Brussels, 12/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - Local and regional authorities within the EU and in EU partner developing countries have a decisive role to play in development cooperation in order to achieve tangible results on the ground. Giving them an enhanced role is therefore a question of political will, said the participants at the 3rd Assizes of Decentralised Cooperation jointly organised by the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the European Commission in Brussels on 9 and 10 April.
Representatives of local and regional authorities of the EU, Latin America, Africa and Asia, and representatives of the United Nations, experts from EU institutions and civil society organisations reflected over the course of two days on the challenges of development cooperation and on what this implies for the future.
At a time when the EU and the UN are intensifying discussion on the new global development framework after 2015 (see EUROPE 10824) and when the Commission is preparing a communication expected this year on the role of local authorities in partner countries so that more effective results can be achieved, local and regional authorities are demanding to be more actively involved in the implementation of development policies and also that they be involved upstream in the definition of policies. They call on the EU to place decentralisation and local and regional partnerships at the heart of development policy, requesting that 2015, a year that hinges between achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the future development objectives, be declared as “European Year for Development”.
Ramon Luis Valcarcel, CoR President, hoped the Commission's communication will allow progress to be made towards the establishment of a multi-level partnership with the local authorities. As regards the post-2015 international development programme, he called for a “genuine partnership” fully involving local and regional authorities and supporting them as they take part in discussions. He said: “When local features have a strong impact on the content of a policy, meaning that the policy needs to be adapted to the particular context, local and regional authorities need to shoulder their responsibilities fully. It is therefore vital that development cooperation work towards building up partners' capacities, especially the capacity to create and use their own resources”.
In his closing speech, European Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs answered the appeal made by participants by underlining the European Commission's resolve to place greater emphasis on a territorial approach to development. “We particularly see a stronger role for local authorities in partner countries as key to achieving better governance and the sustainable development outcomes set out in the international agenda”, he said. The programme for change, moreover, which is the framework for EU development policy after 2013, explicitly refers to the role of the local and regional authorities and of civil society.
A memorandum of understanding between the CoR and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) was signed at the assizes on decentralised cooperation. The international donors' conference for the development of Mali organised at the initiative of France and the EU will be held on 15 May at the premises of the CoR, when local and regional authorities will have the possibility of highlighting the role that they can play in rebuilding the country and in supporting the stabilisation process. (AN/transl.jl)