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The consistent social behavior in the media conglomerate: The Cases of Walt Disney Company, TimeWarner, News Corporaon, Viacom and Prisa Group
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2011. El discurso de la RSC en los medios
de comunicacin social 2009. hp://www.ucm.es/info/vivataca/inicio_va.htm.
Accessed on 31/10/11
Viacom, 2011.Corporate Responsibility.hp://www.viacom.com/
corpresponsibility/Pages /default.aspx. Accessed 28/10/11.
Viars A, Mnica, 2009. El discurso de la rsc en los medios de comunicacin
social. Revista de Comunicacin Vivat Academia. hp://www.ucm.es/info/
vivataca/inicio_va.htm. Accessedon 31/10/11.
Walt Disney Company, 2011. Cizenship hp://corporate.disney.go.com/
cizenship/ awards.html Accessed on 29/10/11.
Revista de NegociosInternacionales
2012Vol. 5 N 1
DEPARTAMENTO DE Negocios Internacionales
Juliana Aldana Diaz
Twinning Agreements, a decentralized internaonal cooperaon tool towards the strengthening of the south-sou
cooperaon: The current case of Anoquia (Colombia) and the provinces of Jalisco (Mexico) and Minas Gerais (B
Revista de Negocios Internacionales. Vol. 5 N 1 - Enero - Junio de 2012 - Pp. 83 - 101
ISSN: 2027-2340
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JULIANAALDANA DIAZ 2
FECHADERECIBIDO: 30/11/2011
FECHADEACEPTADO: 20/01/2012
Twinning Agreements, adecentralized internationalcooperation tool towardsthe strengthening of thesouth-south cooperation:The current case of Antioquia(Colombia) and the provinces of Jalisco(Mexico) and Minas Gerais (Brazil).1
Abstract
Transformation of the approaches to international cooperation, variations in
local traditional management and different process of internationalization of
cities and regions have given rise to the concept of twinning agreements or
sister cities. These accessible mechanisms of local entities for international
participation and engagement have modified the structure of global relations
between regions leaving as a consequence, the addressing of local challenges
from its international dimension. This study considers the perspective of
twinning agreements as elements responding of current trends of decentralized
cooperation. Indeed, the present research is based on the analysis of three
provinces Antioquia (Colombia), Minas Gerais (Brazil) and Jalisco (Mexico)
1 For the selecon of the provinces, the criteria were based primarily on the current situ-
aon at Direccin de Internacionalizacin (Direcon of Internaonalizaon) where the processes re-
garding internaonal cooperaon are run within the Government of Anoquia. Thus, the provinces of
Jalisco and Minas Gerais were selected according to their formal expression of interest on the estab-
lishment of cooperaon agreements with Departamento de Anoquia since 2010, as well as on the
future benet results for Anoquia, aer previous meengs held with representaves of both regions.
2 Maria Juliana Aldana Daz trabaja desde Octubre 2011 en Telefnica Movistar en Mxico.
Anterior a esto fue consultora en el Centro para la Innovacin, Consultora y Empresarismo (CICE) de
la Universidad EAFIT, y durante el ao 2010 fue praccante en la Direccin de Internacionalizacin de
la Secretara de Producvidad y Compevidad de la Gobernacin de Anoquia. Correo electrnico:
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regarding the existing awareness of the Brazilian and the Mexican province to
establish cooperation ties with Medelln (and Antioquia).
ResumenLa transformacin de los enfoques de la cooperacin internacional, y las variaciones
en el manejo tradicional del proceso de internacionalizacin de ciudades y regiones
han dado origen al concepto de acuerdos de hermanamiento o de ciudades
gemelas. Estos mecanismos permiten acceso a endades locales a la parcipacin
internacional, y a raz de este compromiso han modicado la estructura de las
relaciones globales entre las regiones. Esto supone un direccionamiento de los
problemas locales y su dimensin internacional. En este estudio se considera el
punto de vista de los acuerdos de hermanamiento, como elementos que responden
a las tendencias actuales de la cooperacin descentralizada. En efecto, la presente
invesgacin se basa en el anlisis de las tres provincias de Anoquia (Colombia),
Minas Gerais (Brasil) y Jalisco (Mxico) .
