Development effectiveness at the local and regional level (2013)

Up until the last decade, neither national governments – with a few exceptions – nor the European institutions fully understood the value and potential of local and regional governments’ contribution to international development. In the late 1990s, the European Union (EU) developed its own concept of decentralised cooperation yet, in practice, it largely focused on NGOs. The EU also implemented a few global programmes on a regional basis targeted at local and regional governments, such as Asia-Urbs and Urb-AL, although a general framework was lacking.

[…]