Decentralised Cooperation and Local Government: Addressing Contemporary Global Challenges

At the start of the last decade, United Cities and Local Governments’ (UCLG) policy paper on Decentralised Cooperation and Local Government laid out a clear rationale for decentralised cooperation and set out recommendations to the prevalent tackle weaknesses of international development cooperation and to strengthen development effectiveness. In many ways, the paper was a forerunner in calling for stronger sustained support for South-South development cooperation particularly among countries that have undergone similar socio-economic challenges so that learnings can be shared across partners. It laid emphasis on professional structures and programme-based approaches, with clear monitoring and evaluation tools and indicators on impact and called for a sharing of objectives across local and regional governments, and their associations, committed to continuing improvement, learning and exchange. These recommendations have helped strengthen international decentralised cooperation over the past decade, and their core principles continue to be highly relevant today. In 2021, the Institute of Development Studies, UK, with support of the UCLG Capacity and Institution Building Working Group (CIB), has engaged a wide range of member governments, associations, and networks, alongside a range of external commentators and experts, to assess UCLG principles, priorities, and actions in the context of contemporary global challenges and the resulting landscape of decentralised development cooperation. Following a series of survey-based, individual, case study, and workshop interactions, the study presents key points and recommendations.