Key words:
Internaonalizaon of cies, Twinning agreements, Sister cies, Colombia,
Medellin, Anoquia, Mina Gerais, Jalisco.
Palabras clave
Internacionalizacin de ciudades, acuerdos de ciudades gemelas, hermanamiento
de ciudades, Medelln, Anoquia, Jalisco, Mina Gerais
Introduction
Internaonal interacons, in where States and mulnaonal corporaons used
to take the most relevant roles, have been deeply pressured and modied by the
acons taken by regions and territories within a globalizaon framework that
have seen the importance of having direct internaonal connecons with their
similar enes worldwide.
Certainly, the phenomenon of globalization emphasized the importance of in-
ternational linkages and raised new relations between international and do-
mestic processes.
Therefore the cies, a major nodes of relaons, exchanges and producon, be -
come the places where the globalized and developed economies are seled(Jordan
&Simioni, 1998) (Huerto Romero, 2004:231). Thus, global scenarios facilitang
cooperaon networks between sub-naonal enes are becoming the perfect
spaces for the promoon of regional development.
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Twinning Agreements, a decentralized internaonal cooperaon tool towards the strengtheningof the south-south cooperaon
inserted into global economic networks, due to two main facts; rst the necessity
to ensure compeveness and producvity, and second, their obligaon to address
serious problems of socio-economic polarizaon and environmental sustainability.
Moreover, nowadays it is not only an internaonal exchange what modies states
interacons, the increased complexity of internaonal relaons has led to the
emergence of new and more plural actors, to the widespread of democrac and
decentralizaon processes around the world, to the revival of polical and social
dynamics at the territorial level, and to the development of new insights regarding
development. The laer, Huerto Romero (2004) states, permied the redenion
of the classic approach to internaonal cooperaon, and in consequence,
decentralized cooperaon started to be taken as the new way to manifest this
changed in cooperaon and transference of knowledge trend. These regional or
cross-border exchanges, oen, are powerful vectors for cultural dialogue, stability
and peace and for regional integraon at local levels.
This scenario of decentralized resources coming into the sub-naonal territories,
municipalies and other instuons and local and internaonal organizaons play
a signicant and more independent role, in fact as Beltrn (2007) assumes the
rst thing that maers is that large cies (at least the main cies of a country) are
actors in the global economy.Hence, a specic category of horizontal decentralized
cooperaon is formed in which sub-naonal units interact with each other. In that
sense, it is vital for local development, to give to those municipalies and territorial
enes the capability to assume the role of managing the scopes and means for
its development through internaonal cooperaon. Meaning, it is necessary that
naonal governments and instuons promote the empowerment of local units
of their single processes of development and growth. As stated by Accion Social
(2010), the Colombian Agency for Internaonal Cooperaon, it is imperave to
word towards the strengthening of the capacies of local and naonal actors to
organize the demand of the territories and implement aterritorial approach to
achieve the principles of eecve cooperaon.
Within this perspecve of decentralized cooperaon, twinning agreements
emerge as a tool of supporng and enhancing municipal necessies and engaging
internaonal sub-units. The laer as twinning agreements foster internaonal
interacons through direct mechanisms that, although do not involve transference
of capital resources, it paves the path to the creaon of networks of strong cies
making clear local common necessies at a naonal and internaonal.
In the other hand, however, according to the European Think Tank FRIDE 2008,
decentralized internaonal cooperaon has its own limitaons, such as dispersion
in the form of mulplicaon of small eorts, the proliferaon of small projects,
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Evidences
The processes of democrazaon, decentralizaon and structural reform within
countries, coupled with the phenomenon of globalizaon, have generated an
increment in the internaonal interacon moving towards to a phenomenon in
which sub-naonal units have acquired their own parcipaon in the internaonal
arena with their peers in other countries, and they are building new scenarios for
naonal and local development (Ruiz Alans, 2009). As in the present analyzed
case, regional provinces now are willing to take advantage of internaonal
possibilies and want to learn and be beneted by internaonal good case
pracces and resources. In that sense, interacons are growing as necessies
become even more complex and the resources more scarcely. Decentralized
cooperaon, in turn, is only a mechanism available for those provinces and
territories that, from a public strategy, dened an internaonalizaon process
coherent with their situaon and specic requirements.
