kenya). At this occasion, UCLG will present the outcomes and cases of the survey that has been disseminated among local government associations worldwide on the way in which they are involved in the definition of national development priorities.

On the basis of the outcomes of the survey, and on the basis of earlier discussions within the GPEDC, UCLG will also follow up on the future involvement of local governments in monitoring of effective development cooperation.