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This document upholds the thesis that integrating the territorial dimension to development assistance management, a role that was situated by the Paris Declaration (hereinafter PD) at the central government level, is a necessary condition to achieve higher standards in complex processes such as decentralization, local development and multilevel governance. November 2011
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THE TERRITORIAL APPROACH IN THE PATH TOWARDS EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY
INSTRUMENTS FOR OPERATIVENESS The UNDP/ART Initiative Experience
November 2011
THE TERRITORIAL APPROACH IN THE PATH TOWARDS EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY. INSTRUMENTS FOR OPERATIVENESS THE UNDP/ART INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE
2
1. Rethinking Aid ............................................................................................................................................................................ 05 a) The local realm and development cooperation in a period of uncertainties and crisis b) A new agenda for changing scenarios c) Aid effectiveness: Busan and beyond d) The galaxy of the local realm and decentralized cooperation
2. The local realm in the UNDP / ART laboratory ......................................................................................................................... 12 a) ART, an initiative to innovate
1. Towards a new multilateralism 2. Decentralized cooperation in the multilateral framework
b) Instruments to enhance effectiveness 3. Articulation of actors and levels: the spaces of democratic governance 4. Participative strategic planning: complying with the Paris Declaration principles 5. Territorial associations for reciprocal development: networks and the multilateral framework 6. Measuring effectiveness at the local level: the added value of the UNDP/ART instrument
3. The road to Busan, the international consultative process on aid effectiveness at the local level ................................... 25 a) Objectives and phases b) General reflections c) Challenges d) Opportunities e) Final reflections
4. Recommendations for operativeness, based on the UNDP/ART experience ....................................................................... 29
5. Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................................... 30
6. Co-organizers and participants of the international consultative process .......................................................................... 33
Copyright c 2011 by the United Nations Development Programme 1 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission.
CONTENTS
3
Stepped up efforts towards more comprehensive and coherent development policies and accompanying development
cooperation are required to meet MDG commitments by 2015. Achieving development results will need more than Official
Development Assistance, i.e. global and domestic resource mobilisation, enhanced development cooperation, better
allocation of resources available to development, establishment of more accountable and transparent global, regional,
country and local frameworks, as well as greater investments in recipient country capacities to exit from aid. It will also
need scaled up efforts at national and local levels through better alignment of local‐regional‐national‐global development
processes that can highly contribute to development effectiveness.
The rapid expansion and diversification of development cooperation actors, global and vertical funds, NGOs, foundations,
private sector, and increasing south‐south cooperation pose both opportunities and challenges for the effectiveness of
development assistance. In this framework, an important opportunity is to scale up cooperation between municipalities,
provinces, regions and the social and economic actors of the respective territories as an added value to the development
effort offered by decentralized cooperation.
The Fourth High Level Forum (HLF4) on Aid Effectiveness is the last in a series of four conferences on aid effectiveness,
launched by the OECD DAC in 2003 (Rome HLF). It is an important event in the discussions around the emerging aid
architecture leading up to 2015 and how to make development assistance work better. Its outcomes will also inform the
discussions on international development cooperation at the upcoming Rio+20 conference.
To prepare for this substantive discussion in Busan, as well as to gather evidence on the challenges and opportunities
offered by the territorial approach to development cooperation, the UNDP/ART programme launched an initiative to
provide evidence on what works and what needs to be enhanced in decentralized cooperation and at the local level. The
initiative focused on identifying lessons and good practices that can be useful to scale up development results at territorial
level and implement aid effectiveness principles, as well as how best can the diverse actors, including UNDP/ART,
contribute to better development results and MDG achievement at local level by maximizing their joint efforts.
Evidence is compelling in showing that the application of aid effectiveness principles at the local level can result in
accelerating MDG achievement, fostering governance and sustainable human development. Local level actors
(Governments, CSOs, marginalized groups) contribution is key to ensure inclusive ownership and achieve development,
particularly at the local level. This publication addresses the challenges, opportunities, practices and lessons of the
territorial approach in development cooperation towards sustainable development results.
Daša Šilović Senior Policy Adviser
Capacity development Group, Bureau for Development Policy
FOREWORD
4
Purpose and Target for the Report
The main objective of this document is to highlight the following issues:
1) The contributions that the incorporation of the territorial approach makes to the understanding of the Paris
Declaration principles;
2) The importance of having instruments in the field that allow capitalizing on the active role of cooperation
between municipalities, provinces, regions and the social and economic actors of the respective territories; this
relation is decentralized cooperation’s added value and legacy;
3) The input that the instruments and practices tested by UNDP/ART at the local level offer to the debate on aid
effectiveness and the objectives of sustainable human development.
This document upholds the thesis that integrating the territorial dimension to development assistance management, a role
that was situated by the Paris Declaration (hereinafter PD) at the central government level, is a necessary condition to
achieve higher standards in complex processes such as decentralization, local development and multilevel governance.
Moreover, it would contribute to a cooperation modality that is more effective in supporting these processes. Specifically,
the document considers that the articulation framework and operational instruments used and validated by the practices of
UNDP/ART are an original and innovative contribution that strengthens the area designated in the OCED’s 2011 evaluation
of the PD as one of the most fragile: aid management. The linkage between the effectiveness of the territorial approach and
the efficacy of development processes is another important aspect of the arguments presented herewith.
INTRODUCTION
5
The analysis and policy recommendations of this Report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations Development Programme.
a) The local realm and development cooperation in a period of uncertainties and crisis
We live in a period marked by contrasting trends: market integration is juxtaposed to the deepening of inequalities
between and within countries; the dissolution of social relations, to the simultaneous emergence of new ones; isolated
actions, to the creation of territorial and inter‐territorial networks; a persisting logic of development that downgrades the
local realm to an auto‐referential space, to the consolidation of ideas
and concepts that understand it as an articulated process of levels – of
varying numbers depending on the countries–, linked to the national
and global levels. This complexity is where the “black swans” emerge
(Taleb 2007); that is, highly improbable and high impact events that
characterize the current context (ecological disasters, financial crises,
pandemics, conflicts of varying levels of violence); it also presents the difficult challenge of transforming the crisis into an
opportunity for change and advancement towards a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable development (UNDP 2010a).
Both in the South and North, the diffused and different decentralization processes constitute inevitable components of the
current transformations. Together with democratization processes, these open new spaces for the recognition of the
citizens‐elected administrations democratic binomial as actors of development and cooperation to development, at both
the regional and provincial/municipal levels. On the other hand, decentralization constitutes an ambiguous framework.
Efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery, equity and pertinence of policies, the fight against poverty and for a better
social cohesion are all related to decentralization in various ways, in more than one continent and in different contexts. The
same holds true in relation to inter‐border tensions, ethnic and religious conflicts, territorial confrontations and various
forms of separatism. Only the analysis of the particularities of each process allows grasping the true nature of its links to
democracy and social equity. Cooperation alone cannot be the answer to the challenge posed by these problems, but it can
contribute to offering solutions, namely as a facilitator of a “dialogue between territories” from both the North and South,
on issues of common interest that influence positively or negatively the lives of citizens and lie at the heart of the decisions
of local administrators and national politicians. This is why it is of outmost importance to provide decentralized cooperation
with instruments that enable the full development of its potential in terms of dialogue and concertation, innovation in local
management, inter‐institutional coordination and linkage between national policies and territorial processes, as well as
cohesion and balancing economic and social interests, which in turn strengthens the inclusive and integrative dimensions of
decentralization.
In the last decades, the expansion in the wave of democratizations and the attractive force of democratic systems has
nonetheless been coupled with an equally significant decrease in democratic quality. Various scholars have referred to
“Illiberal democracies” (Zakaria, 2003), “democracies without election possibilities” (Mkandawire 2006) or “excluding
democracies” (Abrahamsen 2000), to name but a few. Nevertheless, this decline has been accompanied by a higher citizen
participation in local, “proximity”, policies1. The construction of a governance modality based on inclusiveness,
1 In this document, the term “local” is used in its general connotation, encompassing the various levels of administrative subdivisions present in the
different countries (regions / province / municipalities).
1. RETHINKING AID
Transforming the crisis in an opportunity for progress towards a more equitable and sustainable
development
6
transparency and accountability records its most important advances at this level. It is at the municipal and regional levels ‐
South or the North ‐ that many experiences are carried out to test new forms of interaction between local governments and
economic and social actors from the territory. Through dialogue, territories seek to face important challenges of common
interest from various angles; such challenges are migration, the environment, human security, employment, and health.
This dialogue constitutes the backdrop of relationships and reflection processes that facilitates local inclusive decisions,
generating a positive spillover effect on various issues of national and international relevance. In short, the response to the
structural demand for a “better” democracy is characterized by the integration of innovative participatory and deliberative
mechanisms to its representative forms, based on the citizenry‐local elected administrations’ binomial. Many of these
democratic decentralization practices are situated in the South (Latin America, Asia, Africa), turning this region into a place
for experimenting original processes of social change: they free it of the “passive recipient of aid” stigma and of those
societies devoid of spaces for subjective action, while creating
completely new contexts for international cooperation, where
modalities such as South‐South Cooperation emerge, slowly sketching
a new aid paradigm.
In the globalization context, the local realm does not necessarily
coincide with the smallest dimension of state planning; it is structured as a territory, a relational space, a series of social
processes characterized by modalities that enable inhabitants to express their culture and identity within surrounding
environmental conditions that settled over time. The networks that organize and hold the territory together
simultaneously link it to other territories and to the national and global levels. The local realm hence acquires a multilevel
character (Sassen 2002): it is configured as a knot of fluxes where the
short networks of physical proximity are intertwined with the longer
trans‐local and global networks, based on shared interests, objectives
and social horizons.
The conception of the local level as the lowest echelon of a spatial hierarchy that culminates in the central State is
nowadays definitely in crisis. Regional and local governments have become the leading figures of development policies in
important sectors such as health, social, environmental and migration policies and also of international “multilayered”
activities inserted in the framework of the central State’s policies. At the same time, they also independently promote the
economic vocations of their respective territories. Various experiences reveal how the increasing importance of these local
actors in their various levels does not lead to a loss of power by the central government, but rather represents an
opportunity for reciprocal strengthening, following a logic of positive sum, whereby each “player” gains something (Hocking
1999): national policies achieve “roots” while territorial policies obtain “wings” for their actions.