Decentralized cooperaon began in the aerwards of World War II mainly in
the form of twinning agreements. As the situaon demanded, the main issues
involved on the agreements were aimed at building bridges of understanding
and condence between peoples of naons which had been at war (UNPAD,
2008), based on the primarily necessity of avoiding a new global confrontaon.
It was only unl the rst African Conference on Global Intercommunal,
Cooperaon held in Senegal, in 1964, that twinning agreements were actually
recognized as instruments for fostering internaonal decentralized cooperaon.
Since then, decentralized ocial cooperaon was dened as a form of local
interests and expectaons projecon, which may have a polical, economic
or social background, regarding parcular situaons of a given sub-naonal
territory (Ruz Alanis, 2009).
Currently the objecves of decentralized cooperaon are broader than
the tradional twinning agreements for avoiding conicts. Issues such as
community development - with a focus on meeng basic needs, municipal
capacity development, and social awareness- and educaon for development,
are on the current agenda for most of the developing naons of Lan America.
As a result, decentralized cooperaon became a modern vehicle (or even, in
some cases, an extra tool) for regional governments to achieve internaonal
compeveness as it allows the territories to address specic needs for the
improvement of the welfare of the populaon and the promoon of economic
and social development.
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Moreover, decentralized cooperaon is nowadays considered as one of the key
strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals3, thus, it is seen as a
tool for creang mutually rewarding cooperaon es that can foster sustainable
development not only as a North-South relaon, but also south-south cooperaon
links between developing countries worldwide. The laer is conrmed by the
Internaonal Cooperaon and Investment Agency of Medellin (ACI), which recognizes
that decentralized Cooperaon is set on two basic lines of acon: promong the
best and increased ecient human and sustainable local development, and applying
the most creave forms of parcipave and direct local democracy.
Twinning Agreements: A decentralized
cooperation tool
The XXVI General Assembly of the United Naons in 1971 addressed the subject
of The Twining of cies as a means of internaonal cooperaon on the
Resoluon 2861. This resoluon stated that twinning cooperaon mechanism
represented exceponal value, because it put in contact between countries, not
just local leaders, but enre populaons. Besides, the document stressed that
internaonal cooperaon of local communies can play an important role in the
union of peoples. As a result it considered world inter-municipal cooperaon as
regular complement to the cooperaon between states (Secretary of Mexican
External Relaons).
According to the exisng literature, twinning agreements are not precisely
documents but situaons in which sub-naonal units, either region, provinces or
cies, interact at the internaonal level in order to exchange experiences that
improve their internaonal inseron and their access to dierent sources of
global resources. Twinning is basically a tool used by regions in order to address
their specic and unique necessies through internaonal mechanisms.
As twining agreements are derived of specic local interests, it remarkable to note
that above that twinning also responds to dierent movaons speaking of the
desirable region to have a twinning with. According to Luna and Ballesteros (2005)
research on twinning agreements of Mexican regional units, there are four (4)
main movaons that produce the constuon of twinning agreements, however
as these categories included comprehensive reasons to establish this internaonal
3 The Millennium Development goals are the main focus on the internaonal cooperaon
funds and projects worldwide. Among other targets, the Millennium Development Goals aims at pro-
mong commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reducon through partnerships
and collaboraon.
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Twinning Agreements, a decentralized internaonal cooperaon tool towards the strengtheningof the south-south cooperaon
agreement, they are taken into account for the present research. In that way,
historical movaons arise when twinning regions have past bonding es, as in the
case of many agreements between Lan American regions with Spanish regions.
Social movaons appear when regions have a common community phenomenon
they prefer to address together in order to prove some benet for both territories,
as the case of the cooperaon of Colombian regions and Mexican States to address
violence and conict consequences. Addionally, economic movaons are those
that come when regions engage twinning to have commercial networks that are
necessary to improve the territories, like the case of Minas Gerais and its twinning
agreements with provinces of Argenna that allow it to improve commercial es.
And nally, convenience strategic movaons are those that arise when regions
or cies are twinned as a need to establish cooperaon mechanisms of various
kinds, as a clear example are the twinning agreements of both Jalisco and Minas
Gerais with Asian regions and developed countries from which they have access
to up-to-date technology and to a potenal market.
