UCLG ASPAC Newsletter Vol. 18 November 2012 - April 2013

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Volume 18 | November - April 2013

Newsletter

02 United Cities and Local Governments

Asia-Pacif ic

Uclg Aspac Interview with HE. Bagas Hapsoro

04

The Promotion of Low Carbon City Project in celebration of His Majesty the King’s 84th Birthday

05

Alga President Felicity-Ann Lewis: Forecasts A Busy Year Ahead for Local Government

Dr Jatin V. Modi President UCLG-ASPAC

Dear Members, Partners, and Local Governments Supporters, I am very delighted to present you with the latest edition of the Local Government newsletter. This edition provides you with updates of activities and events from UCLG ASPAC Secretariat, members, and partners. It has been a pleasure to see the active role of our members and partners in strengthening the position of local governments in various aspects.

UCLG ASPAC is in the process of building a structural cooperation with Association of South East Asian Nations, and it has been an honour for us to have the interview with HE. Bagas Hapsoro, former Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN, published in our Local Government newsletter.

I would also like to express my appreciation and thankfulness to members and partners that have been actively contributing to the publication of Local Government newsletter and sharing their idea, knowledge and experiences.

We wish to make our Newsletter still more informative focusing on activities of Local Government in Asia Pacific Region. We welcome your valuable suggestions.

Hope to meet you all at Gwangju South Korea on 18th May 2013, in which we will have useful and fruitful discussions on a very important subject on “Human Rights and Responsive Cities”.

Last but not least, I would like to invite you to enjoy the newsletter and hope that it would bring the most benefit for you.

I take this opportunity to wish you good luck and also my heartfelt thanks to the Hon’ble Mayor of Gwangju and his team for hosting the theme in relation with Human Rights.

Dr Jatin V. Modi President

2

|

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

CONTENTS 1 The Joy of Meeting Gwangju 2 Uclg Aspac Interview with HE. Bagas Hapsoro 5 Alga President Felicity-Ann Lewis: Forecasts A Busy Year Ahead For Local Government 8 Kurunegala Visit to Surabaya 12 “The Promotion of Low Carbon City Project in Celebration of His Majesty The King’s 84th Birthday” 14 GTI International Trade & Investment Expo 2013 15 Center of Coastal Wind Power and Clean City, Gunsan!

17 Incheon, Host City for The Green Climate Fund (Gcf) and Its Activities 20 With The UN, Saemaul Undong of Gyeongsangbuk-Do Going to The World 22 The Revival of Silk Road 23 Lstanbul-Gyeongju World Culture Expo 2013 24 The 4th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, Incheon 2013 26 Jeju Forum 2013 “New Waves In Asia” 27 Workshop on Food and Nutrition Security 2013 28 The 14th Jeonju International Film Festival 30 Decentralization A Concept of Good Governance with Management 34 Good Practice on Urban Ecosystems and Biodiversity Conservation Towards Sustainable City and Climate Change Resilience

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

|

3

“The Promotion of Low Carbon City Project in celebration of His Majesty the King’s 84th Birthday”

by Tharee Kamuang Project Manager (Lowcarboncity.eu@gmail.com)

Although Thailand has ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the contribution at the local government level which can form a national scale achievement remains weak and limited. This is caused by insufficient capacity, knowledge, manpower, and relevant resources.

Therefore, Municipal League of Thailand (NMT) has initiated a project proposal and the European Union (EU) has agreed to fund the implementation of a 36-months project entitled “The Promotion of Low Carbon City Project in celebration of His Majesty the King’s 84th Birthday” (LCM). The overall objective of the action is to promote climate mitigation and adaptation awareness through participation of local governments, in celebration of His Majesty the King’s 84th birthday.

The project will involve the development of practical action plans based on the economic sufficiency conceptual framework with an aim to

4

|

influence policy change at the local level. With the recognition of rapid urbanization, sustainable urban development based on environmental conscious is critical for the livelihoods and lifequality of local communities. Thus the action will focus on the 4 conceptual frameworks of City of Trees, City of Waste Minimization, City of Energy Efficiency, and City of Sustainable Consumption, as guidelines to achieve the objective of Low Carbon City. 84 municipalities across Thailand will be selected to take actions under these frameworks.

During first year operation of the project, (1 Feb 12-31 Jan 13), seven activities had completely been done as planned schedule. Starting from Project Public Relations and Call for Applications, the publication leaflets about the project had been distributed along with the application form to join the project and other documents relating to the knowledge about low carbon city. The leaflets had been distributed to all municipalities throughout the country. In addition, the project

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

The role of the committee members was to make a decision and provide recommendations related to the operation of activities.

publication had also been made via website and booth event in order to promote the project in the Annual Symposium of the Year 2011 of the Municipality League of Thailand.

Many applications to join the project had been obtained from the total 169 municipalities across the countries.

The selection of 84 pilot municipalities had been started by proposing the Advisory

Committee Meeting of the project to select the pilot municipalities and the Committee Meeting had a resolution to obtain all 169 municipalities as pilot municipalities of the project. The reason was that some municipalities may not be really intended to carry out the operation and they may withdraw during the project operation. With this reason, there will be some municipalities left until the termination of project and finally the project will get the targeted number of municipalities i.e. 84 best practice municipalities. For the budget that must be additionally utilized in case that the number of pilot municipalities had been double increased, the Committee of the Municipality League of Thailand had firstly approved the additional supporting budgets with the total amount of Baht 2 million.

