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About Conference

What is local government’s role in development?
How can Commonwealth local governments have a more developmental approach to put people at the heart of development while working within national frameworks and bringing together local partnerships to deliver sustainable development?

The 2013 Commonwealth Local Government Conference will look at decentralisation as a strategy for ensuring that development meets the needs of local communities. It will explore progress made across the Commonwealth and consider how a decentralised approach can more effectively anchor development where it is most needed – in the villages, towns and cities – whilst still reflecting national development strategies for growth.

The conference will:

• provide the tools and understanding to enable national, state/provincial and local governments to provide the right climate for successful decentralisation and for local governments and local democracy to thrive at the heart of sustainable local development;

• provide comparative examples and case studies of good practice in developmental local government;
• consider how CLGF and other international partners can support their members in having a more developmental approach;

• help to shape international thinking and influence policy leaders, including inputting into the post-2015 development agenda and the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

Special consultation session on post-2015 development agenda
This conference will also take into account the role of local government in poverty reduction, with a special dedicated consultation session on local government and the post-2015 development agenda. Local government did not have the chance to input into the global commitment on MDGs in 2000; subsequent reviews have demonstrated that achieving targets on poverty reduction and the MDGs needs to be localised. This half-day session, run in partnership with UNDP, will give local government the chance to have a formal input into the consultation process on what will replace the MDGs after 2015. The recommendations coming out of the session will be submitted to the UN General Assembly at their meeting in September 2013 as well as to the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The event will also bring together a cross section of development agencies supporting local government and local development. Delegates will have the opportunity to directly link the development needs of their local communities with key policy and decision makers ensuring that the voice of Commonwealth local government is clearly heard in the global debate on poverty reduction, and in looking to the future to determine local government’s changing role at the heart of development and what this means for future international commitments on poverty reduction, social inclusion and well-being of local communities.

Who should attend

This pan-Commonwealth conference will attract some 500-600 senior local government policy makers and practitioners including mayors, ministers with responsibility for local government, council leaders, senior officials and representatives of civil society, the private sector and academic/research organisations.