CONNECT’s first triangular cooperation: Sri Lanka, Brazil and Barcelona meet each other

After a request for support on municipal planning was sent out on behalf of nine cooperating Sri Lankan municipalities, not one but two parties responded, showing interest to address this issue together!

The Sri Lankan local governments contacted CONNECT because they want to learn more about municipal planning. For the moment, local governments in Sri Lanka only work on service delivery. Now that election time is over and the councillors are ready for the next term, they would like to see how they can set-up a municipal planning system. The 9 municipalities come from 9 districts and plan to disseminate their findings with the other local governments in their district.

Who reacted to the Sri Lankan request?

Manaquiri, a municipality in the Brazilian Amazonas, is familiar with working on public policy making and actively uses the Sustainable Development Goals in this process. Besides that, the municipality and its people are also generally interested in international (trilateral) cooperation. The second party, the province of Barcelona, has a long tradition of international cooperation and local government exchanges and can provide lots of knowledge on local governance. They will also be the hosts of the exchange that is expected to take place in the week of November 26. All parties will also take part in a conference on the theme ‘Direct Democracy and Citizens’ Initiative. Towards an ecosystem of Inclusive Democracy’ by The International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD).

This will be the first time that a triangular cooperation within CONNECT will take place, and all parties are excited to get to work! We will keep you informed on the findings and results of this promising exchange of skills and knowledge.

The Mayor of Manaquiri, Jair Souto, was invited to speak at PLATFORMA 10 year anniversary conference. During the pannel “Cities and regions at the forefront of the 21st century development cooperation”, he explained why participating at new exchanges was key for his city.

Find all the pictures of PLATFORMA 10 year’s conference here.

(Picture: © Bernal Revert/ BR&U)