Habitat International 33 (2009) 141148

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Habitat International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint

A framework for development? The growing role of UK local government in international development
Eleri Evans*
Centre for Development Studies, School of the Environment & Society, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK

a b s t r a c t
Keywords: International development Municipal partnerships Decentralised development cooperation Local governments Local authorities UK

UK local authorities have no real mandate for international development work, yet there has been an explosion of interest in this work in the UK. This research focuses on municipal partnerships between UK local authorities and local authorities in the developing world. The historic acknowledgement by the United Nations in 2005 that local authorities have an important role to play in international development, including the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), saw a signicant change in the status of local authority work in international development but this has, as yet, made little impact in the UK. There has been a marked increase in support for development work from the UK Government but there is still some way to go before UK local government feels there is substantive support. This research offers a framework against which UK local government development partnerships could be assessed and validated and which could be used as a model for future research. It sets the debate against the growing recognition worldwide of the role of local governments in international development cooperation as a decentralised form of development aid; examines the advantages for both development partners and UK local government, itself; and discusses opposition within UK communities to local government development initiatives. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction UK local authorities have no real mandate for International Development work. Yet, from the early 1990s there has been a surge in development work by UK local authorities. It grew until in 1999 the UK Local Government Alliance for International Development was formed by ve core local government organisations. Recognition was given to the work when the Department for International Development (DfID), the UK government body charged with furthering international development, made a 3-year Strategic Grant Agreement specically to encourage UK local authorities to undertake development work. The grant,1 which ran for 2004, 2005 and 2006, funded the new post of a Co-ordinator for the UK Alliance. As the level of government closest to the people local government is a good t for international development work. It is increasingly recognised that decentralised, bottom-up forms of development assistance, as delivered by local government, offer an

* Tel.: 44 (0) 1792 929 533, 44 (0) 1446 761028. E-mail address: 448134@swansea.ac.uk 1 The objective of the Strategic Grant Agreement was to enhance the understanding and competencies of the UK Alliance and wider UK local government about international development issues so they would be better placed to help local authorities in developing countries to build capacity and improve local practice (DfID, n.d.). 0197-3975/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2008.10.010

alternative approach to development. This paper looks at how local authority partnerships between the UK and the developing world have successfully supported local governments in developing countries build the capacity of local government ofcers and reform local government structures. Importantly, it identies the benets are not one-way; UK local authorities have made gains, too. In the past 20 years decentralisation has established itself as a political and institutional phenomenon around the world (UCLG, 2007: 17). This has meant wider recognition of the role of local authorities. In the UK this can be seen in the new power of wellbeing introduced in the Local Government Act 2000, which an increasing number of UK councils are using to validate development work. Sir Michael Lyons, who headed the UK Government Inquiry into local government that reported in 2007, saw the power of well-being as key to a more dynamic, strategic place-shaping role for local government (Lyons, 2007: 3). In this paper, international links are not always city-to-city but, in line with UK local government structures, town-to-town or district-to-district; the research takes city as a metaphor for dynamic place-shaping local authority. Professional partnerships between local government ofcers in the developed and developing world are increasingly recognised as effective in facilitating the exchange of knowledge and expertise. And there is growing recognition that the learning can be two-way. Whereas the benet to the development partner is, usually, a given, gains for the UK are still controversial and often dismissed as soft