The importance of these movaons for the present research is basically of
its strategic linkage with its use, as these are reasons to establish a twinning
agreement that can strengthen and facilitate the process of interacon with other
region. Moreover, as the following descripon noce, both Jalisco and Minas
Gerais, have clearly dened the objecves of their twinning agreements and
although it is not clear that they have established a specic set of movaons, it is
clear that they select the twin region not by chance but aer a process of analysis
and strategy set up.
Twinning Agreements in the selected provinces
Due to the nature of Gobernacion de Anoquia in Colombia as a public enty and
also the counterpares of Jalisco and Minas Gerais, the main concept regarding
internaonal cooperaon will be Public Decentralized Cooperaon, which is
dened by the Decentralized Cooperaon Observatory for European Union
and Lan America, the set of internaonal cooperaon acons that perform
or promote local and regional governments. In fact, as the present research
involves the analysis of the three provinces, then be submied a descripon of
the situaon of twinning agreements in Anoquia, Jalisco and Minas Gerais in
order to get the general view of each province.
Antioquia (Colombia)
For over a decade, polical, economic and social issues have allowed Medellin
and Anoquia to move forward within the context of internaonal cooperaon
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and, according to the ACI, to be an acve region within the Naonal System of
Cooperaon4. Indeed, the historical condions of armed conict and violence
in the region have pushed the entering ows of resources that have allow to
develop parallel projects of educaon and poverty migaon in the territory. Yet,
as the necessies of the region become more complex, eecve coordinaon,
guidance, monitoring of the actors and intervenon strategies are required to be
modernized and adjusted more frequently.
According to an interview made to the current Director of Internaonalizaon and
the literature review, Anoquia does not have any twinning agreement with a similar
hierarchy internaonal territory. Nonetheless, some municipalies of Anoquia
have established internaonal cooperaon es with their internaonal pairs.
Table 1 shows some of the current internaonal agreements signed
by municipalies of Anoquia.
MUNICIPALITYINTERNATIONAL
PROVINCE
FOCUS OF THE
AGREEMENTDATE
MedellinThe DominicanRepublic
Transparencyin municipalmanagement, socialplanning, tourism andenvironment.
August2010
BelloSan Nicols de losGarza, Mexico
Promoon of trade,
investment, industrydevelopment andtourism.
February2010
MedellinMonterrey,Mexico
NotavailableSeptember1996
Santa Fe deAnoquia
Trujillo, SpainPromoon of cultural
tourismOctober2005
Medellin Bilbao, Spain Strategic urban planning. June 1998
Santa Fe deAnoquia
Cadiz, Spain Promoon of cultureNotavailable
Guatape San Juan delPuerto,Spain
Promoon of tourism, localmanagement
Notavailable
MedellinFort Lauderdale,United States
Not available 1961
4 The system aims to provide a comprehensive and permanent dialogue among government
enes at the naonal and local sources of cooperaon and social organizaons, promong decentral-
izaon and the development of informaon channels of double track.
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In fact, the informaon regarding twinning agreements of the dierent
municipalies in Anoquia is neither organized nor complete on any of the
governmental web sources (at the regional or local level). Hence, the gathered
informaon was not easy to compile and in comparison to the other provinces
involved, this is an enormous disadvantage not having a clear awareness
of internaonal cooperaon acvies related to twinning agreements over
the whole territory; not only for technical purposes of accountability for the
key performance indicators5 (KPIs) but also for taking advantage of all the
opportunies coming from twinning agreements such as exchange of good
pracces, increase of investment, internaonal recognion, among others.
Nevertheless, it is important to have clear that this situaon does not mean
Gobernacin de Anoquia has any relaon with internaonal counterparts,
because also as an outcome of the present research, there are a considerable
number of projects within the territory that are executed with internaonal
cooperaon resources coming mainly from mullateral organizaons, such as
United Naons, World Bank and Interamerican Development Bank in elds like
poverty alleviaon, food safety, childhood, among others.
On the other hand, aer the vericaon of the current twinning agreements of
Gobernacion de Anoquia, another issue is revealed: Medellin is the municipality
that has the highest number of twinning agreements in the region. Hence, the
capital city of Anoquia is evidently more posioned at the internaonal level and
even more recognized on the internaonal cooperaon eld than Anoquia; the
laer is shown in the number of internaonal events held in Medellin, the number
of internaonal commiees coming to the city, the number of internaonal
networks that the city belongs and likewise the naonal recognion of Medellins
acvies and instuons (ACI) for the promoon of the internaonal cooperaon6.
