Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation to continue strengthening the involvement of local governments in the monitoring process
The 13th Steering Committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) took place from on 23-24 April in Washington DC. The GPEDC brings together a wide array of state and non-state stakeholders, making it a unique development platform. It aims to gather evidence and knowledge, based on its country-focus approach to support all development actors to enhance the effectiveness of their respective development cooperation efforts.
UCLG has a seat in the Steering Committee of the GPEDC since April 2014, with active participation of the UCLG Committee on Development Cooperation and City Diplomacy and its Capacity and Institution Building Working Group. Local governments are also working closely with CEMR, PLATFORMA and the AIMF on this topic.
The Mayor of Kitchener (Canada) and UCLG Treasurer, Berry Vrbanovic, represented UCLG in the Steering Committee. The meeting was the first chaired by the three new Co-Chairs: Germany (provider country), Bangladesh (provider and recipient country) and Uganda (recipient country), which were installed at the second High-Level Meeting in Nairobi in November 2016.
The objectives of this Steering Committee meeting were to agree on a 2017-2018 Global Partnership work programme and on specific actions to ensure the implementation of strategic priorities for 2017, to discuss working arrangements to ensure effective delivery of the work programme, to provide guidance and endorse the approach and roadmap for refinement of the monitoring framework and define practical next steps to mobilise resources.
The Mayor of Kitchener emphasised the important role of local and regional governments in the implementation (“localization”) of the 2030 Agenda (Sustainable Development Goals) and in the definition, implementation and monitoring of national development strategies, by sharing stories “from the ground”. Berry Vrbanovic underlined the need for ensuring continued visibility for the importance of local government capacity building and local government peer-to-peer development cooperation. Finally, the Mayor of Kitchener offered ways in which the Local Governments constituency can be involved in future activities of the GPEDC, such as monitoring and learning and within a renewed Global Partnership Initiative.
It is worth recalling that during the 2nd High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership held last november, the final Outcome document recognized the critical role of local governments and committed to ”empower local governments to localize the SDGs” promoting a strong collaboration between all levels of governments and strengthening their involvement in monitoring process of effective development cooperation. The conclusions included the principle of “non-executive co-chair in the Leadership of the Global Partnership” that will represent local authorities, parliamentarian, CSOs, trade unions, philanthropy and business sector. This was an important innovation to foster mutual accountability and broad democratic accountability in multilateral fora.
(This article was initially published on UCLG website)
