Belgium's Municipal International Cooperation Programme (Programme de Coopération Internationale Communale, CIC), implemented jointly by the of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia (UVCW) and the Association of the City and Municipalities of the Brussels-Capitol Region (AVCB), enters its new programming phase this year, with activities that will continue into 2016.The CIC Programme responds to the Belgian Development Cooperation's focus on fighting poverty and on developing capacity in countries of the global South, by recognising that one of the challenges that the poor face is inadequate access to citizenship, in the form of lack of access to public services and goods, especially on a local level.
In order to battle this issue so closely linked to poverty worldwide, the CIC Programme aims to reinforce the capacités of local institutions in the global South and incite them to take charge of their own development through international municipal partnerships. The programme works with Burkina Faso, Benin, Morocco, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Senegal in this new phase of the programme (2014 - 2016). Areas of focus vary per country, but generally focus on civil status, social action, local economic development (LED), and local administration.
Programme fiches (in French) are now available for viewing in our CIB Library. For additional information on these programmes, please contact Ms. Elisabeth Manteau of UVCW.