Project Kick-Off and Orientation Workshop was held on 27th July 2012. More than 300 persons of Municipalities’ executives and

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

|

5

personals including representatives from related organization attended this workshop before starting the Development of Carbon Emission Reduction Program that will be simultaneously conducted with the Development of Training Curriculum by the team of experts and project coaches.

The productivity of both activities will be taken to use in the Training Workshop for Pilot Municipalities. The training workshop had been held for two classes. There were 119 out of total 169 pilot municipalities to attend the workshop and there were total 248 attendants from both classes.

For the Project Steering Committee Meeting, the Municipality League of Thailand had appointed 15 experts from related organizations to be the Committee Members. The role of the committee

6

|

members was to make a decision and provide recommendations related to the operation of activities.

The committee meeting had been held twice as scheduled. The activity that had not been scheduled but can be operated in precedence was the Training Project Coaches. The training for Municipalities’ executives and personnel who were potential to be the coaches for pilot municipalities, had been held with more than 70 interested persons attending the training which was firstly targeted for only 20 persons.

The outcomes of first year implementation not only got strong collaboration from municipalities themselves but also got the relationship with the state authorities.

It was ranked as excellent particularly the related organizations or authorities

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

of 4 strategies and other organizations that control and supervise the Local Administration Organizations, including Department of Local Administration, Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency, Department of Environmental Quality Promotion and Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (Public Organization).

The above four organizations had jointly signed MoU with the National Municipal League of Thailand in order to drive the project ahead and they had assigned their personnel to be the Committee of Advisors, Project Coaches and Experts for the training of pilot municipalities. Apart from these four organizations, the project had also been sponsored from Royal Forestry Department by assigning professional experts to train the

project coaches and pilot municipalities as well as expressing its intention to sign the MoU with NMT in order to support this project especially in Strategy No. 1 that will be done in the 2nd year operation.

The Recognition and awarding system will be designed for the municipalities that achieve the planned objectives and expected outputs, based on the indicators in order to promote the sustainability of the Low Carbon City concept among the municipalities across Thailand.

Moreover, NMT will select 5 municipalities representing each region of Thailand, to become the ‘Learning Centre of Low Carbon City of Thailand’, which will be part of the ‘Learning Centre of Low Carbon City for Local Governments of Greater Mekong Sub-region as well as ASEAN.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

|

7

ALGA President Felicity-ann Lewis:

Forecasts a Busy Year Ahead for Local Government The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) is the national voice of more than 560 local government authorities. It is a federation of state and territory local government associations and includes the ACT Government (reflecting the combination of state and municipal functions). The President of ALGA is a member of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) as well as many other Ministerial Councils.

Achieving Constitutional Recognition Financial constraints have been an issue for councils across the country for many years, which is why ALGA has been campaigning to have local government recognised in the Australian Constitution.

Legal advice confirms that recent Australian High Court decisions have created great uncertainty about the validity of federal programs that provide funds directly to local government. The $350 million Roads to Recovery program is one such program that could be vulnerable to challenge in the High Court. These recent High Court decisions have provided weight and urgency to the need to change the Constitution to allow direct federal funding and resolve uncertainty surrounding whether the Commonwealth can continue to provide such funding.

8

|

A small change to the Constitution by way of a referendum is the only way to ensure local government bodies are recognised as legitimate recipients of direct federal funding.

A financial recognition referendum to be held in September 2013, or as soon as practically possible, has been sought by ALGA. In November 2012, the Australian Government appointed a Joint Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitutional Recognition of Local Government to investigate whether a referendum on the issue should be held at the time of the September 2013 federal election.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

Mayor Felicity-ann Lewis ALGA President

Since the establishment of the Committee, the pace of developments has increased dramatically.

ALGA welcomed the Parliamentary Committee's final report in March 2013, which recommended that the Commonwealth begin all necessary preparatory activities to ensure a successful referendum in 2013. ALGA has indicated strong support for constitutional change as soon as possible to secure continued direct funding. However, we have reiterated our concern about the short timeframe to put in place the preconditions identified for a successful referendum by the Committee. These preconditions include bipartisan support at the federal level, negotiations with the state governments and public funding for the referendum campaign. The Government is yet to confirm a referendum in 2013.

Financial Assistance Grants Review The Australian Government, through the Commonwealth Grants Commission, is currently reviewing the Financial Assistance Grants (FAGs) it provides to local government.

These grants are an important revenue source for local government providing more than $2 billion a year to councils.

In 2008, the Productivity Commission released a report Assessing Local Government Revenue Raising Capacity. This report was undertaken with the full engagement and support of local government.

Among its findings was that over the last decade, local government has consistently raised more than 80 per cent of its total revenue from its own sources. Local government is also utilising almost 90 per cent of its total hypothetical revenue raising capacity.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013

|

9

UCLG ASPAC Secretariat is hosted by Provincial Government of Jakarta Phone: +62 21 640 8450 Fax: +62 21 640 8449 Email: info@uclg-aspac.org Website: www.uclg-aspac.org

10

|

LOCAL GOVERNMENT Newsletter Volume 18, November - April 2013