Jalisco (Mexico)
The State of Jalisco has strengthened its internaonal posion through eleven
twinning agreements and three cooperaon agreements with various key states,
provinces, regions or countries for the development of the Jaliscos society.
5 Key performance indicators help an organizaon dene and measure progress toward or-
ganizaonal goals, in the case of Departamento de Anoquia, KPIs are seled on the Development
Plan of each 4-year governmental period and must be accomplished and registered on the integrated
quality system for public access OMEGA.
6 As a clear example, Medellin will be the home of the IV Meeng of Decentralized Coopera-
on of Accion Social, from 14 to 15 April 2010.
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Addionally an important fact to be noced is that Jalisco is the Mexican State
which has the highest number of internaonal cooperaon agreements.
According to ocial informaon gather from the Government of Jalisco webpage,
there are four main categories in which Jaliscos twinning agreements are based:
Economy - Environment - Culture - Urban Planning Health.
Research and Training in IT - Informaon Technology - Rural Development.
Business Cooperaon - Regional Development - Educaon Tourism.
Family Development and Women - Historical Heritage -
municipal Development.
Jalisco, in turn has established twinning agreements for historical, economic and
convenience movaons as the laer categories evidence. In that sense, Jalisco
has strategically used this decentralized cooperaon tool as a means of strengthen
its internaonal visibility and its internal development.
Certainly, the level of internaonal posioning of the Mexican province of Jalisco is
remarkable, not only by the fact of spreading its internaonal connecons around
the world (only 34% of the total twinning agreements are seled with Lan
American countries) but also the informaon is clearly idened and classied,
which permits a higher level of accountability and control.
Table 2 describes the type of agreements signed by the Province of
Jalisco
Source: Secretary of External Relaons of Mexico 2010.
Jalisco, between the three selected provinces, is the region that has the highest
number of twinning agreements. Certainly, this fact responds not only to an
internaonalizaon regional strategy but to a public policy regarding twinning
in Mexico which is executed through the Mexican Program of Sister Cies and
Decentralized Internaonal Cooperaon. This naonal strategy under the
umbrella of the Law on Treaes Celebraons, aims to frame the inter-instuonal
agreements of Mexican provinces with other internaonal provinces or agencies.
NUMERALIA DE ACUERDOS INTERINSTITUCIONALES
HermanamientosConvenios que no son
hermanamientosTotales
Estatal 8 54 62
Municipal 24 4 28
Totales 32 58 90
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Minas Gerais (Brazil)
For the government of Minas Gerais, Sister Provinces are considered those that
establish agreements with the State of Minas Geraisdetermining the common
desire to expand and develop fraternal cooperaon. Those agreements are
based on the principles of quality and mutual benet, both should promote
friendly exchanges and trade contacts between their respecve peoples, and
develop cooperaon in the areas of science and technology, sports, culture,
public health and educaon (Secretary of Economic Development of Minas Gerais
Webpage).
Table 3 describes the main components of the twinning agree-
ments of Minas Gerais
Source: Government of Minas Gerais, Secretary of Economic Development, Internaonal Relaons.
From the gathered informaon, it is relevant to bear in mind that Minas Gerais has
established twinning agreements with key countries around the world, responding
to economic and convenience movaons and also with neighbor partner as the
province of Cordoba in Argenna that could be related to strategic movaons as
it are located in one of the most important trading partners for Brazilian products.
Finally, subsequently of reviewing the gathered informaon, two main facts were
acknowledged that exercise a direct inuence over the impact of internaonal
cooperaon within the region. First, it is necessary to promote a culture of
INTERNATIONAL
PROVINCEFOCUSOFTHEAGREEMENT DATE
Jiangsu, ChinaScience, technology, electronics industry, biotechnology, agro-business.
1996
Yamanashi,
JapanElectricity, agro-food industry, environment, mining, computer
science, training.1973
Quebec, CanadaEconomic, scienc, technological and training, internaonal
compeveness, industrial cooperaon projects, technology.1996
Queensland,Australia
Environmental sectors and foreign trade, management of water
resources, mining sector and trade in iron ore and derivaves.2003
Cordoba,Argenna
Environmental sectors and foreign trade, management of waterresources, mining sector and trade in iron ore and derivaves.
