United Cities against Poverty
Presentation
The association of United Cities against Poverty was set up in Lyon in March 2001 on the initiative of the cities of Bamako (Mali), Geneva (Switzerland) and Lyon (France).
Its objective is to facilitate co-operation between cities to tackle poverty, inequality and social exclusion. Ever since it was set up, the association has had the support of the United Nations Development Programme, the UNDP.
With United Cities against Poverty the cities of the world have a new international instrument in the field of solidarity, an instrument that enables them to give rise to shared cooperation, where financial commitments will go hand in hand with technical support and skills transfers.
Therefore, Rosario and other local authorities member of this association can work together worldwide to take advantage of their experience in tackling poverty through a network of exchanges and projects, also taking advantage of each other skills to better respond to mutual needs.
The support to United Cities against Poverty falls within the so called “decentralised cooperation” and allows mutually beneficial assistance based both on citizenship learning and on actions to breed solidarity.
The association is headquartered in Geneva, which facilitates contacts with key United Nations agencies, international organizations and main financial institutions, also headquartered in Geneva.
The Network technical team is made up of experts from the three founding cities; they scrutinize cooperation initiatives submitted by cities and suggest the actions that should be taken.
In short, United Cities against Poverty has its sights squarely on:
- Driving cities competences by better defining their development strategy, by organizing their services and by training their staff of municipal officers.
- Establishing cooperation of good practices arising from the most meaningful experiences: this will facilitate cooperation and the creation of networks of cities located in the same region or in the same country.
- Act as a cooperation operator by studying the initiative submitted by one city, its feasibility, its applicability within the context of a sustainable development policy, its implementation and the conditions for its execution.
In doing so, the association has created cooperation instances in more than twelve cities in Africa, Asia and South America.