Frankfurt am Main, 18 to 20 November 2015. The Service Agency Communities in One World organised the Conference on Municipal Partnerships with Latin America and the Caribbean in Frankfurt am Main in cooperation with the forum für internationale zusammenarbeit + planung (finep).
It was particularly pleasing to note that many participants from German municipalities had invited their partners from Latin America or the Caribbean. This meant that the approximately 120 guests from municipalities and civil society also included many municipal delegates from Brazil, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Colombia, Jamaica and Peru, who had come to share information and ideas on current topics of partnership work.
After most of the participants had already had an opportunity to get to know each other at the evening reception at the Museum Angewandte Kunst, the two-day conference proper got under way on Thursday 18 November at the Kap Europa Congress Centre. Tatiane de Jesus from the Latin America Section of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) set the ball rolling with a nuanced presentation on the current challenges of urbanisation in the region. She explained that after North America, Latin America is the most urbanised region in the world. Today, some 82 per cent of the population live in urban zones; the figure is expected to rise to around 90 per cent by 2030.
Cities have therefore emerged as key centres for the private sector, for growing labour markets, and for innovation, technology and research. At the same time increased poverty, limited resources and institutional capacities, growing social and environmental problems, and increased vulnerability have led to a massive increase in the demands placed on municipal public services. Tatiane de Jesus explained that international municipal cooperation was one important approach to solving these problems.
The discussion that followed revolved around current development themes such as climate change, disaster risk management, financing, education for development, youth promotion and school exchange schemes. In this context it clearly emerged that the content and methods of development education work in Germany were of great interest to the partners from Latin American municipalities. Conversely, the German municipal delegates were able to learn from their partners in areas where Latin American municipalities possess particular experience – areas such as managing climate change, integrating adaptation to climate change into urban planning, and managing risks such as hurricanes or flooding.