1993
Piedmont, Italy Strengthening internaonal compeveness. 1993
Daegu, SouthKorea
Strengthening es with acvies and iniaves in the planning
stage.1994
Brandenburg,
GermanyStrengthening es with acvies and iniaves in the planning
stage.Notavailable
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internaonal cooperaon that fosters a sense of responsibility in local development,
consistently responding to global changes and to the basic element of sustainable
development within the region. And second, management of cooperaon of local
governments and instuons shall be strengthen, understanding the cooperaon
as an integral and parcipatory process and not as an isolated instuonal eort,
in order to assure an outcome with a greater impact, more ecient and with a
higher level of compliance with common regional goals.
Discussion
Having in mind that the new trends aroused from internaonal organizaons
pung decentralizaon of local governments as the main responsible for
generang development, as the municipal level represents the basic cell because
it is the polical and administrave eld closest to the demands of the community
(Ruz, 2009), the approximaon of the new role of cies in the juridical naonal
and internaonal scenario is seled and modied according to the trends of
cooperaon and integraon networks, creang triangular relaons between
the world, the States and the Cies (Beltrn, 2007). However, Departamento de
Anoquia is not currently a complete engaged unit to the internaonal system
as the eorts made to achieve this objecve have not been strong enough to
guarantee an internaonal addressing of local needs. This is contrasted to the
situaon in Jalisco, which is the Mexican state with the highest number of twinning
agreements, and in Minas Gerais that has twinning agreements with important
and developed cies around the world.
One important issue regarding the present research was the fact that the
evaluated twinning agreements were proposed by the foreign provinces,
Jalisco and Minas Gerais, showing a clear lack of interest from Gobernacin de
Anoquia to strengthen its internaonalizaon process through the promoon
of the process of twinning regions. Moreover, it is relevant to bear in mind that
the Direcon of Internaonalizaon of Gobernacin de Anoquia was also
created unl 2008, meaning that it has only two years of working me that have
not been enough for the delimitaon of the priories of Anoquia regarding
internaonalizaon or cooperaon.
In order to address beer the local concerns, it is imperave to establish Country
Direcves to develop twinning agreements within the subnaonal units; this
allow each province to have guides and direcons when iniang internaonal
relaons. Owing to the number and quality of twinning agreements of Minas
Gerais and Jalisco, we can state that decentralized cooperaon has become a
state-province policy rather than a governmental policy, the laer is not present
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Twinning Agreements, a decentralized internaonal cooperaon tool towards the strengtheningof the south-south cooperaon
at Gobernacin de Anoquia in which the reality decentralized cooperaon has
not acquire the level of importance for development that it embraces.
Professionalizaon as one of the main requirements for an adequate process of
internaonalizaon through decentralized cooperaon iniaves has emerged
aer the analysis of the cases of Minas Gerais and Jalisco, where there are specic
units and people in charge of development cooperaon strategies for the territorys
development. In the case of Anoquia, there is not such enty at the regional
level; nevertheless, Medellin, the capital city, does count on the ACI, which is the
agency that has promoted since a decade ago cooperaon, internaonalizaon
and investment for the city.
Addionally, although not explicit present in the literature review, the conformaon of
networks for the applicaon, promoon and disseminaon of pracces of decentralized
cooperaon is a key element regarding the internaonal posioning of the involved
enes. In Anoquia, the case of la Red Anoquea de CooperacinInternacional
(created in 2000), has been used to this purpose acng as a regional strategy of
networking of public, private and academic instuons inuenced radically by the
recognion of various civil society stakeholders as partners in policy formaon at local,
naonal, regional and global level and aimed at the strengthening of local capacies
for decentralized cooperaon. Nonetheless, the role of Gobernacin de Anoquia
within this network has not been pernent as the guidance has been taken by the ACI,
the laer reects, once again, the leadership of decentralized cooperaon has not
been in hand of the regional authority but the local.
Currently there are three main dicules of the process internaonal cooperaon
instuonalizaon in the region: the poor coordinaon among the diverse actors
managing internaonal cooperaon within the territory, the lack of denion
of the key priories of the regionand the lack informaon and apprehension of
the contents associated to instuonal requirements, policies and process of
cooperaon have let an outcome of disarculaon and mulplicaon of the same
acvies towards dierent objecves. This is translated into ineciency in the use
of capital and human resources.
