With many distinct and varied systems of local governance across 10 provinces and three territories offering a range of experiences and lessons learned, Canada has much to share with the world. Drawing on the recognized strengths of Canada’s local government systems, our country’s own experiences in devolution and service realignment and diverse lessons from managing our urban settlements, the CUI has been delivering international technical assistance programs to local governments in developing countries and countries in transition since the early 1990s.
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Demonstrate how sustainable development principles can be integrated into local government policies, plans and programs. |
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Help innovate approaches for making national-local decentralization work. |
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Influence change in national level legislative, regulatory and fiscal frameworks that promote good local governance. |
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Develop new avenues for intergovernmental and intermunicipal coordination, cooperation and collaboration. |
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Strengthen associations of municipalities to be the voice of local authorities in national-level policy dialogues and to build the capacity of their membership. |
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Promote inclusiveness, civic engagement and equity of access to local government affairs and local governance systems, with a special emphasis on closing gender gaps. |
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Promote the efficient and equitable delivery of local government services and in particular the delivery of social services to poor or disadvantaged groups. |
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Put gender issues on the local government radar screen. |
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Help increase access to basic infrastructure. |
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Raise the capacity of local governments to promote local economic development. |
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Strengthen the capacity of civil society groups to participate in local decision-making processes. |
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Help to improve the transparency and accountability of local authorities to their citizens. |
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Locally based project management systems, to ensure projects are responsive to local needs and achieving desired results within a results-based framework;
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Participatory strategic planning, to establish consensus across sectors of the economy on priorities for local government using a multi-stakeholder process; |
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Partnership building, to promote coordinated action between local government and other government agencies/levels, the private sector and civil society (including non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations) in the implementation of the strategic plan; |
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Demonstration projects, to provide focused action learning opportunities where groups are brought together through partnership arrangements to implement priority projects; |
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Capacity development, to raise the capabilities of local governments and their community partners in priority technical areas; |
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Institutional strengthening, to improve the internal administration, management and regulatory practices and processes of local government; |
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Revenue raising and finance, to assist local governments to improve revenues and financial management systems, thereby increasing service levels; |
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Gender mainstreaming, to assist local authorities and their community partners to better understand the different needs and priorities of women and men in order to ensure that municipal resources are allocated to citizens in a way that is fair, efficient and equitable. |
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Development knowledge networking, to provide a mechanism for CUI to inform and improve its international development work through the experiences of others and to provide a vehicle for CUI to analyze its international development experiences and allow others to learn from them. |
