Lecturing Mayors How to Fly

In his book Antifragile, Taleb mocks the expert in fluid dynamics who arrives at a point where he thinks he knows so much that he has the illusion of lecturing birds how to fly.

Mayors are finding themselves in a similar situation to birds. Businessmen, ministers, academics, experts, political scientists and philanthropists think they know so much about cities that they are able to give lessons on how to run local governments.

And although mayors receive these lessons with caution, the pressure is, nevertheless, huge and difficult to resist.

This pressure has two triggers. Firstly, cities are increasingly becoming places of power, in particular large metropolitan cities. Secondly, the success of the global corporate sector in lobbying activities before central governments and international agencies makes them want to expand their markets to local and regional governments. These are growing markets with a great future; an urban market that will grow by 2.4 billion people towards reaching an urban population of 6.5 billion in 2050.

This pressure on mayors individually is also transferred to pressure on mayors when they act at international level. Clearly, cities are a global market in which the big clients are big cities and, therefore, the marketing strategies of urban stakeholders are also becoming more globalized.

For the past 100 years, the municipal movement has been putting together a network of networks of local governments. UCLG and this network of networks has established a global mechanism, the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, which has facilitated and brought together the representation of organized networks and their member mayors in international processes; from the 2030 Agenda to the Habitat III New Urban Agenda, via the climate, risk reduction and financing for development agendas. We are numerous: ICLEI, CLGF, AIMF and many other regional networks have been following this path.

In Bogotá, during the next UCLG Congress, and in Quito, during the Habitat III Conference, the World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments will take place, with the mayors at the forefront, as they had been last year in Paris and in May this year in New York. This is a true parliament of mayors. We hope that the UN continues to recognize and consolidate this mechanism in the future, as a space for political dialogue beyond logos, secretariats and institutional interests.

Mayors and local governments are open to collaborate with all: states, universities, businesses and civil society. However, we must respect the role that corresponds to each one.

Unfortunately, cities and mayors have been converted into an object of global marketing, and sometimes the frontiers of partnership in projects, initiatives and organizations become too blurred.

Cities are a complex construction of the state, the market and the commons. Governments, the private sector and civil society organizations are all working to co-create the city; and different interests are not always easy to balance.

As Henry Minztberg puts it, we need to rebalance society. We have lost the balance between the public, the private and the plural sectors; between the state, the market and the commons. We have also lost the balance between the local and the global. Local governments and local social movements have a key role to play in rebalancing cities, especially metropolises, as a starting point to rebalance society.

We are confident that mayors know where they belong. Mayors contribute to ruling the world by ruling their own cities and are fully aware that their time to play another role in the world has come. They also know that they need to support organizations by and for local governments, and continue to unite the municipal movement, as well as defend the global recognition of the role of local governments in the implementation of the above‑mentioned agendas.

UCLG is facing similar tensions. Are we a governmental organization? Are we a market-oriented organization? Are we an NGO, a CSO, a peer-to-peer social movement?

We wish to work with all our stakeholders, but we also wish to keep being ourselves. Not easy times ahead for clarity in partnership projects in cities. For us, cities are not a business sector nor a business opportunity, and we cannot let others impersonate or take on the role of mayors or local governments. And this is happening much too often lately.

When business tries to lecture government, remember Mintzberg’s quote: “Governments no more need to be run like businesses than businesses need to be run like governments”.

Enseñando a los alcaldes a volar

Taleb en su libro Antifragile, se burla de aquel experto en dinámica de fluidos que cree saber tanto que tiene la ilusión de enseñar a volar a los pájaros.

Los alcaldes se encuentran en una situación similar a la de los pájaros. Empresarios, ministros, académicos, expertos, politólogos, filántropos creen saber tanto sobre las ciudades que se ven capaces de darles lecciones sobre como dirigir los gobiernos locales.

Y aunque los alcaldes reciben estas lecciones con cautela, la presión es, sin embargo, enorme y difícil de resistir.

La presión tiene dos desencadenantes. Primero, las ciudades se han convertido cada vez más en lugares con poder, especialmente las grandes ciudades metropolitanas. Segundo, el éxito del sector corporativo global en las actividades de lobby frente a los gobiernos centrales y los organismos internacionales les lleva a querer ampliar su mercado a los gobiernos locales y regionales. Son mercados en expansión y con enorme futuro. Un mercado urbano que crecerá 2.4 billones de personas hasta alcanzar una población urbana de 6,5 billones en 2050.

