New strategy to address issues of equity and poverty eradication
Throughout its 19 year history, the Inter-American Conference of Mayors and Local Authorities has worked closely with major regional and world-wide multinational organizations to advance the interest of the hemisphere’s local governments. A resolution approved at the conference plenary session some years ago, became the first commitment by the presidents of the hemisphere’s countries to support the development and strengthening of local governments in Latin America and was reflected in a Presidential Summit Declaration. The Inter-American Development Bank undertook its first local government initiatives as a result of discussions between the Bank’s president and conference participants at the plenary session of another of the conferences.
This year, the World Bank, which has partnered with Miami-Dade county and Florida International University in organizing the conference for the last several years, will be following in this tradition of significant policy initiatives emerging from conference deliberations by unveiling a new strategy to work with mid and small municipalities. Among the several senior World Bank officials participating in the conference will be its highest ranking officer for Latin America, Dr. Hassan Tuluy.
The development of this strategy is a direct result of the discussions that took place between senior World Bank officials and last year’s conference participants. It follows on the World Bank’s commitment of some years ago to work directly with large municipalities which, again, was heavily influenced by discussions that took place at the Inter-American Conference of Mayors and Local Authorities. The new strategy, which will be unveiled at this year’s conference for the first time by the World Bank, will have a particular focus upon issues of equity and poverty reduction for mid and small size municipalities.
Thus, once again, the conference will provide local government officials from throughout the hemisphere with the opportunity to interact with the regions’ local government thought leaders. In the words of one recent mayoral participant, the annual mayors conference has for almost two decades, represented the most important “supermarket of ideas” for local governments in the hemisphere. We do hope to meet you there.