These moving scenarios also undergo complex phenomena such as the changing North‐South relations. Under the impact of
globalization processes, a global North and South emerge, transcending geographical differences and designing a leopard
skin, “islands‐like” map, with irregular lines that mark and deepen the internal differences of each area. The South is
increasingly segregated between countries that embark in high growth processes and reduce their distance from the North,
and less developed countries (LDCs) which, in contrast, see their marginalization worsen and deepen, while inequalities rise
within each of these groups (World Bank 2009). Advances and regressions fragment the North with an equally intense
strength. This very same poverty exhibits multiple dimensions and a distribution pattern that is no longer concentrated in a
defined area of countries ‐ the LDCs‐: in fact, it is now also increasingly present in the middle income countries (MICs) and
extends its presence to the “heart” of the North as well, which well confirms that development is a global issue (Sen, 1999).
In the globalization context, the local realm gains relevance instead of losing it
Roots and wings
7
The tendency towards a multipolar and “island‐like” world, where
emerging countries advance and break old balances while new
inequalities create new transversal divisions to the North‐South
distinction, exerts a strong impact on cooperation to development,
which appears committed to a reorientation and repositioning exercise, while its very raison d’être is questioned.
However, next to the deep divergences on the relevance of cooperation, the international community nowadays manifests
notably converging views in relation to the interdependence that links aid to other dimensions of international relations
and internal politics. It is significant in this sense the nexus established at the wake of the century by the eighth Millennium
Development Goal (MDG), linking aid to international commerce, external debt, and technology transfer. It is also
noteworthy the “Commitment to Development Index” (CDI), formulated by the Center for Global Development and Foreign
Affairs. In addition to the quantity and quality of aid, the CDI seeks to measure the relations that link it –in the various
countries‐ to six other political sectors: commerce, external investment, migration flows, environment, security, and
technology (Birdsall e Roodman 2003). The main issue that comes to light is that of coherence: aid cannot be an
“independent variable” anymore, and development processes confirm the scant efficiency of “sectorial” policies and
approaches.
However, the darkened horizon of aid also harbors meaningful signs of
renovation and change: the emergence of new action modalities such
as, firstly, South‐South cooperation (SSC), which underscores the
leading role of the South in its own development; the advocacy of
Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), which claims the
contributions of civil society in the definition of aid policies;
decentralized cooperation (DC), which creates networks within and
between territories in the North and South. These three significantly
enrich the agenda of a forward‐looking cooperation, going beyond
mere aid.
b) A new agenda for changing scenarios
The agenda established at the wake of our century (New York, 2000; Monterrey, 2002; Paris, 2005) identifies the
Millennium Declaration with the MDG, aid effectiveness and development financing as its core issues. The first two benefit
from a definite articulation, with its own set of indicators, objectives and timelines (2015 for the MDG and 2010 for Paris).
However, the Monterrey Consensus reaffirmed in Doha (2008) does not record precise commitments, although it
recognizes the need to increase Official Development Assistance (ODA), design additional innovative financing modalities
and reform the International Financing Institutions (IFI) – World Bank, International Monetary Fund, regional Banks‐ in
order to ensure more transparency and more Southern participation.
Today, the transformations that have redefined the context at all levels and the assessment made of the process and
achieved results require an agenda review. It has become necessary to redefine objectives, policies, instruments and the
very same architecture of aid, as well as to emphasize on principles such as equity, sustainability and democracy (UNDP
2010a, UNRISD 2010), and introduce new approaches and indicators.
At the end of the first decade, the plurality of actors (public, private, mixed), the fragmentation of initiatives, the
proliferation of approaches and the multiplication of expenditures, call for new mechanisms and better regulation in aid
SSC is the natural expression of collaboration and reciprocal interest between partner countries at the
global, regional and national levels. SSC is a historical process of unique characteristics that reflects solidarity, adapts to local contexts and capacities, promotes results of mutual, win-win
benefit, and horizontal associations.
Bogota Report 2010
Towards a multipolar and “island-like” world
8
management. The process has started, albeit it shows a hybrid and unequal profile; in more than a case, changes seem to
lean towards the mere addition of levels and functions rather than towards a clear distancing from former practices.
The search of instruments capable of ensuring the operativeness of the accorded agenda is particularly fragile. As a matter
of fact, the novel agreement of the international community around common principles and objectives has not been
supported by a proportionally strong attention to those practices and procedures necessary to the implementation of the
new approaches and outreach of the expected results; the “Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers” (PRSP), the main
instrument expected to ensure MDG achievement, are but one example. As to national development programs aimed at
fighting poverty, they present limitations in the most relevant dimensions: in the nature and extension of participation and
the projection towards the territories. This hinders the sense of belonging which would legitimize them, just as it weakens
the effectiveness and sustainability of the implemented processes (Brown, 2004; Molenaers, Renard 2006; World Bank,
2004; Fukuda‐Parr, 2008; Kamruzzaman, 2009).
The acknowledgement that ownership, coordination, active participation, demand driven cooperation and the reduction of
aid cost have a clear political dimension confers an even greater importance to the process of singling out the most
adequate instruments to achieve them. For these reasons, it is significant and relevant to introduce a reflection on the
innovative practices brought about by decentralized cooperation in the debate on aid effectiveness and agenda review.
Among the most notable changes in the field of development
cooperation in the last decade is the emergence of a brand new agency
in the South: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) have become
cooperation agents in addition to aid recipients, seeking to situate
themselves beyond the traditional logic of donor / beneficiary. The MICs have made important contributions in terms of
resources, ideas and action strategies, in particular the so called CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and
South‐Africa). At the end of 2010, the road towards a new global governance of aid, which until recently was exclusively
situated in the North, has witnessed important processes of diversification and multiplicity of headquarters: G20,
Development Cooperation Forum – sector of Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and Working Group on Aid
Effectiveness and Donor Practices – sector of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). However, all of these bodies
need to go further in acknowledging the South as a partner and colleague and the multiplicity and interdependence of
development actors. In this respect, the DAC Working Group brings together representatives of OECD countries and
multilateral organizations as well as of partner countries and non state actors (NSAs). Nonetheless, the UCLG (United Cities
and Local Governments) is the only network of local governments which participates as an observer. The path has only
begun but already points at the right direction: multilevel and multi‐actor governance that must incorporate the multiple
promoters of development, i.e. local governments, multilateral organizations, local governments, parliaments and NSA, in
the local‐national‐global spheres. Regional and municipal governments of the South and North are called to assume an
important role in the process’ advancement.
c) Aid effectiveness: Busan and beyond
The document “Aid Effectiveness 2005‐2010: Progress in Implementing the Paris Declaration”, published by the OECD at the
end of September 2011 (OECD, 2011), and “The Evaluation of the Paris Declaration, Phase 2”, an independent examination
carried out in May 2011 (Wood, Betts, Etta, Gayfer, Kabell, Ngwira, Sagasti, Samaranayake 2011), reach similar findings that
confirm the tendencies of the 2006 and 2008 monitoring. The implementation of the PD has experienced significant
advances, while only one of the 13 objectives for 2010 (coordination of technical assistance in support of capacity
strengthening) has been reached (OECD 2011). Many more countries have participated in the 2011 monitoring than in
2008, which confirms the increasing interest in the issue of effectiveness and the debate’s vitality. Affected by the global
For a more inclusive governance of aid
9
financial crisis, the ODA growth reduction forecasted by the OECD, the relative stability of remittances and the contraction
of foreign direct investments (World Bank, 2011) all reinforce the importance of achieving aid effectiveness, which also
requires a broader positioning.
Progress has been uneven, depending on the indicators and nature of
the partner or donor, with the latter having shown considerable
difficulty in fulfilling previous commitments. In some cases, results are
quite dissimilar, such as with capacity strengthening: although the
objective of coordinating technical cooperation has been reached, in
many cases support remains “more determined by the offer than by the needs of developing countries” (OECD 2011).
Significantly, the less positive performances concern the crucial and central aspects of the international debate: aid
fragmentation, its limited predictability, scarce transparency and weak accountability. However, on the whole, findings
confirm the direct links between aid and development policies. Overall, it is safe to reiterate what was already noted in
Accra, in 2008: “we are progressing, but not enough” (HLF3, 2008).
Both evaluations, carried out in 2011, point towards the underrating of
the political dimension of the Paris agreement, which led to prevalently
technical readings and implementation modalities, and to the tendency
of considering the Declaration as a “model”, which curbed its capacity
to adapt to different contexts, as the main obstacles to effectiveness.
The same indications transpire from the debate and preparatory work for the Busan IV High Level Forum on Aid
Effectiveness (HLF4). These, indeed, are complex issues. The fragility of the technocratic approach is most striking in the
issue of the division of labor, where the political dimension is stronger. This is confirmed by the hurdles encountered in the
“code of conduct on the division of labor” adopted in 2007 by the European Commission, a framework for the
harmonization of aid which showcases the strength of the countries’ interest in the title itself, albeit in a context of
regionalization processes (Commission of the European Communities 2007). The reduced flexibility of the action’s logic
represents, as far as its concerned, an additional consequence to that abstract and standardized approach which, since the
beginning, has weakened cooperation to development policies.
An important observation made by the two 2011 assessments concerns the commitment made in Accra, regarding a closer
collaboration between governments, parliaments, local authorities and civil society organizations in the preparation,
implementation, and follow up of national development plans and policies. The OECD 2011 evaluation indicates that this
collaboration is still weak; in those countries where local governments participate in consultations aimed at defining
poverty reduction strategies, their participation is often “mechanical and superficial”. The evaluation further suggests that
participation in local planning processes should also be strengthened.
Both these findings and changing context require the Busan Forum to revisit the principles, strategies and indicators of the
PD, in order to advance towards development effectiveness which more than one considers should be substituted to aid
effectiveness. In our understanding, this does not mean that the importance of aid should be undermined, but rather that
its true significance should be acknowledged. Although it is not determining, aid is still relevant, primarily because it
facilitates dialogue between countries and territories, in a world where the geographical differentiation between the North
and South is dwindling.
Aiming at feeding into to this challenge, what follows is a reflection on the contributions offered by a perspective based on
the “territorial” approach. The analysis will be based on the practices of a cooperation approach which uses the local realm
as a fundamental reference: decentralized cooperation. In the following section, special attention will be given to the
Just as in 2008, in 2011 we can also say that: “we are progressing, but not enough”
HLF3 2008
Aid is becoming increasingly fragmented, despite some initiatives that aim to address this challenge.