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such as friendship and cultural awareness. This is beginning to change, notably in the health sector where the Crisp Review, commissioned by UK Government to examine global health partnerships, identied that UK health professionals had much to learn from working with people in developing countries (Crisp, 2007: 2). Although earlier research on the impact of local authority global partnerships had found clearly identiable benets for UK local authorities (Green, Game, & Delay, 2005: 14) and for UK local authority ofcers (Johnson & Wilson, 2006: 78), the Crisp Report, coming from a Government Inquiry, prompted wider debate. There is little established research in the area and this paper draws largely on empiric material in the electronic newsletters of two UK local government organisations: SOLACE Focus, the enewsletter of SOLACE, the Society of Local Government Chief Executives and Senior Managers; and UK Alliance e-newsletter, the e-newsletter of the UK Local Government Alliance for International Development. Both newsletters are designed for UK local government professionals and cover international development initiatives by local authorities. The second is specically for professionals interested in development work. As such, they provide a resource of useful specialist information not generally available.2 The paper set out to see if a framework could be established that could be used by UK local authorities to support the validity of development initiatives. It analyses the perceived advantages of local authority partnerships, not only to the developing world but also to the UK. The need to identify advantages for UK partners emerged because some UK voices maintain international development is not a legitimate role for UK local government. Arguments in support of UK local authority development work are examined separately for development partners and UK councils. The three headings for development partners are increasingly common elements of donor-driven decentralisation programmes aimed at public sector reform: capacity building; structural reform; and meeting the MDGs. Arguments for UK councils, not so well rehearsed and still controversial, are framed under: professional development; community cohesion/British agenda; and focusing humanitarian/aid concerns. Background The fact that so many countries across the globe have moved along the path of decentralisation is a remarkable phenomenon (UCLG, 2007: 49), a decentralisation wave (Steiner, 2005: 6) that has led to a rediscovery of local government, as the layer of government closest to the people. By the mid-1990s, 80% of countries, all with very different political set ups, were engaged in some form of decentralisation (Beall, 2005: 30). Decentralisation is seen as an effective tool for implementing poverty reduction (Steiner, 2005: 6) and for achieving good governance by making state institutions more responsive to poor people (World Bank, 2000: 10). Decentralisation is understood as the devolution of authority to local government units (Rondinelli, 1983: 392). This rediscovery of local government was captured in the UK in debates that saw the Lyons Inquiry pushing for a new dynamic view of local government and its place-shaping role (Lyons, 2007: ii). A new found condence in government developed after faith was lost in the neo-liberal policies, the Washington Consensus, of the early 1980s that saw aid-recipient countries adopt Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) designed to minimise the role of the state. The market became the favoured mechanism for allocating resources and promoting economic growth. Key solutions included reducing government controls, promoting free trade and encouraging a greater

role for the private sector. By the end of the 1990s it was recognised that SAP had failed. Debates on governance since then have focused on the state. The World Bank argued aid worked best in a good policy environment (World Bank, 1998: 2). Crucially, it argued decentralisation of decision-making and greater participation by local communities often resulted in huge improvements; the best aid projects supported initiatives that changed the way the public sector did business (World Bank, 1998: 4). The hope is that as government comes closer to the people, more people will participate in politics (Blair, 2000: 23). It is in this context that local government has become an important space in poverty reduction (Brock, Cornwall, & Gaventa, 2001: 28). It is increasingly recognised that local government has a frontline position in the battle against poverty, through social inclusion, access to basic services and participation (UCLG, 2007: 69). Yet decentralisation, on its own, is not the magic bullet. It is not a panacea for promoting development (Bossuyt & Gould, 2000: 1; Turner & Hulme, 1997: 174) and the risk of re-creating top-down bureaucracies at the local level is real (Bossuyt & Gould, 2000: 7). But it offers the opportunity for the local community to express its voice and make a choice one of the most innovative spots in the unfolding story of decentralisation (UCLG, 2007: 63). Local government offers a meeting place between the state and civil society in which a new social contract can be negotiated (Schonwalder, 1997: 761). Cornwall and Gaventa (2001) argue citizens must move from being users and choosers of public services to makers and shapers of policy. This shift of focus encompasses a notion of citizenship that is active and participatory (Gaventa, 2007: 8), a dynamic concept (Bennett, 2006: 37) that recognises the interdependence between people, civil society and political institutions. It is a bit of chickenand-egg dilemma (Putnam & Feldstein, 2004: 252) in deciding which comes rst, a dynamic place-shaping local authority or an engaged and robust civil society that holds local authority to account. Internationally, there is growing consensus the way forward is to work both sides of the equation, strengthening local institutions while at the same time empowering civil society to participate in local decision-making (Gaventa & Zipfel, 2008: 2). The governance debate, in which decentralisation is situated, has increasingly dominated the development discourse. While there is little consensus as to what constitutes good governance, there is general agreement that bad governance, whether understood in managerial or political terms, is not good for most and is especially bad for the poor (Beall, 2005: 29). Politics and processes of governance have become embedded in the development debate. Increasingly, these have become synonymous with democracy a democratic capitalist regime, presided over by a minimal state (Leftwich, 1993: 611). A leading voice in the pro-democracy lobby is Mark Malloch Brown, former deputy secretary-general of the UN. In the foreword to the 2002 UNDP Human Development Report he said: Sustained poverty reduction . requires strong and deep forms of democratic governance at all levels of society (Malloch Brown, 2002: v). In contrast, Leftwich argues a view of governance that focuses simply on administrative, judicial and electoral good practice, fails to recognise the importance of a nations politics in shaping development. In a developmental state, a state where development is actually taking place, he says, for development to proceed the state just needs the power to act (Leftwich, 1995: 401). States in the developing world that are democratic, quasi-democratic and nondemocratic, have all achieved economic growth in the past 30 years. Few societies will develop from poverty, he argues, without states that approximate to a developmental state (Leftwich, 1995: 421). A fundamental characteristic of a developmental state is what Evans (1992) calls its embedded autonomy. This is what Leftwich

