GOLD Report I - UCLG

77consistently represented local government indiscussing common issues and coordination ofpublic services. Membership in Australian andNew Zealand local government associations isvoluntary but councils in the two countrieshave chosen to be members because of theactual and potential contributions that theassociations give to the councils. The seniorlocal authority officers in this country have alsoformed themselves into a national professionalbody called Society of Local GovernmentManagers. Other associations in the subregion,recently created, are the Fiji LocalGovernment Association and the PapuasiaNew Guinea Urban Local Level Association.In the Philippines, the Union of Local Authoritiesin the Philippines (ULAP) is a nationalbody, established in 1997, that is composed ofvarious leagues at the provincial, city, municipaland barangay (village) levels. These leaguesrepresent their respective interests andserve as mechanisms to articulate issues thatdirectly concern them and to secure solutions.The ULAP seeks to unite members to pursuegenuine autonomy for all local governmentunits. Various groups of elected local officials(such as vice mayors, women mayors andyoung legislators) and professional localgovernment staff (such as treasurers, assessorsand planners) also have their respectivenational associations. In Indonesia, six independentassociations representing specificlevels of local government were created in2001, following the Local Government Law1999/22: the Association of Indonesian MunicipalCouncils (ADEKSI), the Association of AllIndonesian Regency Legislative Councils(ADKASI), the Association of Indonesian ProvincialCouncils (ADPSI), the Association ofIndonesian Municipalities (APEKSI), the Associationof Indonesian District Governments(formerly APKASI – now BKKSI) and the Associationof Indonesian Provincial Governments(APPSI). They lobby the National Parliamentand the central government to advocate localissues and interests. The associations also serveas a forum for discussing common interestsand forging partnerships among local governments.Local government associationsare more closely linked with the central governmentin Malaysia, (the Malaysian Associationof Local Authorities or MALA), Vietnam(the Association of Provincial Cities of Vietnam,renamed the Association of Cities ofVietnam or ACVN) and Thailand (the NationalMunicipal League of Thailand or NMLT). Theyoungest associations are the Provincial Associationof Commune/Sangkat Council (PAC/S)and the National League of Communes andSangkat (NLC/S) established in August 2006in Cambodia.India has several local government associationsincluding the All India Council of Mayors,representing the municipal corporations, andthe Nagar Palik Pramukh Sangthen, representingthe other urban municipalities. UnlikeAustralia, New Zealand and the Philippines,these associations are not recognized in law. ManyIndian states have City Manager Associationsfor urban local government officials. Despitethe existence of these associations, local governmentshave no formal representation instate government structures; meetings anddialogues with state level institutions happenon an ad hoc basis and by specific localgovernment. After several years of effort, anAssociation of Local Governments was establishedin India in 2006. In Bangladesh,Nepal and Sri Lanka national associations oflocal governments were created in the mid-1990s 7 . By contrast, there is no local governmentassociation in Pakistan.Local governmentassociations workfor the mutualinterests of localgovernments andrepresent theirinterests in dealingwith higher levelsof government aswell as externalinstitutions such asdonor agencies7. There is ADDC/N, the Nepalese Association of District Development Committees (founded in 1995); MuAN, the Municipal Association ofNepal (established in 1995) and NAVIN, the National Association of Village Development Committees. Following the establishment ofADDC/N, a new impetus was given to the collective strength of DDCs and decentralization supporters for speeding up the processtoward decentralization. After four years of hard struggle, a new Local Self-Government Act was enacted in 1999, which can beregarded as a milestone in the gradual but steady movement toward decentralization. Sri Lanka has the National Chapter of Mayors(NCM) created in 1997, the United Urban Councils Association (UCA) and the Pradeshiya Sabhas Association (PSA) created in 2002.Bangladesh gained local government associations in 2003 when both the Municipal Association of Bangladesh (MAB) and the NationalUnion Parishad Forum (NUPF) were established.