Eight Mayors from Latin American cities pledged to speak in a more united, regional voice at the upcoming global and regional forums, at the 22nd Summit of Mercociudades. One of them, Mayor Jose Ramon Mestre from Cordoba, called for promoting local governments’ agendas at international stages: "We must work on decentralization and citizen participation with the support of international cooperation. The global agenda of local governments is huge.. and the urban agenda and the SDGs can’t be achieved without Latin American cities".
Plans for action derive from 22nd Summit of Mercociudades
The Mayors gathered at the occasion of the 22nd Summit of Mercociudades and agreed to advance on different topics in the field of internationalization:
1. Constitution of one voice of South American cities
2. Taking steps against centralism and ensure multilateralism
3. Installing/positioning Mercociudades and its messages in large international forums
4. Achieving regional unity, a working plan for Mercociudades and concrete advocacy actions
5. Encouraging the establishment of clear rules to include cities in the global governance system
The present politicians also discussed possible actions to be implemented in Latin American cities in the next years, to be able to achieve the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda.
Session of “A seat at the global table”
The aforementioned topics were further discussed in the session of the “A seat at the global table” initiative. This global initiative demands a revision of the current global governance system and has been successful in committing various local authorities to this cause. The initiative is led by AL-Las, within the framework of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments.
“A seat at the global table” will continue to run activities in the year 2018. More information can be found here.
For some images from the Mercociudades Summit, please have a look at the videos below, which show the highlights from the event:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6p-RzPIWL0 (Spanish voice over)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az6J94rfCSQ (images only)