2 The writer was editor of SOLACE Focus from its launch in 2000 to 2006 and editor of UK Alliance e-newsletter, when it was relaunched under the DfID Strategic Grant Agreement in 2005.

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takes further, insisting it is the politics of the people and the place that will generate, sustain and protect development momentum (Leftwich, 1993: 612). The politics of place, so key to the Lyons debates about UK local government, is what matters in international development, too. Decentralisation does not mean there is no role for central government. Decentralisation is increasingly seen as a three-way dynamic between local government, civil society and central government. In fact, Tendler sees a key new role for central government, often overlooked in the decentralisation debate, for creating a strong moral presence (Tendler, 1997: 141) in support of local decision-making programmes. In Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the federal governments main funding arm for development assistance, has since 1986 supported city-to-city links through nancial assistance to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), the umbrella group for local government, to spearhead partnership programmes in Latin America. These partnerships are now seen as a key exchange mechanism in municipal restructuring (Hewitt, 2004: 620). The FCM initiative is widely recognised as one of the most effective of its kind worldwide (Shuman, 1994: 27). Examining one FCM-Chile partnership to promote citizen participation in local government, where concrete activity focused on three separate initiatives, Hewitt shows one, stimulating community centres at the grassroots, did not succeed. However, two projects to improve mechanisms for public consultation on a proposed master plan and to formulate a strategic plan to improve government-citizen communications, spearheaded by and through municipal personnel, scored some signicant successes (Hewitt, 2004: 626). Both successful projects involved capacity building and structural reform, two elements of the framework put forward in this paper. Gains to the donor municipality included a better understanding of administrative processes outside Canada and a sense of personal reward that led to enhanced job satisfaction and productivity (Hewitt, 2004: 630). Gains, though, did not come without cost. Hewitt found examples of sustained sniping, complaints of freeriding and considerable hostility from fellow employees, local politicians and the community at large, who decried such projects as a waste of Canadian taxpayers money (Hewitt, 2001: 320). But despite opposition, local government is increasingly recognised as a new forum for bottom-up political decision-making that prioritises the needs of local communities (Bossuyt & Gould, 2000: 5). It is at the local level that many of the changes required for development need to take place. Local governments have an integral role to play in international development (UCLG, 2007: 71). This paper demonstrates how city-to-city links between place-shaping local authorities in the UK and developing local authorities play a signicant part in that integral role.

