ACPLGP's Goals
The overall aim of the ACPLGP is ‘to enhance the role of local governments in the formulation, implementation and review of cooperation strategies and programmes supported under the Cotonou Agreement’.
To this end, the ACPLGP will play three key roles:
Representation and advocacy: aimed at ensuring that ACP local government views and concerns are effectively taken into account in ACP-EC cooperation. This will require the establishment of appropriate mechanisms with the official parties by which local governments can participate in country-led poverty reduction strategy processes and programmes from design to implementation. The advocacy role is not to be confined to the national level. There is equally a need for the voice of local governments to be heard in ACP-EC cooperation at regional level and in the Brussels-based ACP-EU institutions.
Information and networking: in order to keep ACP local governments across the ACP abreast of opportunities for participation and financial support in the context of ACP-EC cooperation.
Capacity building: by taking initiatives that enable ACP local governments to promote their interests and to act as a credible interlocutor and partner in ACP-EC cooperation.
The ultimate purpose of the Platform is to influence the nature and outcomes of ACP-EC programming, including:
an improved consideration of the local dimensions of the development process;
more effective aid management (through decentralization on the basis of the subsidiarity principle);
a focus on governance and institutional development (with local governments being gradually enabled to act as a catalyst of local development processes);
enhanced cooperation between different public and private actors (for instance in the fight against poverty or the efficient and sustainable delivery of social services);
a better use of existing aid instruments (e.g. SWAPs, decentralized cooperation, micro-project programmes) in support of local (economic) development.