Eurasia Regional Section of the World organization "United Cities and Local Governments"
Eurasia Regional Section of the World organization "United Cities and Local Governments"
Two open sessions of the Executive Bureau took place at World Bank Headquarters. The first open session, initiated by Mayor Anthony WILLIAMS, had the theme Relations between Local Government and their Central Governments. The discussion focused on the ever-larger responsibilities of elected officials in meeting the needs of their citizens in relation to their decision-making powers and financial resources. Inga BJORK-KLEVBY, Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat, presented the draft Guidelines on Decentralisation, currently under consultation between governments, and UCLG members expressed their support for the international adoption of these principles for decentralisation and local self-government.
During the second open session, UCLG Executive Bureau members entered into a dialogue with Paul WOLFOWITZ, President of the World Bank, and other senior World Bank Vice-Presidents on the issue of Local Government Financing. Executive Bureau members underlined the need for the World Bank to decentralise its actions to directly benefit cities, and the World Bank President announced that the Bank wished to develop its partnership with UCLG to identify quick, straightforward and effective solutions for city development.
?We want to continue to learn from and strengthen our partnerships with local governments. We have been paying more attention to the importance of cities to development and have systematically increased our engagement with organized local governments all over the world.? declared President WOLFOWITZ, adding: ?Traditionally, the World Bank worked exclusively through States and today we have a tool for financing private corporations. Now we are trying to develop new instruments in order to lend directly to local authorities without sovereign guarantee."
Also in the context of city financing, UCLG signed two cooperation agreements with Cities Alliance, and a meeting of the UCLG Committee on Local Finance, chaired by Jose SERRA, Mayor of Sao Paulo, took place to follow up the discussions held with the Bank.
The UCLG Financial Management Committee and Regional and Metropolitan Secretaries General also met in Washington, along with the UCLG Committees on Gender Equality, City Diplomacy, Decentralised Cooperation and Water and Sanitation.
A meeting of the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA), chaired by Joan CLOS, Mayor of Barcelona, took place within the framework of the UCLG Executive Bureau meetings and the issues under discussion included the Guidelines on Decentralisation and the preparations for the World Urban Forum in June 2006.
SUMMARY OF DECISIONS TAKEN BY THE EXECUTIVE BUREAU
9 FEBRUARY 2006, WASHINGTON
1. UCLG Presidents Bertrand DELANOË and Paco MONCAYO co-chaired the session and welcomed the members of the Executive Bureau, reiterating that the goals of the meeting were to evaluate what had been accomplished in 2005 and to take the necessary decisions for the political direction of UCLG. Following successful meetings in Beijing in June 2005, the Executive Bureau thanked Mayor Anthony WILLIAMS and the National League of Cities (NLC) for hosting the meetings in Washington DC.
Report from the Presidency
2. Presidents DELANOË and MONCAYO reported on UCLG?s activities in 2005. In reviewing the first full year of UCLG?s operations, they highlighted the local government response to the tsunami and the development of the disaster management database. They also thanked the City of Barcelona for its support in establishing the UCLG World Secretariat in its early years.
3. The Presidents presented UCLG?s Policy Programme for 2006 and set out the world organisation?s principle political objectives: to ensure a strong role for local government in global governance; to consolidate the role of local governments in the global development agenda; and to obtain international recognition of the principles of local self-government and decentralization. One of UCLG?s aims was to improve the performance of cities, which was why a positive and dynamic partnership should be developed with World Bank. In adopting the 2006 UCLG Policy Programme, UCLG and its members agreed to promote the local government position on access to water, to ensure a strong contribution to the UN conferences on urban development and HIV/AIDS, to prepare the First UCLG Global Report on Decentralisation and Local Democracy, and to develop activities in the field of access to basic services.