OECD 2011
10
relationship between the local realm and cooperation to development, and more specifically, to the peculiarities of
Decentralized Cooperation (DC). After presenting the innovative characteristics of the United Nations Development
Program ART Initiative, the second part of the paper will further focus on DC, reflecting on how it is inserted in the
multilateral framework. In particular, this section will dwell on UNDP/ART’s experience in developing operational
instruments, with the understanding that this component, which is indispensable to implement principles and strategies,
has so far represented one of the main weaknesses of the PD. The third part will ponder on the consultative process on aid
effectiveness at the local level, promoted by UNDP through the Capacity Development Group within the Bureau for
Development Policy (CDG/BDP), and by the ART Initiative in the operational dimension, to prepare the HLF4. This
consultation has benefited from the active collaboration of a wide and varied range of actors: United Cities and Local
Governments (UCLG), Forum of Global Associations of Regions (FOGAR), the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for
International Solidarity (FAMSI, as per Spanish acronym), Fund of Local Authorities for Decentralized Cooperation and
Sustainable Human Development (FELCOS as per Italian acronym), Hegoa – Institute of Studies on Development and
International Cooperation, Observatory of Decentralized Cooperation EU‐LA (OCD, as per Spanish acronym) and countries
such as Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Senegal and Spain. The participation of many other actors has contributed to
strengthening the whole process (see part six for the complete list of co‐organizers and participants).
d) The galaxy of the local realm and decentralized cooperation
In the eighties and nineties, development cooperation ‐both governmental and nongovernmental‐ supported various
decentralization processes. Its contribution to deconcentration and decentralization per se, as well as to the design of new
constitutional and legislative frameworks has been notable, mostly in the exit‐phases from very violent conflicts, such as in
the Balkans. As well, its role in capacity development for local administrators and civil servants and the support it offered –
mostly in tandem with NGOs‐, to democratic transitions and the creation of new territorial social and political actors is not
to be underestimated. However, in more than one case, instead of a strengthening effect, the proliferation of initiatives
with no proper articulation mechanisms has led to the atomization and segmentation of the territory; combined with low
aid effectiveness, this has resulted in a lack of efficacy in development processes.
Decentralized Cooperation pioneers an important change in policies and intervention modalities, significantly swaying
ongoing decentralized processes in various geopolitical areas. In its most innovative modality, that is, the territorial one,
decentralized cooperation tends to position itself beyond the binary contradictions that have normally predominated
development cooperation: governmental / nongovernmental ‐since dialogue and public‐private concertation constitute one
of its strategic focal issues; horizontal/vertical –since relationships between actors from a similar administrative level are
intertwined with relations between actors from different levels; local/national/global – since its establishment in a given
territory is not self‐referential but rather seeks to connect with national and international policies; development /
underdevelopment, ‐ since it is supported by an “alliance for reciprocal development” which also transcends another
contraposition that has traditionally weakened cooperation policies: the “top‐down”, as opposed to “bottom‐up”, approach
to development.
Therefore, DC offers a particularly relevant contribution to the emerging new “paradigm” of assistance, by introducing the
following changes: a partners’ alliance replaces the old donor‐recipient
relationship; flexibility and adaptability replace the traditional blueprint
model, usually indifferent to the existing differences between
geopolitical areas, countries and regions; development as
empowerment replaces relegating people to a passive role within change processes; capacity development replaces the
mechanical transmission of models and knowledge; peer learning replaces training oriented by the vision and availability of
the donor; the appraisal of local actors, in its various levels, replaces the affirmation of the State as the only and main actor
Towards a new aid paradigm
11
of development; the search for “reciprocal development” replaces the vision of development as path with predefined
phases that concern a specific group of countries.
The support this novel logic of action offers to political‐administrative decentralization, democratic participation, active role
of local communities, reorganization of health and educational systems, more equitable economic development, durable
territorial processes, a political culture based on the appraisal of the historical heritage and gender policies, is aimed at
strengthening the local realm, embracing its increasing “glocal” dimension. The local realm is now organized through
networks that intertwine it to other local, and national and global levels: thereby, DC proves to be both effective and
relevant.
Consequently, an approach that focuses on the local realm does not
only constitute a resource that enhances the implementation of
national policies and plans; it also represents a distinct entry point to
the dynamics of development and development cooperation. This in
turn can increment the effectiveness and sustainability of territorial
and national processes, precisely because the movement that stems from the local realm –that is, bottom‐up‐, does not
question or negate the center, but alters it by integrating it and making its policies flexible and adapted to the diversity of
local contexts, while at the same time interlinking itself to other local realms, hence contributing to enriching both the
central and local levels with transnational substance.
Why is it important to integrate the perspective of the local realm?
12
a) ART, an initiative to innovate
1. Towards a new multilateralism
Within the United Nations System (UNS), UNDP/ART has proposed an innovative approach: flexible and multilevel
structures, a wide spectrum of created participative spaces, planning strategies and approaches, prove particularly effective
in implementing the principles and commitments of the XXI
century development agenda. The attention towards
operativeness and resulting practices, aimed at facilitating
the implementation of objectives and strategies in the
field, such as the MDG and sustainable human
development, constitute UNDP/ART’s specific and
important contribution, in a context where the
international debate has concentrated more on the
definition of objectives and indicators than on the
mechanisms meant to enable an effective management of
the assistance.
The Global Initiative ART –Articulation of Territorial and
Thematic Cooperation Networks for Human Development2‐ was created in 2005 to promote, as its name indicates, the
articulation of territorial actors and levels, to carry out joint
actions aimed at an equitable and sustainable
development. Its objective is to appraise the strategic role
of local administrations, regions and the territories’ social
and economic actors, in issues of decentralization,
territorial development, governance, service management,
MDG achievement and sustainable human development.
UNDP established the Initiative’s Coordination Office in its
Geneva headquarters.
UNDP/ART supports national decentralization and
deconcentration policies and their articulation with
territorial development processes. It also favors harmonization in the field between different actors. It contributes to
develop local capacities at various levels, supporting networks and alliances based on a relationship between peers,
partners and colleagues no longer seen as “donors / beneficiaries”. Moreover, it facilitates the creation of local platforms,
often incorporated in the regional and municipal plans, and promotes a multilevel articulation and a multi‐sectorial
approach in sectors such as governance, environment and territory, local economic development, local health systems and
2 UNDP’s ART Global Initiative originated in multilateral human development framework programs carried out since 1989 under various names:
PRODERE, SMALP, HEDIP, PDHL, PDHI, SEHD, ATLANTE, PRINT, PASARP, CITY TO CITY, APPI, UNIVERSITAS.
ART/UNDP framework program Ecuador
Articulation layout
2. THE LOCAL REALM IN THE UNDP / ART LABORATORY
13
education, information technology, disaster preparedness and prevention, as well as post‐disaster rehabilitation. To this
end, the Initiative establishes coordination systems and alliances with programs and organizations specialized in these
thematic areas.
To carry out these functions in the countries that request it,
UNDP/ART facilitates the activation of framework programs. They
are “framework” programs because they create an institutional,
programming, operational and administrative setting, organized in
ways that allow the various territorial, national and international
actors who operate at the local level (donor countries, UN agencies,
national and regional governments, cities and local governments,
actors of DC, associations, universities, organizations of the private
sector and nongovernmental organizations) to promote or support
territorial development processes in a coordinated and
complementary way. Initially defined only at the level of general
objectives, thematic areas and methodologies, its specific
objectives, operational plans and concrete actions are actually the
result of a participatory planning that responds to the territories’
demands. When using them, each actor avails of an instrument that
contributes to incrementing the sustainability and impact of its own
initiatives, without having to sacrifice its identity and visibility. This
is an efficient mechanism for the harmonization and alignment of aid to national and local priorities and strategies, which
contributes to implementing the PD principles and achieving sustainable human development objectives. This strategy goes
beyond the definition of “assistance”, since it generates positive effects for territories both from the North and South.
The use by various UNS agencies of these operational frameworks (such as in Uruguay, Mozambique and Albania)
contributes to overcoming fragmentation, dispersion and internal parallelism, as recommended by “Delivering as One” (UN,
2006), reiterated recently on the occasion of the preparation for Rio+20 (Clark 2011), and requested, on a more general
level, by the PD and Accra Agenda for Action. However, UNDP/ART does not intend to be the solution to the criticalities of
aid management, but rather the proof that a system of coordination
and strategic appraisal of the multiple actors who operate at the local
level, where multilateralism does have a relevant role, is indeed
possible. Thereby, a new multilateralism emerges, characterized by a
territorial, participatory and integrated approach, a multilevel action in
support of territorial and inter‐territorial networks of exchange and
mutual learning. Projected externally and far from egocentrism, it
contributes to promote flexibility, action continuity, cost‐economy and
coordination, within the UNS and out of it.
In the 2006 – 2011 period various countries have requested UNDP/ART framework programs, which have shown their
adaptability to the reality of different continents and their varied economic, cultural, political and religious contexts: in
Africa: Gabon, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal; in Latin America: Bolivia, Central America, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador,
El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Uruguay; in Asia: Indonesia and Sri Lanka; in the Balkans: Albania and Kosovo; in the
Mediterranean: Lebanon, Morocco and Syria.
The world needs a coherent and strong multilateral framework with the United Nations at its centre to meet the challenges of development, humanitarian
assistance and the environment in a globalizing world. The UN needs to overcome its current
fragmentation and to deliver as one.
UN 2006
The value of the project / action
Projects / actions are aimed at creating, transforming or consolidating instruments, norms and procedures
that enhance and strengthen local development processes set in motion by the country itself. From this
perspective, local projects / actions have several purposes:
- respond to needs prioritized by the population - be the product of joint coordination towards common
objectives - be a featured action
- be an action that embodies support to processes - be a replicable practice
- promote exchange of experiences and good practices between local actors of the North and South around
issues of common interest
14
The strategic and methodological innovation shown by these articulation frameworks, strengthened by the assistance
offered to DC actors in the election of partners and areas of intervention as well as in the implementation of methodologies
and mechanisms for dialogue and concertation, allows framework programs to fulfill important actions. They support
capacity development, demand‐driven cooperation, transparency and mutual responsibility. In fact, this innovation not only
overcomes project‐based approaches by linking cooperation actions to medium and long term development processes, but
also becomes an instrument to promote the active participation of actors and adaptability to changes in the intervention’s
context. The characteristics that distinguish framework programs –territoriality, flexibility, integrality, open structure,
multiple and multilevel participative spaces – from other programs, as defined in the methodological note on indicators in
the Paris Declaration (indicator 9, Annex A, HLF 2005), represent in fact their added value: they enable alignment and
harmonization without sacrificing the actors’ individual characteristics.
