Urban Diplomacy Exchange: Politics in tune with cities

The first Urban Diplomacy Exchange partnership conference brought together around 60 representatives from German and US cities in Washington DC, from 18 to 20 October 2022. The conference laid the foundations for future-oriented, transatlantic cooperation and common ground for the role of cities in the context of urban diplomacy.

What city diplomacy means became more tangible through the discussion in the context of keynotes and city contributions and inquiries. The city of Dortmund called for town twinning to be understood much more broadly than in its traditional form (school exchanges, association visits). City's own administration could be enabled to work internationally (e.g. through language courses and diplomacy lectures), to think beyond the city limits and act in the sense of global responsibility. In addition, municipal external relations are important, especially when there are rather limited communication and relations at the national level.

During the two and a half day conference all nine city partnerships were represented with at least two departments. These representatives mostly came from international offices, urban planning offices or climate protection and sustainability departments. The presence of nine mayors on both sides of the Atlantic also underlined the importance of municipal external relations and constructive professional cooperation for a just world.

As each partnership is at a different point in their collaboration, they came together on the first day of the conference to discuss a shared vision. Many of them were meeting in person for the first time. In the course of the conference there was also the opportunity to talk about specialist departments and municipal actors who were already involved and to consider which ones could still be engaged in addition. Further concrete steps in the partnership and communication were discussed and numerous ideas emerged, which will be structured after the conference in the further exchange of partnerships.

On the second day of the conference, the cities were brought into a cross-partnership professional exchange in order to discuss and learn from the projects related to climate protection (City of Kiel and City of Krefeld), sustainable transport infrastructure (City of Portland and City of Düsseldorf) and flooding (City of Portland). Valuable information was also provided on how the Partner City Association's international office can be located directly within the city (City of Charlotte).

The concluding, high-level panel discussion with

• Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Bertelsmann Foundation
• Tony Pipa, Brookings
• Edeltraud Klabuhn, Mayor of the City of Duisburg
• Ryan Sorenson, City of Sheboygan
• Martin van der Pütten, International Director of the City of Dortmund

intertwined the scientific view of urban diplomacy with the practical possibilities and challenges of cities. The panel agreed that cities are very specifically confronted with global challenges and that citizens expect answers from their municipalities. The first mayor of the City of Duisburg, Edeltraud Klabuhn, emphasized the importance of municipalities embodying the democratic principles so that they can react to constantly new changes and operate sustainable public services and enable a diverse urban society.

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook appealed in particular to national levels that cities must be brought more to the negotiating table of international politics and included in discussions on an equal footing. "If we are urbanized in 2030 as we have never been before and want good living conditions for all, then this has to happen in unison with cities", Ashbrook said.

This also found approval at the level of the municipal representatives who were represented on the panel: “A lot of work is done on ground level in municipialities. Let's not waste that. Share the benefit, not only for environmentally better, but also for stronger cities" says the young Mayor of Sheboygan, Ryan Sorenson, who sees cities as "leaders for change".

Martin van der Pütten, Head of International Affairs at the City of Dortmund, also urged the national level to see cities as a supplement to diplomatic means and "use the power of the cities", otherwise you will miss an opportunity. Municipalities need to be formally and systematically involved in foreign relations, so he appealed to the federal government to consider training city diplomats to enable them to function as a complement to diplomatic relations at the national level. He went on to say that every city, of any size, is already practicing urban diplomacy, since they have a great deal of scope for shaping and cultivating relationships due to their concern and accumulated knowledge. Tony Pipa from Brookings also made it clear that the 2030 Agenda in cities is an opportunity to become better locally.

The two and a half days of transatlantic urban cooperation showed very clearly how strong the interest and need is in cultivating mutual relationships and how fundamental personal acquaintance and professional exchange is in order to then articulate possibilities and needs at national and international level, and jointly commit to global responsibility and to effectively complement national diplomatic relations with municipal ones.