How a country organises its public finances forms the basis for how local authorities govern priorities in cities, towns, and villages. While national governments have the responsibility to design and supervise a system that works, local authorities are challenged to use their often limited resources for delivering better local services.
Over the course of five days, between December 14-18, the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) organised the Local Democracy Academy 2020, a place where representatives of local governments and researchers from all over the world met to share and exchange ideas. This year’s theme – Global Disruptions and Local Democracy for a Post-Covid World – generated a lot of interest, and the lessons learnt seem more pertinent than ever.
The Capacity and Institution Building Working Group of United Cities and Local Governments has worked on a joint position on COVID-19 and (the continued need for) local government development cooperation (also available in
The European Days of Local Solidarity (EDLS) are a major event during which cities, regions and citizens from across the continent raise awareness on the challenges and local projects promoting sustainable development worldwide. The Days bring to life the famous motto: “Think global, act local.”
As the pressure increases on local authorities to implement Covid-19 measures, and the pandemic having dominated the agenda of the international community, the most vulnerable who are affected the most need not be forgotten. The situation regarding Syrian refugees and Roma citizens is still present, and it has in many ways been exacerbated, as a cause of the current pandemic.
Qudra 2 Programme
The Swedish International Center for Local Democracy (ICLD) is hosting a virtual Local Democracy Academy, an academic programme that brings together an international group of leading scholars, doctoral students, post-doctoral scholars, junior researchers, local policy makers and government officials for an intensive week of mutual learning, critical thinking and joint exploration of new ideas and approaches to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Metropolis co-organized the Urban Thinker Campus: Megacities’ post-covid planning in collaboration with the World Urban Campaign, the MTPA (Metropolitan and Territorial Planning Agencies), the FNAU (French Network of Urban Planning Agencies),
UN Women published an interesting brief which highlights emerging evidence of the impact of the recent global pandemic of COVID-19 on violence against women and girls. It provides recommendations to be considered by all sectors of society, including cities and local governments, in order to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. The document showcases astonishing figures on the increase of domestic violence, the increase of calls to helplines and demands for emergency shelters.
Recommendations include:
The global COVID-19 outbreak requires us to rethink our (inter)national programmes and activities, in order to adequately tackle the current crisis and its aftermath. To be able to enhance information exchange on COVID-19 measures and approaches, the CIB secretariat now uses the following tools:
As communicated last week, the CIB chairs and secretariat have decided to transform the scheduled CIB annual meeting 2020 into a virtual (shortened) annual meeting. After consultation with members last week, we can now announce that the online meeting will take place on Wednesday 17 June, between 14:00 and 17:00 CEST.
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