Since its creation in 2008, PLATFORMA represents more than 100,000 local and regional governments active in town-to-town and region-to-region development cooperation. A more effective and closer to citizens’ approach, known as “decentralised cooperation”.
PLATFORMA is a pan-European coalition of 30 local and regional governments, and includes the associations representing them at the national, European and global level. They are all key players of international cooperation for sustainable development.
PLATFORMA reflects the diversity of local and regional governments’ realities in Europe and across the world: sharing experiences and providing capacity building actions improve the basis on which the advocacy work of the network is designed and carried out.
PLATFORMA federates local and regional government practitioners with their national, pan-European and global associations and has two essential pillars:
- to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and mutual learning,
- to organise effective advocacy at the European level to reinforce local and regional governments’ specific role in development policies.
PLATFORMA is a network of development actors, not a “development practitioner”. The PLATFORMA secretariat is a facilitator of learning and exchange between its partner organisations, not an “operator” of development actions in partner countries.
The activities implemented by the network of partners are oriented to:
- engage different partners from across Europe,
- look at the local, national and European governments’ role in the specific geographical or thematic area,
- feed into the political and the advocacy objectives of the network.
The Secretariat of PLATFORMA is hosted by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR).