However, and although it is not an iniave under the leadership of Gobernacion
de Anoquia, it is relevant to menon that currently Medellin, headed by the ACI,
is in charge of the design of the Public Regional Internaonal Cooperaon Policy
for Anoquia. Under this approach, the construcon of agendas of cooperaon
with joint and share visions has been jused. Nevertheless, as a public policy
from Medellin with a Regional Approach it should integrate and strengthen
partnerships and inclusion of new local actors capable of meeng the challenge of
globalizaon through eecve mechanisms.
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Regarding the research queson the main impact for Gobernacin de Anoquia,
aer the process of informaon compilaon and analysis, it is not precisely
reected in the future outcome arising from these agreements but in the
possibility of establishing mature and strong internaonal relaons for the rst
me and to posion Anoquia as a regional core for decentralized cooperaon.
The laer, due to the fact that Gobernacin de Anoquia has established
dierent internaonal connecons and associaons to the implementaon of
projects and iniaves, however, it has not yet established concrete relaons
with an internaonal peer. Therefore, the impact is basically the beginning of a
coherent and serious progression of internaonalizaon with two provinces that
belong to the biggest countries of Lan America. Meaning that it is the perfect
scenario for Anoquia regarding internaonalizaon through decentralized
cooperaon as it would start with two relevant partners and would be based on
strategic issues for the 3 regions.
Conclusion
The success of twinning agreements iniaves have not been a sporadic
phenomenon: they have become an instrument of cohesion and internaonal
exchange which keeps demonstrang enormous advantage through decades.
Aer the realizaon of the present research it was clear the necessity of an
increase of internaonal networking for Anoquia if development is a core goal.
In fact, the current trends of internaonal cooperaon, reducon of cooperaon
resources, new actors and modalies, focus of the eecveness of aid, increasing
role of the private sector and the civil society, search for coherence between
commerce, investment, cooperaon and debt (Accion Social), demand a more
proper approach from the coming Governor of Anoquia7that tackles not only
the specic necessies of the territory but also that build capabilies in order that
those necessies are beer addressed. Indeed, the next approach shall be dened
working closely with the enes in charge of the territorial development such as
the IDEA (Instuto para el Desarrollo de Anoquia) and ADRA (Agencia para el
Desarrollo Regional de Anoquia) in order to dene key sectors and priories and
to arculate eorts towards the same objecves.
Moreover, recognizing internaonal decentralized cooperaon as an eecve
means of capacity building, sustainable alleviaon of poverty and human
development, one of the challenges of Gobernacin de Anoquia is to contribute
7 This year ends the current governmental period of the Governor Luis Alfredo Ramos
Botero. Next period will be from 2012 to 2015.
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Twinning Agreements, a decentralized internaonal cooperaon tool towards the strengtheningof the south-south cooperaon
to the strengthening of local structures in areas such as local management,
urban governance, cizen parcipaon, among others, in order to get a broader
experience regarding decentralized cooperaon apprehension and to take
advantage of internaonal opportunies for local realies.
For the improvement of the access to internaonal resources through decentralized
cooperaon and twinning agreements, Gobernacin de Anoquia must strengthen
the strategic and normave aspect regarding internaonal cooperaon, meaning
the necessity of establishing a framework for acon and development of
cooperaon mechanisms. Furthermore, it is essenal to arculate polical and
social will in order to coordinate social concerns with polical capacies on the
design of a clear a coherent cooperaon policy.
The present research permits the recognion of decentralised cooperaon as a
means of allowing local actors to gain internaonal or cross-border experience on
the basis of exchanges between individuals and same-level authories. Indeed,
it makes a clear point in the fact that training of local sta, parcularly in project
management, is crucial. Moreover, it also makes evident that decentralized
cooperaon enables a more parcipatory development policy, taking into account
the needs and iniaves of people and facilitang the enhancement of cizen
parcipaon in policies that aect them. Consequently, the strengthening of
local capacies, parcularly that of local authories, must be conceived as a
democrazing process promong the acve involvement of civil society and local
populaons and consolidaon of the accountability processes and recepveness
of local authories concerned,
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