Sharing knowledge SOLACE has long-standing links with sister societies in Europe, USA, New Zealand and Australia. There are regular reports from members who have taken part in SOLACE exchanges. An international representative often speaks at SOLACE Conference. Exporting expertise For many years SOLACE has provided experts to monitor elections in emerging democracies and has helped set up local authority professional organisations. It has helped EU accession countries prepare for EU membership and helped rebuild local democracy in post-war Iraq. International development This is the newer direction for the Society. The Society helped to set up the UK Alliance specically to promote local government participation in international development (SOLACE Focus, June 2000). The SOLACE presentation to the World Banks Urban Forum on the UK Alliance marked an important milestone. The World Bank made a rm commitment to involving local government in its policies and programmes for tackling poverty and to work in partnerships with bodies like the UK Alliance and development agencies such as DfID. Held in 2000, the Forum was attended by specialists from national and local government in the UK and Canada and by the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) (SOLACE Focus, June 2000). UK alliance is formed IULA began promoting technical cooperation between municipalities as far back as the 1960s (Shuman, 1994: 7) but response was slow. In the UK, only a few local authorities became involved (Shuman, 1994: 24). Attitudes began to change in the 1980s, with the rst free elections in Zimbabwe, when several UK chief executives helped to supervise the elections and returned with a commitment to help their African colleagues, and the publication of the Brandt Commission Report, North-South: A programme for survival which introduced the term North-South divide that underlined the gap between rich and poor in an increasingly interdependent world (Shuman, 1994: 10). By 1992, 36 communities were formally twinned in various ways with Southern partners and another 116 had informal links (Shuman, 1994: 125). Recognition that local government had a greater role to play in international development was behind the moves by SOLACE and four other leading local government organisations to establish the UK Local Government Alliance for International Development at the end of 1999 (SOLACE Focus, Jan/Feb 2001).4 Although there is no real mandate for local authority international work, by April 2005, the second year of the DfID Strategic Grant Agreement, more than 800 members had joined the UK Alliance. Members included ofcers and politicians from local authorities, local government associations, NGOs, international organisations and community groups. A UK Alliance web site, launched in October 2004, saw the number of hits almost

Setting the scene Sharing UK local authority skills across the globe is not new. The rst issue of SOLACE Focus, launched in June 2000, included ve reports that showed how local authority experience was being shared,3 including a presentation to the World Banks Urban Forum on behalf of the UK Alliance. The rst issue is a useful marker for making a distinction between the three types of international work SOLACE is involved in: sharing knowledge, exporting expertise and, a newer direction, international development.

3 They were: a presentation to the World Banks Urban Forum on the forming of the UK Local Government Alliance for International Development; an election monitoring visit to Bosnia; the American city manager model; the new VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) local authority partnership scheme, together with a report from a UK local authority manager who had taken part.

4 The other four groups were: the Improvement and Development Authority (IDeA); the Local Government International Bureau (LGIB) (which has since become the European and International Unit of the Local Government Association); the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), (since replaced by NALC, the National Association of Local Councils); and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF). The CLGF already had an established reputation for overseas work with its Good Governance Good Practice scheme, funded by DfID (Russell & Walsh, 2008: 17).

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double from 2633 to 4643 in February 2005, just 4 months later (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005). The growth in interest in the UK Alliance reected similar support for international development seen more widely in the UK during 2005, including the Commission for Africa and the Make Poverty History campaign. The Commission for Africa, launched by then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, acknowledged that a poor state adversely affected development in the poorest countries. Successful lobbying of the Commission for Africa by the UK Alliance resulted in an increased prole for local government in the Commissions report. It identied the need for increased capacity building in African local authorities, the need for transparent and democratic management structures, and the need to address the recruitment and retention of skilled staff (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005) all areas where city-to-city links can help. At the same time SOLACE began to redene international work as integral to its core work. The rst concrete arrangement to emerge from this was a new memorandum of understanding between SOLACE and the Institute for Local Government Management (iLGM) in South Africa that allowed for a new learning exchange (SOLACE Focus, December 2005).

Developing a framework: benets for development partners Capacity building The critical gap (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2006) in the general lack of capacity in local government in the developing world is taken as given in this paper. Lack of capacity in African local government was identied by the Commission for Africa. Commissioner Ian Richards said it was at the core of governance problems in many parts of Africa (Developments, n.d.: 9). Barbara Stocking, Chief Executive of Oxfam UK, referred to the yawning gap in local administration in developing countries, where local government was badly neglected (Stocking, 2008: 24).6 This is where city-to-city links can have an impact. Capacity building is the rst benet for the development partner identied in this proposed framework for development. Research funded by the UK Alliance identied international partnerships could help Africa to build the capacity of local authority chief executives and senior managers in transparent and democratic management (UK Alliance e-newsletter, October 2005). At the rst major UK Alliance conference after the DfID funding, Hilary Benn said capacity building was a conversation UK local government needed to have with councils overseas, as the best hope for building a better future (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006). Capacity building was an outcome of the rst SOLACE learning exchange with the South African iLGM (SOLACE Focus, February 2007). It is a clear focus of the long-running link between Daventry District Council and the Ugandan town of Iganga, now widened to incorporate a link between Ugandan Public Health Inspectors Association and East Midlands branch of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005). Capacity building is identied as an outcome of links between Leeds City Council and Colombo, Sri Lanka (Strain, n.d.: 4); Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa, and the London Borough of Lewisham (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006); East Staffordshire Borough Council and Blantyre in Malawi (Green et al., 2005: 55); the London Borough of Croydon and Kungwinin local authority, South Africa (Green et al., 2005: 46); and Oxfordshire County Council with Nkonbobe Municipality, South Africa (LGIB, 2005). It is evident from these examples that capacity building has taken place. Capacity building, a clear benet for the development partner, is the rst component of this proposed new framework.