UNDP/ART’s support to the regional and municipal dynamics is reaffirmed and consolidated through the support that
framework programs and the Geneva office offer to their internationalization. The Geneva office facilitates the
international coordination of activities and assists in the implementation of framework programs. It promotes mutually
enriching international collaborations (North‐South, South‐South and triangulations) which foster the systematic exchange
of organizational and management good practices while stimulating innovation mainstreaming and capacity development.
Moreover, the office collaborates with various thematic initiatives and centers of excellence to promote relations between
actors and networks, such as Associations of Local Economic Agencies, local governments, universities, research institutes
and UN programs. This way, it contributes to creating organized multilevel dialogue modalities and permanent exchanges of
experiences that face the common challenge of MDG localization and aid effectiveness. In short, UNDP/ART offers an
important strategic and methodological contribution towards operativeness.
2. Decentralized Cooperation in the multilateral framework
Decentralized cooperation represents a new logic of action; however its implementation is not exempt of some of the
limitations that have traditionally weakened cooperation to development. The fragmentation and sporadic nature of
initiatives, parallelisms, and permeability to other parties’ interests, difficulties in monitoring and limited sustainability, are
all present in the archipelago of DC and produce an ineffective assistance. Incorporating DC to the multilateral framework
contributes to curb these weaknesses, favoring the actions’ continuity on the medium and long‐term, which in turn
supports effective change processes.
The main characteristics of DC linked to the multilateral framework are:
- A multilateral agreement with the country that establishes a human development framework program in support of
governance and integral local human development. The program then guides and supports the activities of the partner
territories and facilitates the linkage and alignment of each activity to the local or regional development plans and
national policies. It adopts an integral, process‐based approach, which acknowledges development as a multiple‐course
process, where the identification of needs and resources, as well as possible solutions, ought to be a widely participative
process spread over the medium and long‐term. Therefore, the proliferation of projects that only segment and simplify a
territory’s social complexity and generate action modalities of little efficacy is rejected. This approach does not deny the
usefulness of the project; however, it underscores the need to insert it in a development plan, as a guarantee of
coherence and sustainability.
15
- The understanding of the local realm as defined by the administrative divisions of each and every particular context. This
territorial identification does not correspond to a predefined regional or municipal demarcation; it is rather the
development process that determines the level in which the action is situated. On the other hand, the local realm,
comprehended as the result of a decentralization process characterized by the connection between vertical and
horizontal subsidiarity, uses the relationship between the local government and social‐economic actors as its main
parameter. At the same time, the local realm is acknowledged as
part of a wider articulation, municipality / province / region /
national / global, which allows all levels to be engaging and
responsive in answering the citizens’ needs, even when these are
not part of their respective prerogatives.
- The association between territories as an enabling and
participative process aimed at developing capacities and
institutional strengthening through participatory planning
instruments and peer training. Because they fall within the existing
programming instruments in the countries – regional and municipal
development plans‐, DC initiatives can contribute to the territories’
internationalization, in line with the cooperation logic that
characterizes the relationship between partners.
- The integration of the three sectors of sustainable human
development in a common operational dimension, rooted on the
territory’s priorities, not the donors’. This structure prevents the
social, environmental and economic issues from being dealt with isolated projects which multiply the cost of aid and
generate fragmentation instead of impact.
- Cooperation as a two‐way street; a process of activation, mobilization, channeling of the territories’ underlying
resources, both in the South and North. Just as other networks, local economic development agencies constitute
organizational modalities aimed at aggregating and activating existing potentialities, while the association relations that
unite the territories of the North and South enrich the two‐way flows of know‐how. DC cooperation initiatives that have
these characteristics represent laboratories for innovation in the different areas of human development, following an
approach of reciprocal recognition and mutual learning (UNDP/ART 2011c).
- Cooperation as dialogue for co‐development, characterized by the complex and difficult exercise of matching the
vocations and interests of the North, South, and of the multiple and different actors who participate in this association
relation. Because it links the commitment in favor of development in the South to the fight against bad‐development in
the North, DC constitutes a strategic response to the problems of development as a global question, articulated within
multiple options of directions and strategic policies.
Local administrators and civil servants, professionals of civil services, operators of volunteerism, NGOs, academics, social
entrepreneurs, experts, as well as national governments and international organizations, each of them with their specific
responsibilities within issues of common interest, interact in DC initiatives. Until now, international cooperation had only
partially expressed this pluralism of actors, channeling it in parallel, even opposite roads. On the flipside, when linked to the
multilateral framework, DC seeks the convergence and complementarity of a territory’s interests and vocations. The latter
draw territories that share similar problems and development visions closer together, through multilevel articulations and a
progressive and incremental approach. Decentralized cooperation thereby contributes to consolidate those “distant
proximities”, mentioned in the literature on globalization (Rosenau 2003).
Contributions of the multilateral framework to Decentralized Cooperation
- foster higher recognition in the multilateral and
bilateral fields - strengthen the capacities for dialogue and
innovation - stimulate articulation, complementarity, synergies
and common work with the different actors that operate in the field
- strengthen the processes of monitoring, evaluation and devolution of information and results to the
citizenry. - facilitate instruments to measure the added value
of decentralized cooperation
PNUD 2010b
16
b) Instruments to increase effectiveness
3. Articulation of actors and levels: the spaces of a democratic local governance
The multiplicity and diversity of actors that share common objectives but act in an uncoordinated manner represent a
striking aspect of the scenario that has characterized cooperation in the last years. Since their inception, UNPD/ART
framework programs have shouldered the challenge of identifying and adopting instruments that promote articulations,
hence contributing to effective, democratic and sustainable local
governance, steered towards strengthening inclusive national governance.
In the present and following sections, we will present the characteristics and
functioning of the main programmatic instruments set in motion by
UNDP/ART to achieve these objectives, owing to the support of ART’s
various systemization works and experiences. Among others, it worth
mentioning: UNDP/STECI (2010), “Effectiveness of international cooperation
at the local level; “The added value of the ART framework program (2008‐
2010)”, Quito; UNDP Ecuador (2010a), “The ART/UNDP framework Program
Ecuador. Methodological Reflections and Progress 2008 – 2009”, Quito;
UNDP Ecuador (2010b); “The Implementation of the ART Methodology in
Latin America”, Quito; UNDP/ART (2011a); “Methodological Notes ART
nbr.1. National Coordination Committee and Territorial Working Groups”,
Quito; UNDP/ART (2011b); “Methodological Notes ART n.2, Local
Programming Cycle. Instrument of alignment to territorial and national
priorities”, Quito. To illustrate the most relevant experiences, we will
particularly focus on two programs: ART/UNDP Ecuador and ART GOLD3
Morocco, which have been active for a few years now (Ecuador 2008 and
Morocco 2007). Situated in different geopolitical areas, both programs
operate in national contexts committed to decentralization processes in the
framework of constitutional revisions (new constitutions: Ecuador, 2008 and
Morocco, 2011). As well, both governments have pledged to implement the
PD and the Accra Agenda for Action (for more information on these two
programs, consult the corresponding documents in enclosed CD). Both
framework programs have matured good practices in different fields,
representing important elements for the current reflection on aid
effectiveness. The creation of national and territorial spaces (at the
intermediate and municipal levels) for the articulation of actors and
complementarity of donors in relation to the country’s development policies
constitutes one of the main instruments for operational harmonization,
carried out and validated by UNDP/ART.
This instrument finds its legal frame in the document that precedes each and every framework program and is signed by the
country’s government and UNDP. The document foresees the constitution of the “National Coordination Committee”
(NCC), led by the central government. Depending on the country, this structure might be called NCC (term which will be
used in this document), “National Steering Committee” (NSC), “National Piloting Committee” (NPC) or others (UNDP 2010).
3 GOLD, Governance and Local Development.
ART/UNDP Ecuador Program Composition of the NCC
National Institutions
National Secretariat of Planning and Development (SENPLADES, as per Spanish
acronym) with two sub-secretariats
Technical Secretariat for International Cooperation (SETECI, as per Spanish acronym)
with two representatives
Associations of Decentralized Autonomous Governments
Consortium of Provincial Councils of Ecuador (CONCOPE, as per Spanish acronym)
with two representatives Ecuadorian Association of Municipalities (AME,
as per Spanish acronym) with two representatives
Ecuador’s National Council of Rural Parochial Juntas (CONAJUPARE, as per Spanish
acronym) With two representatives
Donors
Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development, (AECID)
with three representatives
United Nations Agencies United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
(PNUD) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR))
UNDP/SETECI 2010
17
Beyond the various designations, it constitutes a space for consensual decision‐making, facilitates articulation between
ministries that support the program and public and private actors, as well as dialogue among the national, local and
international levels of aid governance.
The NCC is composed by the representatives of the various ministries,
territorial governments, bilateral cooperation, DC partners, UNDP and UN
Agencies active in the country, as well as networks and civil society
organizations. This formalized and inclusive interaction favors the ownership
of the development processes by the various actors; moreover, in a large
number of countries, it represents the only participation mechanism where
territorial governments engage in a programmatic dialogue on national
policies. On the other hand, any articulation process needs a national and
international legal and administrative framework, in this case offered by the
framework program and the Geneva UNDP/ART office. However it also needs
a social articulation that enables at least basic forms of representation.
Criticalities within this last dimension endow those territorial spaces with an
even greater importance, as in some contexts and for varying reasons, they
constitute the common level where civil society organizations (CSO) are
present. Therefore, the composition of the different NCCs actually reflects
the level of social and political articulation that has been reached in the
respective countries.
