Promoting local governance through Municipal International Cooperation
Capacity.org, Issue 21
Document 7 of 8 
issue-21e.pdf 243.34 KB
As the spread of decentralization and democratization gathers speed, so local governments in developing countries are taking more and more responsibility for improving their performance, managing the interface between the state and citizens, and providing services, despite having access only to limited resources. This trend, which makes development cooperation more complex, political and demanding than it used to be, has been closely monitored by organizations involved in ‘municipal international cooperation’ (MIC) .
Development agencies are becoming increasingly aware of these organizations’ potential for supporting wider state reforms such as democratization, good governance and decentralization, as well as sector reforms for enhanced service delivery. But implementing a local governance agenda through MIC is a tough job, as is highlighted by the articles in this issue of Capacity.org. The articles are based on a recent workshop on promoting local governance through MIC, organized jointly by the ECDPM and ACE Europe, a research and consulting firm for European and international cooperation and local development, based in Belgium. The results of this workshop will soon be published as part of the ECDPM’s InBrief series.
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Focus on ICT
We would also like to draw your attention to the updated theme page on Capacity and ICT, maintained by the International Institute of Communication and Development (IICD) featuring an article by Julie Ferguson that looks at the WSIS. The intro to the article states: "Involving years of preparation, the World Summit on the Information Society was an enormously resource-intensive event, and many wonder if all this money and effort would not have been better spent on concrete actions to address - rather than talk about - the digital divide. See: http://www.capacity.org , section 'Platform' and click on 'Capacity and ICTs'.
Euforic
Finally we wanted to draw your attention to the website of Euforic, Europe's Forum on International Cooperation (http://www.euforic.org), an information platform on Europe's relations with the South. One of its major projects is the ACP-EU Civil Society Information Network (http://acp-eu.euforic.org/civsoc) aiming to enhance the use of ICT by non-state actors to become better informed about ACP-EU policies and to bring more parity to the debate.
With kind regards,
Volker Hauck
ECDPM, Maastricht