Local government recognised as development partner In 2005 local authorities were specically recognised as development partners by the United Nations in the outcome document from the 2005 UN Summit that reviewed the progress of the MDGs (UN, 2005: par 174). This historic recognition has yet to be felt in the UK in any tangible way. The reality is that local government is often overlooked in the context of development cooperation (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2006) and UK central government is largely blind to the potential contribution of UK local authorities, with their immediately deployable bread and butter knowledge (UK Alliance e-newsletter, August 2005). This is despite a series of UK Government Ministers promising to push for greater recognition of this work. These have included then Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn, who said he would talk to Ministerial colleagues about how local authority international work might be recognised (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006), former Local Government Minister Phil Woolas arguing that local government must be involved in international development (UK Alliance e-newsletter, December 2006) and, most recently, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears, who acknowledged international work was mainstream for local government (Davies, 2008: 21). A highlight of the push to have local government taken seriously as partners in international development was news of the 3-year Strategic Grant Agreement between DfID and the UK Alliance (DfID, n.d.). Strategic Grant Agreements are designed to involve organisations and networks in the UK that would not, traditionally, participate in international development activities (SOLACE Focus, February 2004). A second 3-year DfID grant was approved in early 2008 from the DfID Development Awareness Fund to promote and boost local authority engagement in international development (DfID, 2008).5

Structural reform The next benet for the development partner is structural reform. Whereas capacity building seeks to develop the abilities of the individual local government ofcer, structural reform looks at the structures and organisation of the government, itself. It seeks to strengthen and streamline the basic patterns and practices of the institution, in an effort to build a stronger administrative base and facilitate a more efcient service delivery. These reforms are particularly evident in the aftermath of the Asian

5 The aim of the Development Awareness Fund grant was to bring together the collective capacity of key local authority bodies to boost local authority engagement in international development. It was to do this by educating councils about global poverty issues and strengthening their capacity to take action. The project aimed to identify 10 champion councils and establish communication networks for sharing case studies and good practice and produce a guide for councils across the UK. The grant was for 296,460 over 3 years (DfID, 2008).

6 Problems of capacity were highlighted by UK High Commissioner to South Africa Paul Boateng at SOLACE Conference 2006. South Africas local government problems were not principally about a lack of money or shortage of local governance institutions but a shortage of skills and experience, because of the inferior education provided for black South Africans under apartheid (SOLACE Focus, December 2006).

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tsunami that left millions of people devastated. More than 50 local authorities attended a meeting a month after the tragedy to discuss practical help. Expert help was offered in the longer-term reconstruction work of infrastructure, jobs, education, health, sanitation and planning (Rhodes, 2006: 24). An early success was the social worker teams sent by Hampshire County Council. Social workers from the council made two visits to develop systems and structures that enabled carers, teachers and community workers, together with non-governmental organisations working in the region, to support local people dealing with grief (Rhodes, 2006: 24). Waste segregation, including an education pack on the benets of recycling, a strategic framework to improve corporate governance, and the promotion of a culture of business planning, are examples of structural reforms that can be seen as a result of links between Cardiff Council and Cochin Council in India (Smulian, 2008: 27). Refuse collection and disposal, surface water drainage and improvements to water supplies and health education are some of the structural benets to have emerged from the Daventry/ Iganga link, which has focused primarily on public health (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005). Making communities safer and supporting new black business have been at the heart of the link between Leeds City Council and Durban in South Africa; Leeds has worked with South African local authority, police and residents (UK Alliance e-newsletter, December 2005). Improving the economy of Ekurhuleni in South Africa has been an outcome of the link between Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and Lewisham who have worked in partnership with the South African Department for Labour (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006). Structural reform has been the basis of the link between Oxfordshire County Council and Nkonbobe Municipality, South Africa. The project, a Commonwealth Local Government Forum Good Practice scheme, has seen Oxfordshire support Nkonbobe through the transition of power in South Africa. It has included an audit procedure to assess tourism facilities and heritage sites and strategic planning and policy advice for a visitor information centre (LGIB, 2005). These examples make it evident that UK local authority help has been of real benet to the development partner in structural reform and show why it deserves its place in the proposed framework.