The dialogue promoted in the NCC is strengthened by the creation of part of
the regional and municipal administrations, with the support of the
framework program, of the Territorial Working Groups (TWGs). In this case as
well, the designation of working groups might change depending on the
context, keeping however the same functions of local and local‐national‐
international articulation. Another characteristic of the TWGs is that unlike
NCCs, they do not constitute a structure of the framework program itself:
they connect those cooperation actions interested in operating at the local
level with territorial programming, or promote its startup altogether, hence
strengthening local capacities and facilitating the alignment of international
cooperation. Just as for NCCs, an important aspect of the TWG structure is
the presence of a double decision‐making level –political and technical‐ as
the foundation of its operativeness and democratic and functional double
legitimacy, thereby leading to action effectiveness.
The TWGs are first constituted at the intermediate level, province / region /
district, and led by the Regional Council. The Regional Working Groups
(RWGs) or Provincial Working Groups (PWGs) implement the Local Planning
Cycle (LPC) and contribute to organize the Program’s priority action areas,
while also facilitating alignment of decentralized cooperation and more
generally, of international cooperation. The Working Groups are composed
of the regional or provincial government, de‐concentrated institutions of the
State and the territory’s social and economic actors. In some contexts,
depending on the characteristics of decentralization processes, co‐leadership
ART GOLD Morocco Composition of the NCC
Institutions and National Actors
Ministry of Interior, with different Directorates;
Ministry of External Relations and Cooperation;
Ministry of Finance and Privatization; Ministry of Public Sector Modernization;
Ministry of Territory, Water and Environmental Management;
High Commissioner for the Plan; General Confederation of Moroccan
Enterprises (CGEM, as per French acronym);
National Agency for the Promotion of Employment and Competencies (ANAPEC, as
per French acronym); Economic and Social Development Agency
for the Northern Prefectures and Provinces of the Kingdom (APDN, as per French
acronym); Economic and Social Development Agency
for the Northern Prefectures and Provinces of L’Oriental (ADO, as per French acronym);
Agency of Social Development, (ADS, as per French acronym); Hassan II Foundation for
Moroccans Living Abroad; Universities (Mohamed V Souissi, Mohamed I Oujda,
Mohamed Ben Abdellah Fès; Abdel Malek Esaadi Tanger; Foundation Orient-Occident; Célula INDH (National Initiative for Human
Development); representatives of the Regional and Provincial Working Groups of
the pilot regions Decentralized cooperation partners
FAMSI – ACCD PACA, France -Champagne Ardennes - Région de Valence -FELCOS Umbria- Balearic islands, Province and
municipality of Florence– Como – International NGOs: Save the children, CISS,
Proyecto Solidario, Médicus Mundi Bilateral Cooperation
Spanish, Italian, Belgian, Canadian, French cooperation and, GTZ, USAID
UN Agencies United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) ;UNICEF; UNFPA; Un Women; UNESCO; OMS.
ART GOLD Morocco 2010
18
has been established (local government – representative of the central
government in the territory).
The constitution of the Local Working Groups (LWGs) at the municipal
level, where the political, institutional and technical conditions are met,
completes the articulation strategy implemented by UNDP / ART and leads
to the integration of municipal representatives in the intermediate
Groups, hence contributing to strengthening them. LWGs find their
cohesion and legitimacy in the identification and implementation of
startup projects: small, flexible, aimed at responding to immediate
priorities and creating trust relationships; in fact, this is the level where
CSOs acquire their full importance.
When relevant, the NCCs and TWGs are also empowered to create “ad hoc
WG”. Moreover, the NCC can invite representatives of other ministries,
regional or municipal governments or non‐state actors to its meetings,
depending on the issues tackled.
The articulation strategy shaped by these participative spaces is complex and circular; it aims to catalyze and appraise the
territory’s existing potentialities, linking the local to the national and international spheres, at various levels (NCC, RWG,
PWG and LWG). Characterized by deliberations and consensual, transparent decisions, this articulation strategy generates
important processes of democratic ownership and mutual responsibility. The territorial, participative and integral approach
shapes its peculiar identity, which also confirms its effectiveness at the governance, local development and national politics
levels, in terms of increased pertinence and sustainability. This way, the UNDP/ART strategy contributes to fulfill the
principles of the PD, creating an ideal relationship among them. By doing so it reveals an important capacity of “scaling up”
and achieves greater influence and impact, particularly when TWGs start their institutionalization process, becoming groups
directly integrated to local programming and its methodologies, as well as references for the central government’s action
strategies. In this respect, the cases of Ecuador and Morocco are significant.
In Ecuador, the 2008 Constitution supports the decentralization
process and grants the intermediate and local governments
(provinces, municipalities and rural parishes) exclusive competencies
in terms of international cooperation, with the concurrent and
coordinating role of the central government. It also establishes that
international cooperation should align its policies to national
development plans and to existing plans at the subnational level. In this context, as mechanisms of strategic ownership for
the territories’ demands, TWGs and LWGs have shown their validity by achieving significant progress in their
institutionalization processes. Another articulation tool in the hands of framework programs is the “Document of Territorial
Priorities”, which will be discussed in the following section. The latter has become a reference not only for both the
Ecuadorian Agency of International Cooperation (AGECI, as per Spanish acronym) and the National Secretariat of Planning
and Development (SENPLADES, as per Spanish acronym), but also for networks of DC interested in supporting territorial
development plans. As described by the program itself, “the ART/UNDP Program supported the National Secretariat of
Planning and Development in the definition of the territorial development strategy and the territorial management process.
The inclusion of the territorial dimension is an important innovation in updating the National Development Plan” (UNDP
Ecuador 2010a: 84). Thus, the UNDP/ART territorial approach has been integrated in national planning; dialogue between
the central government and local governments has been strengthened and zonal agendas have been recognized as an
important instrument of local development (UNDP/SETECI 2001).
Ecuador Incorporation of the territorial level in national
planning
19
Active in four pilot regions, the ART GOLD Morocco program has
followed a similar process to set in motion the institutionalization of
the TWG, through the creation of “Regional Coordination Platforms of
International and Decentralized Cooperation”. These are meant to be
a space for concertation, harmonization and effective management of
cooperation, geared to support regional development as the synthesis
of municipal programming. These Platforms, institutionalized by the Regional Council and acknowledged by law, will have
the function of supporting the local governments’ management of international cooperation, hence fulfilling an important
role that so far no other institution has assumed. In this context, it is worth noting the decision of the “General Directorate
of Local Collectivities” (DGCL as per French acronym) of the Ministry of Interior, to extend the UNDP/ART methodology at
the municipality level and to other regions as well, in order to support them in fulfilling the competencies foreseen in the
new constitution, mostly in terms of participatory planning (UNDP/ART GOLD Morocco 2010: 26). The commitment of the
DGCL to financially contribute to the program’s activities is but another significant indicator of the strategy’s effectiveness.
4. Strategic participatory planning: carrying out the Paris Principles
The articulation process of donors through participatory, structured and permanent spaces is mostly propelled in the Local
Planning Cycle, which is recurrent and equally participative.
In fact, TWGs constitute the pivot of the LPC’s operational structure, which adds the dimension of citizenry to its existing
political and technical dimensions, promoted by the activation and direct integration of the territory. Therefore, the
systematic and reciprocal validation of these two dimensions interacts with local know‐how, catalyzed and strengthened
through training and capacity development
initiatives, carried out since the very first phases
of the LPC with the aim of generating
concertation and convergence of interests and
visions for the future among the various social
and economic actors.
The strategic potential of the LPC lies in its
particular and coherent synthesis of approaches
that also defines framework programs; some of
them, such as gender equality and Human Rights
have in fact cross‐cutting dimensions.
The main result of this participative territorial
planning is the “Document of Territorial
Priorities”. In this case as well, the name can
vary depending on the context. Articulated
around action guidelines and project ideas, the
LPC constitutes the territory’s “presentation
card”, a shared framework that allows DC, and
more generally international cooperation as a
whole (bilateral, multilateral and
nongovernmental) to align its actions to local
planning and national policies. The document is
Local Programming Cycle - stages
UNDP/ART, 2011b
Morocco Towards the creation of Regional Coordination
Platforms of International Cooperation, and extension of the ART methodology to other regions
20
“… an integrated instrument in the territory’s planning system, which contributes to facilitate the management and
implementation of its development strategies” (UNDP / ART 2011b:22). In other words, the LPC is an instrument at the
hands of the territory; it becomes a reference for those actors of international cooperation interested in operating at the
local level, enabling them to harmonize and align their actions with ongoing processes. Concomitantly, due to the
characteristics of its elaboration process, it represents an important device to strengthen the democratic sense of
belonging. It is a public space for reflection and action, which generates transparency and mutual responsibility, while
representing an important step towards managing for results, owing to its regular updating and the fact that it presents
priorities “… which respond to the territories’ long term strategies. These are measurable, since they establish plans,
budgets, objectives and indicators” (PNUD/ART 2011b: 24). Its institutionalization, together with that of the TWG and
articulation framework proposed by the Program, constitutes the leading edge of the whole process.
The innovative initiative set in motion by UNDP / ART GOLD Morocco is
of relevance, particularly in relation to the creation of a system of peer
evaluation in the specific case of municipalities. The aim of this
instrument is to reflect on the planning process to improve its quality,
systemize and capitalize on good practices, generate a process of “dissemination, sharing and exchange of competencies
and experiences within each municipality, in a logic of solidarity and mutual sharing” (UNDP/GOLD Morocco 2011:6). The
creation of “Groups of Peer Evaluation” and progress towards the harmonization of municipal planning systems are meant
to offer a solid ground for the nascent “Réseau de Villes Stratégiques”.
In brief, inserted in national policies, the LPC ends up localizing them while articulating and strengthening the operativeness
of local plans, contributing to their definition and offering a common diagnosis to cooperation actors in the field as well as a
demand‐led joint programming. It also puts forward an evaluation of impact that is not limited to the assessment of specific
projects, but rather takes in consideration the process as a whole. This way the LPC becomes another testimony of the
feasibility of implementing a “win‐win” logic of action, where decentralization processes are strengthened, national policies
acquire their foundations and international cooperation contributes to enhance governance and local development. Thus,
aid effectiveness contributes to strengthen the effectiveness of development processes.
5. Territorial Associations for reciprocal development: the networks and the multilateral framework
The territorial and thematic networks that structure the territories and the relationships between them are differentiated
by their more or less formalized character, the extent and depth of the exchanges they engage in as well as by their
objectives; constituting the distinctive character of social relationships in an era of globalization. In a society where goods,
knowledge and people flow continuously, which generates resistance and antagonisms, but also fluid and cooperative
interdependencies such as the “Panama wasps” analyzed by Bauman (2007), DC networks prove to be relevant in a way
that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated.
