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UN Volunteers Policy Paper
‘Caring Cities’
Volunteering in Urban Development and the role of the United Nations Volunteer Programme
PART II –
THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME
Thematic view and illustrations
PART II –
THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME
Thematic view and illustrations
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City-to-city co-operation
UNV is also supporting municipal management by way of cityto-city
co-operation.
A large number of cities from industrialised countries have
established programmes of direct assistance to cities from
developing countries. A number of cities in the developing
world itself are also engaged in similar activities to support
their counterparts in need. Such co-operation between cities
is already a noticeable fact, with hundreds of ‘donor’ cities at
work. This has been increasingly noted in the technical as well
as academic literature on development, which already coined
terms to refer to this widespread phenomenon: ‘city-to-city cooperation’,
‘local level co-operation’ or ‘decentralised co-operation’.
In addition, considering the widespread global trend of politicaladministrative
devolution of power, municipal governments are
likely to gain even more autonomy from central governments.
This means that city-to-city co-operation is likely to grow even
more.
City-to-city support is significant to a large number of local
authorities. The roles of such authorities throughout developing
and transitional countries are changing fast, due to several facts
already described in this paper. These changes have imposed
extra burdens on municipalities.
International assistance to municipalities has not been able to
address their limitations and accommodate the changes properly.
One difficulty — widely heralded by local stakeholders – is that
multilateral or bilateral aid often (or forcibly) comes via central
government authorities. This fact delays or severely cuts down
the aid to the targeted municipalities. This is due to inefficient
administration of central government staff, malfeasance and/or
boycott (e.g. when a local authority is from an opposition party).
In this context, city-to-city co-operation plays a significant role,
as it can provide direct support to local governments.
There is also an alternative argument justifying the inefficiency
of international assistance to municipalities. It does not focus
on the possible problems of central government authorities, but
on the simple fact that the needs of municipalities are just
enormous, vis-à-vis the limited resources of the multilateral and
bilateral agencies. Also, in this alternate scenario, the importance
of city-to-city co-operation surfaces. The resources of donor
B --------------------------------------------
Enhancing volunteerism in cityto-city
co-operation in different
parts of the world
-----------------------------------------------
UNV has an on-going project
with IULA (International Union of
Local Authorities), which includes
two components. The first
component consists of support
to two IULA regional offices for
the establishment of a campaign
to mobilise donor cities, and the
establishment of a database to
match supply and demand for
city-to-city cooperation. The
second component focuses on
the support to a number of
individual initiatives of city-tocity
co-operation in different
parts of the world (the initiatives
are selected by IULA). Overall,
the project promotes and
fosters solidarity between local
governments.
C --------------------------------------------
Volunteer support to urban
governance in Port Harcourt
(Nigeria) with a focus on children
-----------------------------------------------
UNV has provided support to the
implementation of the Child
Friendly Cities Initiative in Port
Harcourt, Nigeria. Child Friendly
Cities is a global initiative of
UNICEF, and is currently being
launched in a number of
countries. It is based on an
integrated approach to urban
development where all local
stakeholders are encouraged to
form partnerships to defend the
rights and address the needs of
the urban children, especially
cities are often independent of those of other international
donors, which means that they constitute an added-value in
such a context.
City-to-city co-operation is related to UNV’s framework of action
because it entails volunteerism and solidarity among local
governments. It includes the work of experts funded by and
sent from one city to another. Therefore, it constitutes an innovative
type of volunteerism: ‘local government volunteers’.
The importance of UNV’s support to city-to-city co-operation
comes from the fact that the missions of the experts from the
donor cities often represent an extra burden to their local
governments. This is because they entail many procedures,
which are not part of the day-to-day business of local authorities:
that is, administrating the trip and taking care of experts overseas.
These procedures are part of UNV’s day-to-day business.
Therefore, UNV’s support in this field increases the efficiency
of the programmes of the cities which already send their experts,
and, at the same time, provides an opportunity for new cities
which do not have the means to do it on their own. UNV is
open to work with individual cities, and at the same time, it has
developed a broader initiative with IULA (International Union of
Local Authorities) (see text B).
Urban governance
The growing importance of urban governance has been noted
in this publication. In many instances, local stakeholders do not
have the collective skills to start such a process naturally, due
to lack of tradition or due to a history of repression. Also, in
many circumstances, the construction of links between local
stakeholders is pre-empted by conflicting interests. These facts
underline the importance of UNV mediators at least in the initial
stages of the process, plus participatory work.
It is also important to recall the role that volunteerism plays in
the formation of social cohesion, already mentioned.
Considering that governance entails relationships between
public authorities and civil society, it greatly depends upon the
establishment of strong cohesion between the stakeholders.
UNV has implemented a number of projects, which relate to
urban governance in different ways. Some of them concentrate
on specific problems or needs, and build a governance process