Bridging local institutions and civil society in Latin America: can city-to-city cooperation make a difference?

In order to improve the quality of urban governance in cities in the South, it is believed that local institutions and citizens should be brought together more closely. To bridge the gap, there is a need both for citizen participation to have a stronger role in collective decision making and for institutional strengthening, to make local governments more responsive to community needs. This paper explores the role that North-South city-to-city cooperation can play as an instrument for meeting those needs. The outcome of two partnerships between cities in Nicaragua and Peru and their sister cities in the Netherlands is discussed in terms of the resulting support to urban governance. The case studies reveal that while city-to-city cooperation has a particular potential to strengthen local governments, their administrations, service delivery performance and levels of responsiveness, the outcome with regard to encouraging citizenship and citizen participation in urban decision making and development planning has been more modest.