In this context, local development is increasingly the product of the capacity of local and networked systems to holistically
appraise the territory, taking into consideration economic opportunities, physical resources and the human and social
capital, thereby securing active participation in the ongoing processes of economic, social and political reorganization at the
global level. It is in fact the networks those which generate this possibility because it is through them that the territory
engages in dialogue with other territories and exchanges and compares ideas and practices, seizing its identity and
innovation capacity potential. DC networks, by promoting the complementarity of actors through local yet also trans‐local
alliances, represent a particular modality that favors this prominence. Acknowledging the DC peculiarities and
contributions, UNDP/ART supports its consolidation by focusing on reinforcing the relationship between existing networks
Peer evaluation for mutual learning
21
instead of creating new networks for each substantive theme. UNDP/ART therefore seeks to credit the territories’ networks
for generating an effective dialogue, exchange and capacity development, both in the South and North.
The case of the constitution of the “Réseau de Villes Strategiques” in
Morocco confirms the operational contribution of the UNDP/ART
strategy. It is quite significant in context such as Africa’s, where the
networks of local governments are an ongoing process, still in
consolidation. The initiative started in 2011 and was directly linked to
the participatory planning system carried out by the UNDP/ ART GOLD Morocco program at the local level. An important
group of urban municipalities of more than 35.000 inhabitants in the Tangiers – Tetuan region (Tetuan, Martil, Oued Laou,
Ksar El Kébir, Assilah, Larache, Chefchauen, Tanger, Fnideq, Mdiq and Ouazzane), joined efforts for “cooperating and
networking in order to share experiences on issues of planning and management of local techniques and for mutual
learning, by capitalizing on the good practices generated by the management of common issues linked to local governance
(UNDP/ART GOLD Morocco, Réseau de Villes Strategiques, 2001). The network is emerging as an important player in
regional development, owing to its links with other African and international networks, which confers these municipalities a
stronger position than they would have separately. The framework program offers technical support to the network and to
the “Peer Group Evaluation” ‐considered one of the pillars of the process‐ and facilitates relations with the DC network.
Moreover, the “Memorandum of Understanding” signed in September
2011 between the Ministry of Interior / DGCL of Morocco, the Ministry
of Decentralization and Local Collectivities of Senegal, the Ministry of
Interior of Mauritania, the Ministry of Economy, Commerce, Industry
and Tourism of Gabon and UNDP, represents another important
advance within the same strategy, aimed at favoring exchanges between local governments, capacity development and the
creation or strengthening of territorial networks. The aim of the agreement is to “create a network of exchanges based on
the existing know‐how in these four countries and on the demand for support to decentralization processes and
international cooperation coordination” (UNDP/ ART GOLD Morocco, Directorate General of Local Collectivities, 2011). In
this case, it is a South‐South network of local governments from four countries, promoted by their national governments;
this emphasizes its distinctiveness and potential for positive impact on decentralization, deconcentration and strategic local
planning processes, as well as on aid coordination, in strategically important areas such as the Maghreb and Southwest
Africa.
One of the peculiar values of DC, which to date has been scarcely
highlighted, is its capacity to establish a specific South‐South
cooperation modality thanks to the territorial approach. This
cooperation involves the participation of areas from the global South,
cross‐cutting the geographical distinction between the North and the
South. In this way, DC confirms that it is one of the few cooperation modalities that perceive the new poverty maps and
incorporate those areas of exclusion in the North, invisible to a simplifying look, to development processes. In these
regional and municipal areas, the deepening of inequalities between regions and social groups, particularly high in the
MICs, creates a particular marginalization. Indeed, it hightlights the importance of a cooperation strategy that promotes
processes adapted to their specific conditions, thereby contributing to mitigate the fractures that weaken cohesion and the
sustainability of national development.
The Coordination office of UNDP’s ART Initiative, in addition to promoting and supporting communication between DC
networks, maintains constant dialogue and cooperates with various networks and alliances on specific issues of
development assistance, such as the promotion of the consultative process on aid effectiveness, which will be presented in
Morocco / Senegal/ Mauritania /Gabon A network of South-South local collectivities
Morocco Réseau de Villes Strategiques
A South-South cooperation, in which the Global South acquires visibility and agency.
22
the third part of this document. FAMSI’s decision to establish an office
that operates as a UNDP/ART antenna is an example of this
cooperation, which is endowed with structural depth. Similar
initiatives taken in Barcelona by the Observatory of Decentralized
Cooperation – European Union and Latin America and the Barcelona
Center for International Affairs (CIDOB, as per Spanish acronym), in Foligno by FELCOS, in Florence by the Province and the
City Hall with the support of the Tuscan region and in Milan by the Milanese Provincial Fund for International Cooperation
(FPMCI, as per Italian acronym) have allowed the joint opening of other UNDP/ART antennas, reinforcing the dialogue
capacity with the territories. Such antennas will strengthen the relationship between the multilateral framework in the
countries and the international municipality networks, while facilitating alliances between governments and the territories’
actors, with the aim of promoting a more equitable, sustainable and participative local development.
On the other hand, networks that identify themselves with the
UNDP/ART methodologies and strategies and also use them, also
contribute to create numerous articulation and coordination spaces in
the North, between public and private actors (committees, groups,
forums) that facilitate better coordination and have an impact on aid
effectiveness. They therefore also strengthen local governance and produce an inclusive ownership of implemented
development policies, in addition to mutual responsibility and attention to the initiatives’ harmonization and coherence.
This way, these networks reexamine the principle of ownership and extend it to donors as well, as part of the
democratization of the aid dimension. This process in turn contributes to fulfill assumed pledges, while advancing towards
the implementation of the coherence principle; in fact, its implementation has increased since 2005, but its usage presents
strong criticalities. This way, DC networks support the path towards effectiveness, while simultaneously operating on both
ends of the North‐South relationship, a prerequisite to achieve greater progress in this respect. At the same time, they also
contribute to shed some light on another area of reflection which has so far rather been grey in the Busan preparatory
debate, despite its importance.
6. Measuring effectiveness at the local level: the added value of the UNDP/ART instrument
Incorporating the local realm to the issue of aid effectiveness implies an articulation of the national scenario’s levels. This
requires the introduction of new indicators that expand and redefine those formulated in 2005 and allow measuring
effectiveness at the territorial level.
Acknowledging the importance of these new indicators, UNDP/ART has supported the design of an instrument to measure
the added value of the strategies and methodologies characteristic of its framework programs. The instrument is the joint
work of two universities: the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Bocconi University of Milan. Taking as a
reference the criteria established by the PD and the Accra Agenda for Action, the strategic lines of UNDP’s Capacity
Development Group (CDG) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), and focusing on the
implementation of the first three principles of the PD at the territorial level (ownership, alignment and harmonization), the
new instrument suggests indicators that allow evaluating local development processes, and complement those formulated
in 2005. Its structure adopts a two‐level analysis, “potentiation” and “advance”, with the aim of monitoring “what the
framework program does” and then “the results” effectively reached. The instrument further operates within three
informative levels – indexes, sub‐indexes and indicators –specifically designed to measure the implementation of the PD at
the local level (in enclosed CD, see Del Rio O., Barbieri D. (2010a) “Instrument to measure the added value of the UNDP /
Decentralized Cooperation reinforces inclusive ownership in the North as well
Territorial networks offices as UNDP/ART antennas
23
ART Initiative for Paris and Accra”, and Del Rio O., Barbieri D. (2010b) “Manual for the implementation of the instrument to
measure the added value of the UNDP / ART Initiative for Paris and Accra”).
The new measuring instrument has been tested in the countries where ART framework programs are active, with the
participation of representatives from various ministries as well as regional and muncipal governmetns and the territories’
social actors. It has also been presented and discussed in different international seminars, and has been first put to a test in
the Ecuador UNDP / ART framework program. The study of a concrete case has allowed to evaluate the contribution of the
multilateral framework of articulation among actors to aid effectiveness. The positive results that have been observed are
presented in the box that concludes this section, in the synthesis carried out by the program itself (UNDP Ecuador, STECI
2010). On the other hand, the measurement that has taken place has confirmed both the added value of the articulation
framework and the validity of the instrument used, which complements the range of operational tools accrued by UNDP /
ART over the years. On a more general note, it has reaffirmed and strengthened the pertinence and value of the requests to
incorporate the territorial approach to the aid effectiveness agenda. Moreover, bearing in mind the weight acquired by
local development processes, as an instrument that allows monitoring them, it has gained a significance that once more
trascends the sphere of aid effectiveness, highlighting its relevance, but also its relativity.
Lastly, to conclude, it is important to note that the presented
articulation framework and instruments aimed at carrying out the PD
principles, propose action modalities committed to combine aid
effectiveness to the efficacy of the implemented development
processes. However, we are not suggesting that these instruments are
a closed “model” that should be replicated; quite the opposite, we understand that their value is in being “in fieri”,
improvable products of the UNDP / ART laboratory, committed to innovation and experimentation, in search of paths that
are able to intertwine the normative to the operational dimension of action, hence transcending both the purely rhetorical
speeches and the practices devoid of sustainability, which is one of the present’s main challenges.
Unlike a model: instruments “in fieri” to implement the principles of effective and efficient aid
24
UNDP/ ART Program Ecuador Main contributions to aid effectiveness at the local level Contribution to donor harmonization
The UNDP/ART framework program has contributed to the simplification of DC donors’ procedures, through the joint use of diagnosis, planning and evaluations. Of the 33 cooperation actors, common follow‐up and evaluation models have been achieved with 45% of them, and agreements for shared technical assistance have been reached with 54% of them.
There have also been contributions to the coordination, complementarity and establishment of a common framework among donors. Of the 33 cooperation actors, agreements for the use of common guidelines have been reached with 78% of them, while 81% of them carry out common projects.
In the beginning, the program had some difficulty to explicit activities and expected results aimed at harmonizing donors in its planning the indicators. This is why in the Report on the Added Value of the ART Initiative for Paris and Accra – Ecuador Country Program, recommended improving planning with the inclusion of the above elements and carrying out maps of cooperation actors in the territories.
