Municipal International Relations, Fair for All? Call for interest: A network approach to decentralized international cooperation on fair and ethical economic development. Setting the Scene The City of Gent is the second largest city in Belgium (250.000 inhabitants) and has a strong record in international solidarity. The new strategic multi-annual plan 2014-2019 focuses the efforts for north-south cooperation on (1) supporting local actors in international solidarity (NGO’s, Development Education and Awareness Raising, …) within the city, (2) strengthen the position of Fair Trade principles in public procurement and individual purchasing behaviour locally, (3) contribute to capacity building of local governments worldwide through innovative forms of decentralised cooperation. This call for interest aims to result in an exchange of experiences and ambitions with research institutes and local authorities that have worked on issues of inclusive development, fair and ethical trade and/or have experience with a network approach to decentralised cooperation. Taking the picture: macro trends with local impact In international cooperation the sphere of local government has received growing attention. Local Authorities are now widely recognised as actors in development processes. Worldwide hundreds, maybe thousands, of local authorities are engaged in decentralised cooperation that is aimed at strengthening governance capacities. After many years of pushing the decentralisation agenda, national and multilateral (UNDP, EuropeAID, …) donors have now increased their support mechanisms that are directly aimed at the subjects of decentralisation: the local authorities. The dominant paradigm now is that capacity building and good governance locally will allow a more sustainable local development. Another fascinating dimension in international cooperation in recent years is the growing attention given to sustainable, Fair and/or ethical trade as basis for development. One can identify a growing awareness of the global impact of local choices – also of those choices made within local governments. Governments in Europe have taken important steps to change their procurement policies toward green and sustainable public procurement. NGO’s and governments in Europe have worked on informing the broader public and to assist them in changing their purchasing behaviour for the good. Surprisingly enough both dynamics described above seem to have little to no interaction in the practice of local authorities or in the programs of multilateral agencies. The main drivers in the Fair Trade arena have been NGO’s and the private sector. Should they not also be the central actors in local development? Most Local Authorities don’t tend to see ethical criteria to be more then a higher threshold for economic activities. There have been valuable programs and projects to assist Local Authorities in Africa or Latin America to attain the Fair Trade Town status. There are many programs that help producers in the Global South to achieve bio- or ethical certification. Organisations like ICLEI work on climate adaptation & mitigation for local authorities and on sustainable, social and ethical procurement. But there are few (or no) examples of programs that have taken the local authority as actor in the development of fair and ethical trade and production practices. If
local development is their core task, should local authorities not be at the core of policy making to promote fair and ethical standards in development? Zooming in: Local authorities role and responsibilities Among local governments’ top priorities is realising local economic development (besides also building roads and guaranteeing public health and safety). This is a challenging task for any local authority, because they are faced with a global economy that they can not influence directly but that has very tangible effects on their territories: unemployment, pollution, poor working conditions, … Local authorities in the West face that challenge and have developed tactics to handle it. Local authorities in the global South also face that challenge. Both find themselves obviously in very different positions in the global economic reality – including major differences within regions. If economic activity takes place within the boundaries of a local authority (with the notable exception of free trade zones), why are local authorities in producer countries so seldom involved in programs for sustainable development, decent work or fair and ethical trade? Why is there no stronger focus on capacitating local authorities to guarantee that the sought for economic development is fair, ethical and inclusive? That it is truly sustainable development? In scope? The urban agenda When talking about fair and ethical trade/production, the urban agenda is seldom taken inscope. Te classic array of Fair Trade certified products are indeed agricultural produce and are therefore not within scope of city authorities. Nevertheless, a lot of these products are traded within the urban context. There is also a growing call to allow countries in the Global South to create added value with their raw materials locally instead of exporting only the prime material. Urban centres are bound to take an important role in hosting factories or trade institutions for that purpose. Furthermore there is growing academic research pointing at the need to conceptualise urbanisation beyond the physical territory of the city and look at the operational landscape of cities1. What will be the role of local authorities in this process? Will the mayors really rule the world as Benjamin Barber2 predicts? Can they take a more fair and ethical development as an opportunity to guarantee decent work conditions for their citizens in such factories, warehouses, trade facilities, …? Are they capacitated to defend the collective interest in such a stressful, multi-actor and multi-stakeholder context? How can this capacity be strengthened? Will they, in other words, be capable to guarantee that economic development is truly sustainable? Cropping the image: call for interest 1 2
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/academic-programs/research/research-units/urban-theory-lab.html http://benjaminbarber.org/books/if-mayors-ruled-the-world/
The city of Gent (Belgium) together with the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG) are eager to learn about inspirational initiatives or ideas to jointly reflect on. We want to gather research institutions and/or local authorities to debate possible methods that would make it relevant to join these interesting fields in international cooperation: How can decentralised cooperation strengthen local authorities in the global south in their efforts for bottom-up sustainable local economic development? How can we involve the principles of ethical and fair trade –including the decent work agenda- in this cooperation without transferring the full burden for sustainable development to the global South? How is the local and the global scope reconciled, considering that local action (including local production) is key in sustainable development? In other words, how can local authorities collaborate towards sustainable local development in such a way that the South and North partners benefit? Do we know mechanisms or good practices that can work in this regard? Are the classical one-on-one city links scalable to a network approach? Are there examples of network based international cooperation between local authorities in Europe with the global south? Is there a possibility that we link international cooperation to our efforts for sustainable public procurement? Save as… As a first step the City of Ghent is inviting all involved to respond in writing, pointing out your key interest fields or what triggered your attention in this call for interest. Interested parties are invited to respond to wouter.boesman@gent.be.