Nganje, F. (2015) · United Nations University Centre for Policy Research
The ongoing changes in the development cooperation landscape, brought about to a large extent by the growing influence of so-called emerging donors from the global South, coincide with an equally significant process of transformation in the inter-state system, which has seen non-state and sub-state actors assume prominence in global affairs. This development is perhaps best captured by the ‘complex interdependence’ perspective pioneered by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, which conceptualizes contemporary world affairs as a combination of traditional inter-state relations and a web of transnational and transgovernmental exchanges between an expanding cast of actors. This new global environment has been occasioned by far-reaching technological advances, especially in the areas of transport and communication, as well as a broadening of the post-Cold War diplomatic agenda to include issues of ‘low politics’.1 As a function of this interdependence, or what some have described as a system of perforated sovereignties,2 local governments have emerged as important players on the global stage.3 As territorial sub-state actors, local governments bring to the new multi-layered diplomatic environment a unique international identity, which combines features of sovereignty-bound and sovereignty-free actors.4 This hybridity affords local governments the leeway to be more pragmatic and innovative than national governments in their foreign relations, while still benefiting from some of the policy tools, diplomatic networks and legitimacy that come with being a state actor. It is not surprising, therefore, that efforts by western aid agencies to improve their development interventions in the developing world in the 1980s and 1990s quickly embraced local governments and their associations as aid delivery agents.
The concept of decentralized cooperation emerged in this context to describe mostly donor-funded cooperation between local governments in the North and their southern counterparts, for purposes of supporting local development in the latter.5 Although decentralized cooperation was conceived within the framework of North-South cooperation, it has in recent times not only adapted to the new discourse on development cooperation, but also increasingly taken the form of collaboration between local governments in the global South. This paper examines the evolution and current practice of decentralized cooperation against the backdrop of ongoing transformations in the field of development cooperation, and reflects on the implications of this mode of cooperation for the UN’s peace and development agenda. It argues that in its contemporary rendition, decentralized cooperation embodies much of the current consensus on development cooperation and, therefore, offers the UN and other development actors a complementary mechanism for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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