Esta presión a los alcaldes individualmente se traslada también a la presión sobre los alcaldes cuando actúan a nivel internacional. Claramente, las ciudades son un mercado global donde los grandes clientes son las grandes ciudades y, por tanto, las estrategias de marketing de los stakeholders urbanos también se globalizan.

Desde hace cien años, el movimiento municipalista ha organizado una red de redes de gobiernos locales. CGLU   y esta red de redes han establecido hace unos años  un mecanismo global,  Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments, que ha facilitado y reunido la representación de las redes organizadas y sus alcaldes en los procesos internacionales; desde la agenda del desarrollo 2030, a la nueva agenda urbana de Hábitat III, pasando por las agendas del clima, de reducción de riesgos,  y de financiación del desarrollo. Somos muchos: ICLEI, CLGF, AIMF y muchas otras redes de ámbito regional han seguido esta trayectoria.

En Bogota, durante el próximo congreso de CGLU, y en Quito, durante la conferencia Habitat III, tendrá lugar la Asamblea Mundial de Gobiernos Locales y Regionales, con los alcaldes al frente, como estuvieron el año pasado en Paris y este año en mayo en Nueva York. Este es el verdadero parlamento de los alcaldes. Esperemos que las NNUU continúen reconociendo y consolidando este mecanismo en el futuro, como un espacio para el dialogo, más allá de los logos, los secretariados y los intereses institucionales.

Los alcaldes y los gobiernos locales, están abiertos a colaborar con todos: estados, universidades , empresas y sociedad civil. Pero, debemos respetar el papel que corresponde a cada uno.

Lamentablemente, las ciudades y los alcaldes se han convertido en objeto del marketing global, y algunas veces las fronteras del partenariado en los proyectos, iniciativas y organizaciones se hacen confusas.

Las ciudades son una compleja construcción por el estado, el mercado y el bien común. Gobiernos, sector privado y organizaciones de la sociedad civil trabajan todas ellas para co-crear la ciudad, con distintos intereses no siempre fáciles de equilibrar.

Como señala Henry Mintzberg, necesitamos re-equilibrar la sociedad. Hemos perdido el equilibrio entre los sectores público, privado y plural (o sociedad civil). Hemos perdido también el equilibrio entre lo local y lo global. Los gobiernos locales y los movimientos sociales locales tienen un papel clave para re-equilibrar las ciudades, y especialmente las metrópolis, como un punto inicial del re-equilibrio de la sociedad.

Los alcaldes saben estar donde les corresponde. Los alcaldes contribuyen a dirigir el mundo al liderar sus propias ciudades y son conscientes de que ha llegado el momento de jugar otro papel en el mundo. También saben que han de apoyar las organizaciones por y para los gobiernos locales; y continuar uniendo el movimiento municipalista, así como impulsando el reconocimiento global del papel de los gobiernos locales en la implementación de las agendas antes mencionadas.

En CGLU, como en cada ciudad, nos enfrentamos a tensiones similares, ¿Somos una organización gubernamental? ¿Somos una organización orientada al mercado? ¿somos una ONG, una organización de sociedad civil, un movimiento entre pares de alcaldes?

Deseamos trabajar con todos nuestros stakeholders pero queremos también seguir siendo nosotros mismos. No son tiempos fáciles para definir con claridad los proyectos en partenariado en las ciudades. Para nosotros, las ciudades no son un sector o una oportunidad de negocio. Y no podemos dejar que otros actores personifiquen o quieran ocupar el papel de los alcaldes o de los gobiernos locales. Y esto está pasando con demasiada frecuencia últimamente.

Cuando la empresa intente dar clases a los gobiernos recuerden la cita de Mintzberg: “los gobiernos no tienen más necesidad de ser dirigidos como empresas que las empresas tienen necesidad de ser dirigidas como gobiernos”

Mayors ‘confess’ to Pope Francis

For the first time in history, the Pope has brought mayors from all over the world together at the Vatican, at a workshop called “Modern Slavery and Climate Change: the Commitment of the Cities”. This was a welcome addition to the ongoing work of global local and regional governments, which have a longstanding track record of collaborating internationally to ensure a sustainable future for all.

The gathering of over 60 mayors came in the wake of the publication of Pope Francis’ second encyclical, Laudato si’. In the text, subtitled ‘on care for our common home’, the Pope gave the world some straight talk about the global environmental, social and economic agendas. There was no beating around the bush, no euphemisms; just plain language and clear moral messages that mayors and ordinary people can understand.