To draw attention to the work of UK local authorities in helping to achieve the MDGs, the UK Alliance produced, Showing global poverty the red card: How local authorities are scoring international development goals.8 Hilary Benn praised the work of the UK Alliance. He said Showing Global Poverty the Red Card did a good job in describing contributions made by local government towards the MDGs. It was proof that DfID support was money well spent (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006). The strategic role of local government in helping meet the MDGs was the basis of the UK Alliance response to the UK Governments White Paper on Eliminating World Poverty. It said that, as the sphere of government closest to the people, local government had an important role to play in making the systems t for purpose. In countries around the world local government was the frontline agent charged with delivering many of the services associated with poverty reduction (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2006). International donors would build more effective states, the response argued, by working directly with local government. Instancing Zimbabwe and Kenya, it promoted local government as an effective channel in fragile or failing states when agencies could not work through central government (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2006). These examples show how local government is on the frontline in meeting the MDGs. Change cannot be brought about without the direct involvement of local governments around the world (UCLG, 2007: 71). It is the increasing recognition of the role of local government, acknowledged by the UN in 2005 that makes meeting the MDGs the third and nal benet for the development partner in the framework. Developing a framework: problems for the UK partner It is evident there is real enthusiasm in UK local authorities to become more involved in international development. But enthusiasm is not enough. Local councils face real issues in justifying this work to local electorates, as Hewitt described in Canada (Hewitt, 2001: 321). How does building capacity in Africa, rebuilding infrastructure in Sri Lanka, advantage UK local residents? By their very nature international activities have cost implications. Accusations of junkets and jollies are familiar. However, there is some legislative substance to support local authorities doing international development work. The Local Government (Overseas Assistance) Act 1993 authorises local authority expenditure for these purposes up to a maximum amount based on population. The Local Government Act 2000 further endorses international activities by local authorities where they have local benets in accordance with the power of well-being contained in section 2 of the Act (LGIB, 2005). This, though, is not a straightforward argument to win. Support from UK central government could be made clearer. There has been plenty of rhetoric but there is still some way to go with respect to government legislation and government aid for city-to-city links. In 2006, the former Ofce of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) said it planned to remove the requirement for local authorities to gain Government consent before engaging in international work (UK

Meeting the MDGs The historic recognition by the UN of the important role local authorities have to play in achieving the MDGs7 (UN, 2005: par 174) makes meeting the MDGs the third benet for development partners in this proposed framework. Although the UK Alliance was formed before the signing of the MDGs, it was not long before it incorporated a special emphasis on helping to hit the MDGs (UK Alliance-a, n.d.: i) into its core work. MDGs and individual local authority community strategies share strong similarities, said then UK Alliance chair William Saunders: Tackling poverty, gender equality and environmental and public health is common to all councils (UK Alliance-b, n.d.: 2).

7 The UN Millennium Development Goals are: (1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; (2) achieve universal primary education; (3) promote gender equality and empower women; (4) reduce child mortality; (5) improve maternal health; (6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; (7) ensure environmental sustainability; and (8) develop a global partnership for development.

8 The research includes work by the City and County of Swansea helping Cape Town, South Africa, draw up its rst anti-poverty strategy (MDG 1); work by Birmingham City Council in supporting the development of an international module for training teachers at the University of Central England that included a 4-week placement (MDG 2); work by Oxfordshire County Council and Nkonkobe Municipality that has focused on education (MDG 2); work by Bristol City Council highlighting the plight of women Nicaraguan sweatshop workers (MDG 3); mentoring work by ve UK local authorities that played host to women councillors from South Africa (MDG 3); work between Leeds CC and Durban that helped ensure environmental sustainability (MDG 7).