4. The Presidents highlighted the significance of the UCLG Mayors Delegation that met with Kofi ANNAN in September 2005 just prior to the Millennium +5 Summit of Heads of State and Government. This meeting was an important step in increasing the recognition of local government as a partner of the United Nations, as well as an opportunity to strengthen relations with the United Nations Secretariat and to present the results of the UCLG Millennium Towns and Cities Campaign.
UCLG?S Main Activities in 2005
5. The President of the Sections, or their representatives, reported on their work:
? Johnny Araya MONGE, Mayor of San José, reported on the FLACMA Executive Committee where Julio PEREYRA, President of the Argentinean Federation of Municipalities, was elected President of FLACMA, and on the participation of local government in the Summit of the Americas;
? Joan CLOS, Mayor of Barcelona and President of Metropolis, highlighted the Metropolitan Section?s work to advance with the proposal for a World Bank of Cities;
? Eneas COMICHE, Mayor of Maputo and Vice-President for Southern Africa of UCLG-Africa, reported on the progress made in the relations with the President of the African Union and the UCLGA Founding Congress in Tshwane;
? Wim DEETMAN, Mayor of The Hague and Vice-President of CEMR, reported on the constitution of a World Affairs Committee within CEMR to ensure effective coordination between UCLG individual member cities and associations within Europe;
? Gérald TREMBLAY, Mayor of Montreal and newly-elected President of UCLG-North America, highlighted the World Urban Forum in Vancouver as an important event taking place in the region in 2006;
? Dimitry Sergeevich KUZMIN, Mayor of Stavropol, emphasised the increasing membership in the Euro-Asia region, which now had 66 active members, with 114 cities represented at the Euro-Asia General Assembly in Kazan;
? Selahatin YILDIRIM, Secretary General of UCLG-MEWA, emphasised the success of the UCLG Millennium Towns and Cities Campaign in Middle East and West Asia Region, where over 100 cities had declared their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.
6. The Chairs of the UCLG Committees and Working Groups, or their representatives, reported on the first six months of work after their establishment in Beijing and highlighted activities in their work programmes:
? Wim DEETMAN, Mayor of The Hague and Chair of the UCLG Committee on City Diplomacy, called for increased dialogue between local governments in the Muslim and western world in light of the recent cartoon controversy. He outlined the work that the C ommittee had done to define city diplomacy and the tools that local governments had at their disposal for the promotion of peace;
? Jean Michel DACLIN, Deputy Mayor of Lyon, highlighted the work that the UCLG Committee on Decentralised Cooperation had done to develop a common definition of Decentralised Cooperation, and the survey being carried out to identify the activities and budget of cities in this field;
? Joan CLOS, Mayor of Barcelona, reported on a planned meeting between the UCLG Working Group on Culture and UNESCO;
? Janine HADDAD, Vice-President of the Conseil Régional Ile-de-France and Chair of the UCLG Committee on Gender Equality called for more elected women representatives on the statutory bodies of UCLG, and for every UCLG Committee to take a gender equality approach;
? Peter KNIP, Director of VNG-International, reported on the work of the UCLG Working Group on Capacity Building to increase understanding amongst donors of the role of local government in Decentralised Cooperation;
? Monica SALAZAR, on behalf of the Governor of the State of Mexico, reported on the work programme established by the UCLG Committee on the Local Management of Water and Sanitation and the work done to strengthen the role of local government in the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico in March 2006;
? Rodrigo de Oliveira PERPÉTUO, City of Belo Horizonte, reported on the work of the UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy in organising a conference in Caracas with 600 participants, and the Conference on Suburban Local Authorities to take place in March in Nanterre;
? Ramón PEÑAGARICANO, on behalf of the Mayor of Bilbao, reported on actions to be taken by the UCLG Committee on the Information Society to disseminate the Local Agenda on the Information Society as follow up to the Bilbao Summit of Cities and Local Authorities.