I have attended hundreds of meetings of mayors all over the world over the last 30 years and, believe me, the debates that followed were some of the most profound and sincere that I have ever seen. Local leaders of cities from Africa to America, Europe to Asia, all confessed their concerns and hopes regarding the world’s most pressing social, economic, political and  environmental issues.

Someone asked me if the mayors were all left-wing. No, I replied, they were confessing their challenges, whether they were of the right, left or center. They are mayors of all the people in their cities, no matter what their political beliefs and they have to try to find practical solutions to the real daily problems of their citizens. Another thing I find funny at this kind of event is when people refer to “UCLG mayors”. Mayors DO NOT belong to one international organization or the other.They belong to their citizens!

The advantage of discussing seemingly unrelated issues such as modern slavery and climate change is that it opens up the opportunity to consider integrated policies that tackle these issues in a holistic way. This is the way that the best local leaders govern on the ground. By doing this they can get beyond false dichotomies such as “growth or equality”, “capitalism or sharing economies”, “welfare state or partner state”, “economic development or environmental sustainability”, “center or periphery”, “global or local”.

Pope Francis posed the question of why he had invited mayors to come together at the Vatican. His answer was that they work from the periphery towards the center. This was a double message. First, he was asking mayors to take care of the informal settlements which rapid urbanization is creating in the peripheries of our cities. Second, he was telling mayors that it is at the periphery of political power, far away from national and the world powers, that solutions can be created and tested. This is the “bottom up” approach that UCLG has been using to develop our Global Agenda of Local and Regional Governments. Citizens, cities and mayors are actively looking for ways to redefine progress and development within planetary boundaries.

If the mayors keep confessing the challenges they face openly, the world has a new chance to survive. As UCLG Vice-President and Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, put it: “mayors are activists in changing the way we live and we think”.

Financing local democracy

In a few days, the Third International Conference on Financing for Development will take place in Addis Ababa. What is this conference about? Financing, yes, but it is important to remember that financing is not an end in itself. It’s a tool to achieve our loftier, shared goal of sustainable development. This is the goal that we must keep at the forefront of our minds if we are to harness financing to build a better future for citizens.

So, I wonder again: what is the Financing for Development Conference really about? An analysis of The Addis Ababa Action Agenda is revealing. Among the most frequently appearing words we find ‘countries, ‘national’, ‘global’, ‘international’ and ‘banks’. But in the over 18,000 word text, ‘local’ appears only 16 times, ‘sub-national’ only 5 and ‘municipalities’ only once. Most startling of all, ‘democracy’ none and ‘democratic’ just 2.. Given that research by Roger Myerson and others (see «DEMOCRATIC DECENTRALIZATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT», February 2014,) has shown that our ultimate goal, sustainable development, is linked to decentralization and local democracy, this should make us pause for thought.

Word cloud of the most frequently used words in the Zero Draft

For those of us concerned with financing local democracy, then, there is much work to do. We must remind Member States of their own words, recognizing the value of local democratic institutions and their role in sustanainable development in recent international conferences, particularly Rio+20, where they declared:

“We reaffirm the key role of all levels of government and legislative bodies in promoting sustainable development. We further acknowledge efforts and progress made at the local and sub-national levels, and recognize the important role that such authorities and communities can play in implementing sustainable development”

Similarly, the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation acknowledged that «local governments play critical roles in linking citizens with government, and in ensuring broad-based and democratic ownership of countries’ development agendas». The task in Addis Ababa should be to build on these lessons, not to learn them again from scratch.

Fortunately, there is some cause for optimism in the action agenda. Paragraph 34 is particularly important, recognizing a reality on the ground that local and regional governments have been highlighting for some time:

«We further acknowledge that expenditures and investments in sustainable development are being devolved to the sub-national level, which often lack adequate technical and technological capacity, financing and support. We therefore commit to scale up international cooperation to strengthen capacities of municipalities and other local authorities»

While the action agenda falls short of advocating the subsidiarity principle that we defend, at least it does recognize decentralization processes underway in many countries, and the financing challenges that this can represent.