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Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006).9 But a year earlier a councillor from the London Borough of Southwark said it was local residents attitudes that were a bigger constraint than legal restrictions (UK Alliance e-newsletter, August 2005).

advocated twinning or sister city programmes but emphasised these must be substantive. Too often programmes were seen as frivolous or junkets. He insisted: Do not be intimidated by this concern. Address it head on. Be a leader in helping to bring focus and substance to the objectives of international sister city relationships (SOLACE Focus, Nov/Dec 2002). There is a need for UK local government to address it head on; to tackle the junket headlines and argue that professional development is a clear benet for the UK.

Developing a framework: benets for the UK partner Professional development Professional development has long been recognised as an outcome of international exchange. The research Why should My Local Authority by involved in an Overseas Project, from The School of Public Policy, Birmingham University, commissioned by the UK Alliance, cited personal development as a key outcome (Green et al., 2005: 8). The Daventry/Iganga link has found that people get a chance to think outside the box and to work through problems from a new angle: In Iganga they really do learn about community participation and community working in ways that we do not see in this country (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005). Somerset County Council has beneted professionally from its link with Mufalira District in Zambia. It has led to an HIV/AIDS strategy being developed for Somerset, a county youth forum and a young peoples parliament that focuses on international issues (SOLACE Focus, April 2006). Critics of international partnerships argue mutuality of learning is simply not possible because of the inequality of power relations in partnerships between North and South. But Johnson and Wilson noted that, despite inequalities in terms of material, nancial and human resources, partners claimed that different knowledge, experiences, practices and contexts were respected and formed the basis of dialogue (Johnson & Wilson, 2006: 75). They suggest the learning of Northern professionals could, also, be conceived in terms of the deeper processes of critical reection on practice and say: The power of difference to drive learning should not be underestimated therefore, however great the difference might be.10 They suggest, further, that learning could become of benet to the whole council if there were a conceptual shift away from thinking of development partnerships as primarily development assistance or cooperation towards their explicit espousal as learning opportunities.10 The question of sharing learning is one that is beginning to be addressed. The difculty is that professional development is seen as a personal gain with only intangible benets for the local authority, which has often agreed to an employee having 3 or 4 weeks off consecutively, or UK local government more widely. To overcome this, SOLACE has tried to make the public benets of its exchange programmes more obvious. The benets of learning and development must be seen and felt not only by the people on exchange, but by SOLACE and the sponsoring local authority, itself (SOLACE Focus, April 2005). Director of American organization Sister Cities International (SCI) Tim Honey urged SOLACE Conference to recognise the growing solidarity between local governments around issues such as global warming, poverty alleviation, HIV/AIDS and terrorism. He

Community cohesion/British agenda Community cohesion has become a fundamental issue facing communities in the UK. Multiple identities within localities have led to debates about concepts of citizenship and Britishness. Debates in the UK since the riots in the northern towns in 2001, the attacks of 9/11 and the impact of the July 7 London bombings, have led to preoccupation with religious extremism and an underlying fear that the British way of life might be under threat. When the Government commissioned a report into the causes of the riots in the northern towns of Oldham, Bradford and Burnley, the investigating team was headed by SOLACE member Ted Cantle. The seminal report, known as the Cantle Report, identied that people from different communities were living parallel lives. Bridges between these communities needed to be built. Increasingly, international development work has proved to be one such bridge. The London Borough of Southwark said its links with Sierra Leone had undeniably improved cohesion within its own diverse population, which included a large Sierra Leone contingent (UK Alliance e-newsletter, August 2005). A submission to include international development work as a theme in the UK Beacon Council scheme11 by the UK Alliance pointed to the work international partnerships did raising awareness of cultural diversity and promoting community cohesion through facilitating stronger partnerships with local ethnic groups in the community (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2006). Phil Woolas, former UK Local Government Minister cited his own constituency in Oldham, a centre of the Northern riots, and its link with Pakistan: Through international partnerships we can build understanding and respect in our communities, and put us in a much more robust position to tackle injustice and some of the things that blight all our societies, like the rise of extremism (UK Alliance e-newsletter, December 2006). Community coherence is a benet identied in the Birmingham research (Green et al., 2005: 11). The London Borough of Tower Hamlets link with the Sylhet City Corporation in Bangladesh was a response in part to the large Bangladeshi population in the borough. The large Mirpurian community in Bradford is partly the basis for the link between the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council link and the District Council of Mirpur in Pakistan (UK Alliance-a, n.d.: 3). International partnerships have also helped encourage cultural understanding in communities that are largely white and middle class. One such partnership is the link between schools in Somerset and Mufalira in Zambia. They have helped promote understanding, tolerance and good race relations in a predominantly white, middle class area of the UK. Opportunity for building an awareness of