7. Executive Bureau members agreed that there was a need for a deeper partnership between local government and the World Bank to enable local government expertise to be utilised in World Bank programmes. It was agreed that a concrete partnership between UCLG and the World Bank be developed on the basis of the discussions with the World Bank President.
8. Following the progress made at the Millennium +5 Summit and the World Summit on the Information Society, it was agreed that UCLG continue to broaden its relationships with the UN and its agencies. UCLG and its members would advocate for more local government recognition before national governments in 2006, and would pursue formal observer status for local government with the United Nations General Assembly.
9. It was agreed that a local government liaison office for the Millennium Campaign be opened within UCLG headquarters in Barcelona, with a view to continuing to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals amongst local governments.
10. UCLG would continue to lobby for the adoption of the Guidelines for Decentralisation by the 2007 UN-Habitat Governing Council, and would ensure that local government views were put forward to the Steering Committee on Access to Basic Services, which was developing norms and recommendations on partnerships to improve access to basic services.
UCLG 2006 activities
11. The proposal presented by President MONCAYO to develop an annual UCLG World Citizen Award was approved and would be launched in Quito on 8 September 2006.
12. The UCLG GOLD web portal (http://cities-localgovernments.org/gold) giving access to over 1000 websites of relevance to local government was officially launched and members agreed to send information to the World Secretariat on a regular basis to keep it updated.
13. The editorial proposal for the publication of the First UCLG Global Report on Decentralisation and Local Democracy was approved.
2006 key meetings
14. A report on the preparations for the 4th World Water Forum was given on behalf of the Governor of the State of Mexico and Chair of the UCLG Committee on Local Management of Water and Sanitation, which highlighted local government meeting in Mexico and the participation of local elected representatives in the roundtables. A high-level Dialogue session would also take place, bringing together Ministers, Parliamentarians and Local Government representatives. A joint Local Government Declaration on Water was agreed, which would be amended to include the comments and language improvements suggested by members. The declaration underlined the role of local government in the management of water and the need for an increase in international financing.
15. A report on the preparations for the 3rd World Urban Forum in Vancouver was given by Jim KNIGHT, Director of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). FCM was working with UCLG, and in collaboration with the Canadian government and UN-Habitat, on the local government contribution to the Forum, which would include a Mayors roundtable.
16. Important regional meetings that would take place in 2006 included the CEMR General Assembly in Innsbruck, the UCLG-ASPAC Executive Committee in Brisbane, the FLACMA Congress in Cali, and the Africities Summit in Nairobi.
17. The 2006 calendar of events would be sent periodically by email as a new service from UCLG to the membership, and members agreed to inform the UCLG World Secretariat of any events that would need to be included in the web version of this calendar.
UCLG 2007 World Congress
18. CHEN Haosu, President of the UCLG Asia-Pacific Region, Elisabeth GATEAU, UCLG Secretary General, and a representative of the Vice-Governor of Jeju reported on the preparations for the 2007 World Congress, which should aim principally to broaden the visibility of UCLG in Asia-Pacific.
19. A Congress Programme Committee was constituted to develop the Congress themes and programme.
Organisational issues
20. A report of the Financial Management Committee meeting on Wednesday 8 February was provided by Clarence ANTHONY, Elected Treasurer of UCLG. The 2006 budget was approved and would be submitted to the World Council. UCLG?s auditors were reappointed for this financial year.
21. Applications for membership were approved from the Asia-Pacific and Middle-East and West Asia Regions.
Next meeting of the World Council and Executive Bureau in Morocco
22. Mr. Omar EL BAHRAOUI, Mayor of Rabat and President of the National Association of Moroccan Local Authorities, invited the UCLG World Council and Executive Bureau to meet in Marrakech on 30 October-1 November 2006, with preparatory meetings on 29 October 2006. President DELANOË added that the holding of UCLG?s meetings in an Arab country was a natural step following the meetings in Sao Paulo, Beijing and Washington, and demonstrated the truly global nature of the world organisation.
10.02.2006