Contribution to donors’ alignment with the partners’ agendas
Agenda alignment is one of the main objectives of the operational structures around which the program’s activities are organized, namely the National Coordination Committee, in which 11 national‐level actors align their agendas. Sixty three percent of the NCC’s members are national actors; in three years, 18 agreements aligned to the partners’ agendas have been reached.
Six Provincial Working Groups, where a total of 217 actors at the territorial level align their agendas. In 100% of the territories, the program has aligned itself with local planning. Moreover, 100% of the projects implemented within the Program are carried out jointly by partners and donors.
Participation of international cooperation in the Local Programming Cycles facilitates aligning their agendas with that of partners. Fifty four percent of the 33 cooperation actors who participate in the Program have accompanied the LPC.
Local civil society has participated in 100% of the LPC and 60% of Provincial Working Group meetings.
Contribution to ownership by partners
Working Groups (WG) are spaces led by provincial / municipal governments.
The LPCs are processes led by provincial / municipal governments.
The program’s projects (23) are linked to local development plans and are co‐financed by sub‐national governments.
Because it uses HACT (Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers) in its work with national counterparts, the program ensures that in 100% of implemented projects at the territorial level, resources are incorporated to municipal or provincial budgets and national purchase systems.
Civil society has participated in both the WG and LPC.
A process of WG institutionalization has been started in two territories.
At the national level a process of inclusion of the ART methodology mechanisms in the National Decentralized
Participatory Planning System (SNDPP, as per Spanish acronym) has been initiated.
Source: UNDP / Ecuador Framework Program, 2011
25
a) Objectives and phases
The objective of this process is to provide a reflection and collect practical experience on the crucial role of sub‐national
governments and stakeholders in governance processes, decentralization and deconcentration strategies and poverty
reduction. It also aims to appraise the importance of actor complementarity in the field and coherence between the local,
national and international levels, to overcome the challenges in achieving development results.
The main consultation sessions were held in:
‐ Barcelona, Spain (October 2010), in a consultation co‐organized by the Observatory for Decentralized Cooperation EU – LA and UNDP, which set the foundations for the discussion on aid effectiveness AE at the local level;
‐ Bilbao, Spain (November 2010), in a consultation co‐organized by Hegoa and UNDP, which deepened the debate on AE at the local level;
‐ Dakar, Senegal (February 2011), in a consultation co‐organized by the Government of Senegal and UNDP, in the context of the World Social Forum, which incorporated the Southern perspective;
‐ Medellin, Colombia (April 2011), in a consultation co‐organized by the Government of Colombia (Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation), the Agency of Cooperation and Investment of Medellin and the Metropolitan Area (ACI) and UNDP, where the key messages on AE at the local level were validated;
‐ Foligno, Italy (June 2011), in a consultation co‐organized by FELCOS Umbria and UNDP which completed the cycle adopting the key messages for Busan.
Participants to these events shared the proposed reflection, relating it to experiences and results from the field, matured in
different geographical, economic, political‐cultural and religious context. They further identified and agreed on the
conclusions that are summarized in this document. These messages seek to inform the HLF‐4 discussions and aim to
represent a framework for the articulation of the post‐Busan development cooperation at the local level.
b) General reflections
In all of the events, participants stressed the importance of the active role of local and regional governments and
stakeholders to deepen, democratize and decentralize the aid effectiveness’ (AE) agenda,4 accelerate MDG achievement,
strengthen sustainable human development processes, design and implement decentralization policies, and promote local,
democratic and inclusive governance,5 as shown by the concrete experiences of Nariño and Medellin in Colombia and of
Azuay in Ecuador.
Other cases such as Ecuador and Morocco illustrated the efforts of ministries, local administrations and civil society to
achieve the articulation of territorial processes with national strategies and policies. This is seen as one of the greatest
4 For a reflection on the importance of local and regional governments in the EA agenda, see: United Cities and Local Governments, 2009, Position Paper on Aid Effectiveness and Local Government, Barcelona; and Government of Catalonia, Position Paper: Decentralised Cooperation and Aid Effectiveness, Barcelona, 2009. 5 For a reflection on the AE agenda linked to decentralization and local governance, see: To Enhance Aid Effectiveness: Specific Guiding Principles for Enhancing Alignment and Harmonisation on Local Governance and Decentralisation that will apply to specific country contexts, Informal Development Partners Working Group on Local Governance and Decentralisation (DPWG‐LGD), adopted on December 17, 2009.
3. THE ROAD TO BUSAN: INTERNATIONAL CONSULTATIVE PROCESS ON AID EFFECTIVENESS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
26
challenges for the countries’ ongoing decentralization and deconcentration processes as well as for the international
cooperation on how to better support such processes. To respond to this challenge, the design and implementation of
frameworks and instruments for enhanced operational and programmatic coordination between different levels of action
(local, intermediate and national) has proven very appropriate.
The need to better articulate the action of the diversity of stakeholders engaged at the local level in a way that maximizes
joint impact on development also appeared to be a priority. For that, articulation is required not only amongst stakeholders
involved in local development processes, but also between the different levels of action of development (local, national and
global), which are interdependent.
Several case studies revealed how multilateral organizations can accompany interested countries in the design or
strengthening of frameworks and instruments to reinforce the complementarity between the various actors operating at
the local level and the coherence between the local‐national‐global dimensions.6
Participants in the discussions stressed that consequently, in order to be more effective international cooperation initiatives
operating at the local level should place their action in multi‐level articulation frameworks and respond to the organized
demand of the territories, aligning to instruments of decentralization and deconcentration policies such as municipal and
regional development plans. Moreover, the organized demand of the territory7 should be the result of a comprehensive
formulation process, with broadest possible participation of the territory’s socioeconomic stakeholders, including
traditionally marginalized groups.
In this sense, various experiences have shown the strategic potential of DC to enhance the quality of development
processes through the active relationship between territories, systematic exchange and mutual learning on issues of
common interest. As underscored by the city of Dakar and DC networks such as FAMSI and FELCOS, the DC potentiality can
find in multi‐level governance frameworks the opportunity for systematic and far‐reaching exchanges of technical,
technological, organizational and managerial innovations between territories from the South and the North, via North‐
South, South‐South and triangular cooperation, as illustrated by the case of the State of Paraná in Brazil with the Dominican
Republic and El Salvador.
The Observatory for Decentralized Cooperation EU – LA and experiences such as Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Rosario
(Argentina) have underlined the crucial role of local governments in leading the design and management of local public
cooperation policies, as part of long‐term local development strategies, with the international cooperation consequently
placed at the service of local governments’ development policies and the citizenry’s welfare.
FOGAR has highlighted that in a context where inequalities between and within regions are increasing more than between
countries, the sub‐national level acquires a decisive importance in mitigating these disparities, hence contributing to
promote the sustainability of national development processes. It has become necessary to adopt a new aid model based
on the “cooperation” of all actors, and involved in adopting coordination frameworks led by national governments.
Other experiences have showcased that the “dialogue between territories” generated by DC can be very effective in
addressing complex and sensitive situations from the local level, such as in contexts of post‐war rehabilitation. In this
sense, the experience of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD, as per Catalan acronym), the Tuscany
Region and the network "Enti Locali per la Pace" in Lebanon is highly relevant.
6 For examples of such frameworks, see: ART 4 Years 10 Results: Progress, Challenges and Perspectives – ART UNDP, Seville, 2009. 7 The concept of territory understood both as the physical space and the various actors present in that space.
27
More specifically, participants in the consultation identified a number of challenges and opportunities that should be
addressed in the global AE debate and in the engineering of the post‐Busan development cooperation programs.
c) Challenges
Participants recognized that a number of challenges should be addressed in the global aid effectiveness debate for
enhanced aid effectiveness at the local level, mainly:
1. Adopt new AE references, such as acknowledging the crucial role of decentralized cooperation, not as an additional source of funding, but as a democratization strategy, a pragmatic and innovative way of mobilization for human development and for continuous dialogue between territories on issues of common interest, such as migration, health, employment, human security, citizen’s rights, gender equality, environment and climate change.
2. Move from the original donor‐beneficiary logic and project‐based approach to a paradigm based on sustainable and durable horizontal partnerships between territories, rooted in equity, trust, common interests and long term relationships.
3. Link the active and inclusive participation of communities in the design of cooperation programs to the specific possibility of programming the available resources in the field, based on the priorities identified by the "dialogue between territories" and in the framework of local development plans.
4. Avoid multiplying the number of projects for each of the territory’s priorities. Instead, the various cooperation actors operating at the local level should respond to common and comprehensive diagnosis linked to public policy and proposed by the territory, reducing both the risk of fragmentation and the cost of aid.
5. Encourage coordination frameworks in the field for better harmonization of different international cooperation actors, which often pursue common objectives but operate with different schedules, technical approaches, administrative procedures and evaluation criteria.
6. Reinforce capacities of the different local and national stakeholders to organize the comprehensive and non‐sectorial demand of the territory in relation to the opportunities offered by the international cooperation.
7. Move from declarations of intention to specific targets and indicators, using instruments to measure the impact in terms of human development.
d) Opportunities
Participants stressed that within the changing development cooperation landscape, cooperation at the local level offers
substantive opportunities to scale up efforts to reduce poverty, strengthen development opportunities and achieve the
MDGs, namely:
1. A territorial approach to development, to better implement the AE principles and contribute to MDG achievement from the local level.
2. An inclusive ownership of development processes, ensuring the active participation of local and regional governments and CSOs in the development cycle and debate, both in the North and the South.
3. The articulation between the local‐national‐international dimensions via multilevel governance (multilaterals, bilateral cooperation, decentralized cooperation, parliaments, NGOs, foundations, private sector, migrant communities, academia).
4. The definition and implementation of new financial instruments aimed at local and regional administrations to locally manage funds (from national origin or international cooperation) in support of local and regional development plans.
5. The strengthening of accountability systems (domestic and mutual) taking advantage of the territorial frameworks’ proximity to the citizenry to build confidence and to facilitate participatory decision‐making, the evaluation of performance based on results, and the devolution of results to citizenry.
28
6. Sharing decentralized cooperation models of territorial organization for enhanced harmonization and effectiveness of development actions.
7. Raising awareness, through specific field practices, of the added value that the complementarity between decentralized cooperation networks and the multilateral framework represents in strengthening territorial development processes, as well as to face challenges derived from the preservation and equitable access to global public goods.
