The role of local government associations in increasing the effectiveness of city-to-city cooperation

In this paper the issue is addressed of the roles local government associations in developing countries can play in making the ever growing city-to-city cooperation (C2C) more effective for the development of local government in their countries. There are two characteristics looking at C2C through the past decades. C2C was mainly driven by local governments in developed countries and an increase of professionalism can be witnessed. The vital issue at present time is the insufficient influence of local governments in developing countries on the policy agenda of C2C; there is a need for more ownership. The increase of professionalism in C2C is an asset in the enhancement of ownership in developing countries. Local government associations can determine nation wide conditions and objectives for C2C and in this way they are in the excellent position to overcome the disadvantage of the one to one relationships of city-to-city cooperation. The main challenge is that local government associations themselves are in need of strengthening and capacitating. A descriptive model is developed for capacity development of local governments associations. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.