Beyond the action agenda, the conference organizers have also sent an ambiguous message with regard to the participation of local and regional governments. 193 Member States will attend the conference and have full ammendment and voting rights. But these national governments represent less than 0.1 % of all the governments of the world. The other 99.9% are local and regional governments. UCLG, the world association that represents this 99.9%, has been given the status of a non-governmental organization at UN fora such as ECOSOC, meaning that we have the same limited opportunities to participate as civil society organizations. Nevertheless, a significant number of mayors from all over the world will be in Addis Ababa, taking advantage of the limited but increasing number of speaking opportunities that UN DESA is offering us, a move which UCLG has advocated strongly for, through the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments,  and which we appreciate enormously.

What messages I would like to see in Addis Ababa?

Finance local democracy

First, given their recognition that sustainable development depends on the work of sub-national governments, international institutions and Member States need to put their money where their mouth is and ensure that local and regional governments have the technical and financial capacity to carry out our responsibilities.

Local banks to finance local governments

Second, the current global financial system supports patterns of production and consumption that are leading us towards a more unsustainable and unequal world. As Einstein said «we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.» The solution is not to design ever more complex global financial tools and institutions, but to go back to using local banks to finance local development and local democracy. Often the best solutions to new problems can be found in the past. Locally financed development is an old and successful model which we could recover and apply in our communities today. Mobilizing local resources for local projects in a world dominated by international private business and finance institutions is extremely difficult.

Financing diversified local solutions to global problems

Third, since we need a resilient world, able to resist known and unknown global challenges, we had better start thinking in terms of diversity. Let local territories develop their own solutions to global problems. Nothing is more dangerous than applying a single answer when we have the opportunity to innovate and experiment with a range of models. What if the problem and the answer are the wrong ones and we apply the same wrong solution at the same time all over the world? Local governments can be the world’s innovation labs, if we are given the autonomy to do so and if we design a new financial system to support it. I do not see in the action agenda a clear response to the need to finance the «territorial» responsibilities that local and regional governments have in implementing the SDGs.

So, in a nutshell, that’s my message for Addis Ababa:

Finance local democracy through local banks to allow local governments to implement local solutions to global problems.

P.D. : You can see why I enjoy being a «naive» economist rather than a financial «geek» designing FWMD’s, that is, «Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction» ( Warren Buffet dixit). Let’s hope that Addis Ababa does not give more ammunition to the financial geeks.

Hugging Anne Hidalgo or why American mayors should travel abroad more often

A delegation of UCLG is heading to Washington next week. The global association of cities and local governments will attend the Winter gathering of the US Conference of Mayors with over 300 USA mayors expected and will also visit its longstanding member, the National League of Cities also based in Washington. ​The delegation aims to build closer links with American mayors and ensure greater participation of USA local elected leaders internationally. ​

UCLG’s World Council, which has recently been described as the world parliament of mayors, has 341 seats of which​ 36 are reserved for North American Mayors​. With Canada actively filling up their seats, over 20 seats remain available to be actively filled up by US Mayors. Why are those seats vacant?

​Two reasons can be identified:​On the one hand​, mayors are not sure about the ​value added of being there. On the other​, their taxpayers and voters do not ​support their elected officials​ traveling abroad on public budget.

Two reactions to the above:​

Firstly​, American mayors should be active internationally to exchange with ​their colleagues worldwide about: peace, democracy, local employment, climate change, security, mobility, social inclusion, culture and the many other local issues that require local knowledge, local decision-​making and local action.

 Local elected officials the world round ​cannot afford to miss the wealth of knowledge and experience of their​ American colleagues. At the same time US mayors cannot ignore​ what is going on worldwide.

​Secondly​, ​we should be able to transmit to US local taxpayers ​that their mayors traveling abroad, and learning from other​ mayors, it is not a futile ​expense on a travel-​budget-​line but an investment in learning and cooperation to improve the quality of life of citizens both at home and abroad​.

​There are important processes taking place in 2015, some define them as once in a generation opportunity to shape the future of our world. The Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (December) and the Financing for Development Conference (June) and the Sustainability Summit (September) are only some of our key appointments. We cannot miss the views of American Mayors in these processes.​

I hope that​ 2015 will be the year of ​renewed involvement of US Mayors inUCLG´s World Council which will hold its session during the COP21 in Paris.​I hope the US mayors seats will not be empty​ in Paris  and that US Mayors will also ​have an opportunity to ​ hug Anne Hidalgo expressing solidarity and condemning ​terrorist attacks; a ​concern of​ any leader and citizen anywhere in the world.