8. Promoting knowledge exchange and peer learning through the empowering partnership in the territory and between territories, in various forms of South‐South, North‐South, South‐North and triangular cooperation, facilitating the sharing and replication (adapted to each context) of good practices at the local level.
e) Final reflections
These are, synthesized, the core elements emerging from a discussion between actors from diverse backgrounds, providing
guidance to envisage the design of the post‐Busan cooperation programs. Discussions have stated that, despite the
additional efforts required to deepen the AE agenda, there are experiences and practices that reveal clear positive results.
These are linked to the development opportunities offered through DC and the complementarity amongst actors and
different levels of action to maximize joint impact on territorial development processes and to improve the quality of
decentralization and deconcentration processes.
Practical experiences and case studies demonstrate that in the changing landscape of development cooperation, the
increasing multiplicity of actors can certainly lead to fragmentation but can also, through the diversity of competencies and
development responses, lead to coordinated action, political coherence and successful multi‐level interventions. The
interaction and cooperation between the multilateral framework, national and local governments and decentralized
cooperation networks has the potential to better address medium and long term development processes and make aid
more effective in achieving the MDGs and sustainable human development. It is thus fundamental to promote coherence
between the interdependent local, national and global levels of development in the Busan debate and in the engineering of
the post‐Busan cooperation programs.
29
I. Integrate the strategy and procedures of UNDP/ART framework programs to the methodological section of the Paris Declaration, as a peculiar and innovative modality to implement a program’s approach.
II. Institutionalize national spaces open to the permanent participation of local governments, parliaments and NSA, as an instrument for dialogue and inclusive definition of national development policies.
III. Institutionalize territorial spaces for participation, involving local governments, the central government’s decentralized institutions and social and economic actors, as an instrument for the democratic definition of development policies. These policies should actually foresee the participation of DC networks, and bilateral, multilateral and nongovernmental cooperation.
IV. Institutionalize the national and territorial spaces of participation in the North as well, involving local and national governments and social and economic actors, as an instrument for the democratic definition of development policies and to ensure their enhanced effectiveness and coherence.
V. Capitalize on the experience of the local programming cycle at the local level, within the national development policies, as an instrument to strengthen democratic ownership and aid’s alignment and harmonization.
VI. Acknowledge that the territorial approach contributes to link aid effectiveness with the efficacy and sustainability of implemented development processes.
VII. Credit the operational instruments tested by UNDP/ART as an important contribution to the implementation of the effectiveness principles and construction of a more effective and inclusive aid management.
VIII. Acknowledge that Decentralized Cooperation –which includes the participation of the global South, that is, of those areas of particular poverty and transversal inequalities to the geographical North and South–, is a particular modality that enhances South‐South cooperation.
IX. Move towards the post‐Busan phase adopting a co‐development vision, which characterizes decentralized cooperation and South‐South cooperation, and is based on the recognition of “common interests” in the North and South, and of development as a global issue.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OPERATIVENESS BASED ON THE UNDP / ART EXPERIENCE
30
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Co-organizers of the consultative process
Agency for Cooperation and Investment, ACI Medellin
Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity, FAMSI ‐ United Cities and Local Governments, UCLG
Forum of Global Associations of Regions, FOGAR
Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation, Colombia
Ministry of Decentralized Cooperation, Senegal
Local Authorities’ Fund for Decentralized Cooperation and Sustainable Human Development, FELCOS Umbria
Institute of Development Studies and International Cooperation, HEGOA
Observatory for Decentralized Cooperation European Union ‐ Latin America, ODC
United Nations Development Programme, UNDP
Participants of the consultative process
Action Research for Co‐Development (ARCO), Italy
Agency for Local Authorities Cooperation (ACEL), Italy
Alternatives Foundation
Arco Latino
Association of Ecuadorian Municipalities (AME)
Autonomous Government of Region of Oruro, Bolivia
Association of Local Democracy Agencies Veneto (ALDA), Italy
Association Pathologists without Borders, Italy
Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Barcelona Provincial Council
Bureau in Support to Canadian Cooperation (BACDI), Senegal
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Embassy to
Senegal
Carretera Central Association (ARCI), Italy
Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Handcraft and Agriculture
(CCIAA), Italy
Civil Society Actors Platform (PASCiB), Benin
Complutense University of Madrid (ICEI), Spain
Council for the Development and Integration of the South
(CODESUL), Brazil
Development Cooperation Interregional Observatory (OICS), Italy
Economic and Social Research Institute of Puglia (IPRES), Italy
Economic Development Agency of Ruhuna (RUEDA), Sri Lanka
Enlaza Mundos Programme, Colombia
European Foundation for North‐South Cooperation (FECONS)
European Parliament Development Commission
Family Compensation Fund of Antioquia (COMFAMA), Colombia
Family Compensation Fund of Fenalco (COMFENALCO), Colombia
German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ)
Government of Andalusia, Spain
Government of the Basque Country, Spain
Ministry for Development Planning of Bolivia
Government of Caldas, Colombia
Government of Catalonia, Spain
Government of César, Colombia
Government of Cundinamarca, Colombia
Regional Autonomy Directorate, National Development Planning
Agency of Indonesia
Government of Mexico City
General Directorate for the Promotion of Rural Development,
Mozambique
Government of Nariño, Colombia
Government of Quindío, Colombia
Government of the Balearic Islands, Spain
Government of the State of Río of Janeiro, Brazil
Government of Tolima, Colombia
Government of Valencia, Spain
G.T‐FASS‐ COLOBANE, Senegal
Health Agency of Tuscany Region (ASL8), Italy International Cooperation Association of Lodi (ALCI), Italy International Cooperation South ‐ South NGO (CISS), Italy International and Latin American Foundation for Administration
and Public Policy, (FIIAPP), Spain Italian Farmers Confederation (CIA Umbria), Italy Center for International Strategic Studies (CEPEI) Colombia Local Authorities for Peace, Italy
Lux‐Development ‐ Senegal
MedCités
Mediterranean Apiculture Forum, Italy Merloni Institute, Italy Metropolitan Institute of Technology (ITM), Colombia
Ministry of Decentralization and Local Authorities, Senegal Ministry of Economic Development, Sri Lanka Ministry of Finances and Economy, Senegal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGCS), Italy Municipalities Association of Umbria (ANCI), Italy
5. CO-ORGANIZERS AND PARTICIPANTS OF THE INTERANTIONAL CONSULTATIVE PROCESS
34
Municipalities Coordination for Peace (CO.CO.PA.) Municipal Council of Maputo, Mozambique
Municipal Council of Nador, Morocco
Municipality of Araboua, Morocco
Municipality of Barcelona, Spain
Municipality of Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Municipality of Boghé, Mauritania
Municipality of Bogotá, Colombia
Municipality of Bologna, Italy Municipality of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Municipality of Caldono, Colombia Municipality of Casablanca, Morocco
Municipality of Chefchaouen, Morocco
Municipality of Colonia, Uruguay
Municipality of Florence, Italy Municipality of Foligno, Italy Municipality of Haret Hreik, Lebanon Municipality of Lauro de Freitas, Brazil
Municipality of Medellin, Colombia
Municipality of Moron, Argentina
Municipality of Pasto, Colombia
Municipality of Perugia, Italy
Municipality of Rosario, Argentina
Municipality of Siena, Italy Municipality of Spoleto, Italy Municipality of Temara, Morocco
Municipality of Terni, Italy Municipality of Torino, Italy National Association of Local Authorities (ANCLM) Morocco
National Federation of Departments, Colombia
National Institute of City Planning (INU Umbria), Italy New Horizon, Senegal
NGOs Association of Piemonte ‐ Casa dei Popoli, Italy OCO URBAL III Regional Office Bogota, Colombia
Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development , OECD
OXFAM, Italy Partnership for Policy and Effective Responsibility (PEPA), Senegal
Poliedra Projects in Partnership Company (P3), Italy Provence‐Alpes‐Côte d'Azur Region (PACA), France
Programme in Support to Microfinance Sectorial Policy (PALPS),
Senegal
Programme to Strengthen Local Authorities' Institutions and their
Services (Pericles), Mauritania
Provincial Government of Aousserd. Morocco
Provincial Government of Esmeraldas, Ecuador Provincial Ministry of Economic Development, Southern Province of
Sri Lanka
Provincial Fund of Milan for International Cooperation (FPMCI), Italy
Province of Florence, Italy Province of Perugia, Italy Province of Pesaro and Urbino, Italy Province of Sassari, Italy Province of Terni, Italy Province of Torino, Italy Public Enterprises of Medellin (EPM), Colombia
Red Cross Prevention and Relief Training Center (CEPAD), Colombia Region of Puglia, Italy
Region of Umbria, Italy
Regional Council of L'Oriental, Morocco
Regional Council of Louga, Senegal
Regional Council of Tanger‐Tetouan, Morocco
Regional Development Agency of Diourbel, Senegal
Research and Action Group (GRAPAD), Benin
Restrepo Barco Foundation, Colombia
School of Management, Finance and Technology (EAFIT), Colombia
Senegalese Agency in support to decentralization and citizen
initiative (ASADIC), Senegal
Social Association ‐ L'Officina della Memoria (APS), Italy
Social Watch, Benin
Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, (FEMP), Spain
Task Team on South‐South Cooperation (TT‐SSC)
Technical Secretariat for International Cooperation (SETECI),
Ecuador
Union of Associations of Local Authorities, Senegal
Union of Municipalities of Dunnieh, Lebanon
UN Millennium Campaign
United Cities Italian Committee (CICU) ‐ UCLG
United Nations Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(CEPAL)
University of Antioquia, Colombia
University Bocconi Milan, Italy
University Mohammed 1st of Oujda, Morocco University of Bologna, Italy University of Dakar, Senegal University of Florence, Italy University of Perugia, Italy University of Pisa, Italy University Oriental of Naples, Italy
UNDP Virtual School
Vice‐Ministry for Development Cooperation, El Salvador
Water Right Foundation, Italy Western Africa Women Association (AFAO), Senegal
Zinguinchor Council, Senegal
36
Author: Vanna Ianni, professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale
Contact information: Giovanni Camilleri, ART Initiative Coordinator, [email protected]
For more information: www.undp.org/ United Nations Development Programme One United Nations Plaza • New York, NY 10017 USA