History
The process of setting-up an ACP Local Government Platform (ACPLGP) started in December 1999, when African and European representatives of local government associations gathered in Brussels to explore ways and means to become more involved in ACP-EC cooperation. In this context, a 1-day ‘Strategic Dialogue’ was organised with key EC officials, involved in support to decentralisation programmes in the ACP or in charge of promoting decentralised cooperation approaches. This workshop generated two major results:
A jointly agreed MoU defining guiding principles to strengthen partnership relations between the EC and local governments in ACP-EC cooperation;
A plan to gradually set up a full-fledged and operational Platform to represent the interests of local governments in ACP-EU cooperation, among other by seeking to extend the process to local government associations in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
In the development of the process, in May 2001–during the World Conference of Local Governments in Rio de Janeiro– a general meeting of ACP delegates established formally the ACP Local Government Platform (ACPLGP) thereafter called the Platform.
Between May 2001 and March 2003 meetings of the Management Committee were held aiming at securing funding from the EC to establish the structures as well as undertake activities aimed at operationalising the Cotonou Agreement regarding the role of local government. As at the last Management Committee meeting held in March 2003, it was quite clear that the Platform has to firstly address policy/legal/technical issues relating to mainstreaming the role of local government in ACP-EU cooperation to be able to access funding from the EC. Beginning March 2003, some donors and key development partners were approached for support and this has received some positive responses.
The Platform organised three rounds of consultation with EC officials in 2001, 2002 and 2004, meant to be informal exchanges of information, views, experiences as well as proposals for strengthening a mutually beneficial partnership in the context of the Cotonou Agreement. The last round of 2004 was attended, in addition to EC officials, by representatives of the ACP Secretariat, Embassy of Jamaica, Dfid, EU Member States (France, the Netherlands, Germany) as well as European local government associations (CEMR, VNG, CUF).
In 2003, the Platform submitted a request of funding to Dfid, which in 2004, agreed to provide ‘seed funding’ over a 3-year period in order to help the local government actors involved to participate more fruitfully into the ACP-EC cooperation process and to provide services to its potential members, all over the ACP.
Subsequently a permanent technical secretariat was set up in November 2004 with an office in Brussels located in 8 Avenue E. Plasky, 1030 Brussels.