9 A Legislative Reform Order, laid before Parliament on 26 June 2008, includes an amendment to the Local Government (Overseas Assistance) Act 1993 (OAA), removing the requirement for a local authority to seek the Secretary of States consent when giving assistance to local government overseas under the terms of the Act (Kingman, 2008). 10 See the contribution by Johnson and Wilson elsewhere in this issue.

11 The Beacon Scheme is a UK Government programme that recognises excellence in local government. It was set up to disseminate best practice. Themes are selected each year by Government Ministers. Beacon Status is granted to authorities that demonstrate a clear vision, excellent services and a willingness to innovate within a specic theme.

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cultural diversity in Somerset was a critical benet of development work (SOLACE Focus, April 2006). An allied point was made by delegates to the Leeds UK Alliance conference. Many called for case studies featuring local authorities without signicant ethnic minority populations that had taken part in international development (UK Alliance e-newsletter, February 2006). As the more protracted debate to identify a British notion of citizen continues alongside calls for greater community cohesion, the benet of city-to-city links to UK local authorities is increasingly evident and a key part of this proposed framework. Focusing humanitarian/aid concerns The nal benet of city-to-city links to UK local government in this proposed framework is in recognizing the coordinating role that often falls by default to UK local government in responding to humanitarian and environmental disasters. The Asian tsunami disaster saw UK local residents respond spontaneously, with people queuing to make donations and ll lorries, prompting a need for UK councils to coordinate fundraising and community projects (UK Alliance e-newsletter, December 2005). At a more international level there is a role for an organisation like the UK Alliance in coordinating long-term reconstruction work. After the tsunami the UK Alliance worked with its principle partner in Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government (Rhodes, n.d.: 14; UK Alliance-c). UK Alliance acted as a clearing-house for partnerships, a lobbying body for resources and a facilitator of good practice. It worked with the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the international coordinating body for local government worldwide, to maximise impact and avoid duplication (UK Alliance e-newsletter, April 2005). Other local government actors working in Sri Lanka included the Netherlands VNG International and Canadas FCM. This coordinating role ensures responses to humanitarian disasters at both local and international levels are not piecemeal and ineffective. It makes for a positive outcome locally and nationally, as well as globally, and is the last element of the framework. Conclusion This study set out to see if a framework could be identied to support UK local authority work in international development. It demonstrates links between the UK and the developing world are successfully supporting developing local governments to build capacity, institute structural reform, and meet the MDGs. It shows, too, advantages are not all one-way. The UK benets in the important areas of professional development, community cohesion/British agenda, and focusing humanitarian concerns. The scope of the research is limited but it is suggested this framework provides both a coherent model to assess and validate UK local government development initiatives and a constructive model for future research. UK Alliance has made a signicant contribution in raising awareness and generating momentum. There is growing support from UK Government. Importantly, DfID has made a second grant to advance the work. But there is need to back up the rhetoric. Further study could usefully look at the role of DfID in encouraging UK development links, both nancially and legislatively. Perhaps local government needs its own Crisp Report. Local governments across the world share a concern for the welfare of their communities. The dynamic place-shaping role for local government, increasingly recognised in the UK, can help to make development a reality. As decentralisation proceeds, capacity and structures at a local level become ever more important. This research shows UK practitioner-to-practitioner initiatives have made positive contributions to developing local governments. It shows UK local government development work can play and is playing an important

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