Congress of Resilient Cities

Workshop on “Building the European, national and local knowledge base for resilient cities”

Bonn, Germany, 3 June 2011

Speech by Gaye Doganoglu, Vice-President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to start by saying that the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, which I represent, is particularly well placed for pooling together the various experiences and good practices from local and regional communities, which are crucial for filling in gaps in knowledge. The Congress is a political assembly of local and regional elected representatives from 47 European countries, and its members represent more than 200,000 territorial communities on our continent. With this outreach, we largely play a role in disseminating specific knowledge in the form of proposals for action both to local and regional authorities and to national governments.

To give you a specific example, back in 2005 we produced a compilation of 40 measures proposed for local authorities to cope with natural and industrial disasters before, during and after the event. Our more recent activities focused on reducing the vulnerability of communities in the face of climate change. In 2008, we put forward proposals for building adaptive capacity of local and regional authorities, through proper risk assessment and pre-emptive response measures, and thus greater preparedness. In a more targeted action last year, we recommended measures for coastal towns and cities in response to the rising sea levels.

These recommendations are based on both practical experience and expert opinion, so the information, the knowledge is there. Another question is the capacity for its practical application, which often requires a real implementation framework. This is why most our proposals call for action on both ends – regional/local as well as national. We insist on the need for national/local partnerships in almost every aspect of governance, which is only a sign of genuine multi-level governance. Such partnerships would necessarily mean setting up channels to ensure the flow of information and the sharing of knowledge – on the one hand – and measures to build up local capacity, on the other.    

At the same time, we need to explore the possibility for inter-municipal cooperation as a powerful tool for transferring practical knowledge and experience and, in fact, implementing concrete projects at grassroots. I could give you examples of two successful municipal networks, both supported by the Congress: Cities for Local Integration Policy (CLIP) and Cities for Children. Over the five years of their existence, they produced a substantial number of measures for concrete improvement and transferable projects which can be implemented in different municipalities.

I would say networking on a permanent basis is one practical way to access knowledge. There is a legal basis for it in Europe – the 1980 Madrid Convention on cross-border cooperation between local and regional communities. A recent additional protocol to it makes such cooperation between cities and regions of both EU and non-EU countries a lot easier.

As far as the challenge of building knowledge needed for local adaptation, I would say this challenge lies rather in the local and regional capacity for applying the knowledge, which can include various factors – lack of project-management capacity, for example, or of necessary legal competences and often of financial means. For example, the competence and capacity of municipalities to maintain, equip and train their own rescue services, or run their own hospital facilities. So, apart from an obvious need for a knowledge-exchange framework, or a system of information flow, we also need to look at capacity-building measures for project implementation at local and regional level. The best knowledge is your own practical experience, and building such knowledge requires concrete activities on the ground.

Finally, I should mention that at the level of the Council of Europe there is a partial cooperation agreement dealing specifically with disaster management – the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement. It’s open to all interested governments and has to date 27 participating countries. Up to a point, this agreement plays a role of a European network for knowledge-sharing at national level. But broadly speaking, the Council of Europe passes knowledge through recommendations for action to all tiers of governance – governments, national parliaments, local and regional authorities. Accordingly, its coordination with EU is also multi-layered. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, for example, coordinates its action specifically with the EU Committee of the Regions, our counterpart – through the sharing of expertise, joint activities in the areas of shared interest (such as action against corruption), and exchanges of views between our rapporteurs on common subjects.

Thank you.