The International Role of Cities: Decentralized Cooperation Between Domestic Concerns and Symbolic Politics

PhD Programme on Comparative and European Politics Center for the Study of Political Change (Circap) Faculty of Political Science University of Siena

The international role of cities: Decentralized cooperation between domestic concerns and symbolic politics

Ph.D. Student: Ma. Eugenia Iocco

Supervisor: Ernesto D’Albergo

2005

Abstract

The term Decentralized Cooperation emerged in the 1980s associated with the mutual relations between municipal twinings. Since then the concept of Decentralized Cooperation has been continuously evolving and today seems to merge two parent fields: development cooperation and international municipal relations. However, thus far it is still veiled which are the motivations that engage European cities to adopt a decentralized cooperation policy.

In this thesis we have carried out a thorough study and analysis of these motivations and demonstrate that behind any international aid program including decentralized cooperation, self interest aspects prevail. In other worlds, most of the donor’s assistance is ultimately driven by selfish stimulus that can be manifested in different ways. This claim is based on a comparative analysis among the decentralized cooperation activities of Rome and Madrid.

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms List of Figures and Tables

Introduction ...... 9

I. Basic concepts ……………………………………………………………….……17 1.1 The adaptation of cities to the international scenario 1.2 Cities’ international strategies 1.3 The decentralized cooperation model

II. Decentralized cooperation and the internationalization of Rome ………..…. 39 2.1 The international strategy of Rome 2.2 Main characteristics of decentralized cooperation

III. Decentralized cooperation and the internationalization of Madrid …………57 3.1 The international strategy of Madrid 3.2 Main characteristics of decentralized cooperation

IV. The domestic concern as a motivation to develop DC activities ………….…. 77 4.1 Geographic proximity 4.2 Historic-cultural links 4.3 Economic interest

V. The symbolic politics of decentralized cooperation ……………………………96 5.1 Strengthening legitimacy 5.2 Political visibility (media coverage) 5.3 Local leaderships

VI. Conclusion and discussion …… ……………………………………………….. 112

VII. Bibliography ……………………………………………………………..…..…116

Interviews ………………………………………………………………….……..….124

List of Acronyms

ACEA: Azienda Comunale Energia e Ambiente ACP: African, Caribbean and Pacific countries AECI: Spanish Agency of International Cooperation ALA: Asia and Latin America Program ALFA: América Latina Formación Académica AMA: Azienda Municipale Ambiente ANCI: National Association of Italian Cities CAD: Committee Aid for Development CAM: Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid CCRE: Council of European Municipalities and Regions COCIS: Coordinamento delle ONG per la Cooperazione Internazionale allo Sviluppo CoR: Committee of the Regions DAC: Development Cooperation Directorate DC: Decentralized Cooperation DGCS: Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo DGDC: Directorate-General for Development Cooperation) EC: European Commission ECOMED: Agency for the Promotion of Sustainable Development in the Mediterranean Area EU: European Union FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization FARMACAP: Azienda Speciale Farmacosociosanitaria del Comune di Roma FEMP: Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias FMCU: The World Federation of United Cities FONGDCAM : Federacion de ONG de Desarrollo de la Comunidad de Madrid IFAD: International Found for Agricultural development IGR: Intergovernmental Relations IODC: Inter-regional Observatory for Development Co-operation ISPA: Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession IULA: International Union of Local Authorities

LDCs: Least Developed Countries LIFE III: Financial Instrument for the Environment LMICs: Low- and Middle-Income Countries MAE: Ministerio degli Affair Esteri MDGs: Millennium Development Goals MDP: Municipal Development Program MEDA: Mesures D’accompagnement Techniques et Financière MFA: Ministry of Foreign Affairs NAIM: National Association of Italian Municipalities NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NGOs: Non-Governmental Organizations OCT: Overseas Countries and Territories ODA: Official Development Aid OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OICI: Organizacion Iberoamericana de Cooperacion Internacional PDHL: Programa de Desarrollo Humano Local PECOs: Países de Europa Central y Oriental PHARE: Poland and Hungary Action for the Restructuring of the Economy POLIS : Promotion of Operational Links with Integrated Systems PRODERE: Programa para los Desplazados y los Refugiados SAPARD: Special Accession Programme for Agriculture & Rural Development TACIS: Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent State UCCI: Union de Ciudades Capitales Iberoamericanas UCLG: United Cities and Local Governments UCUE : Union of Capital Cities of Europe UN: United Nations UNDP: United Nations Development Program UNFPA: United Nations Population Fund UNOPS: Ufficio delle Nazioni Unite per i Servizi ed i Progetti/ United Nations Office for Project Services UPI: Union of Italian Provinces

URI: Ufficio Relazioni Internazionali WACLAC: World Association of Cities and Local Authorities Coordination WB: World Bank WFP: UN World Food Program WHO: World Health Organization

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1.1 . General framework for understanding DC activities. Figure 1.2 . Operationalization of variables. Figure 2.1 . Normative frame on decentralized cooperation in Italy. Figure 2.2. The Italian system of development cooperation. Figure 2.3 . Volume of Italian decentralized cooperation activities. Figure 2.4 . Annual budget distribution for decentralized cooperation activities by Italian regions. Figure 2.5. Decentralized cooperation structure of Rome municipality. Figure 3.1. Budget of Spanish decentralized cooperation activities. Figure 4.1. Decentralized cooperation activities: municipality of Rome and Madrid. Figure 4.2. Map of the ex-Spanish colonies. Figure 4.3. Maps of the ex-Italian colonies. Figure 4.4. Migration flows of Rome on 2003. Figure 4.5. Immigrant population by geographic zone of origin in Madrid. Figure 4.6. Evolution of the main nationality of origin in Madrid. Figure 4.7. Economic relations with Latin America. Figure 5.1. Matrix of decentralized cooperation as part of the World Bank’s Municipal Development Program. Figure 5.2. Regional distribution of disasters (1994-2003). Figure 6.1. Steering Variable. Figure 6.2. Prevailing strategies and independents variables.

Table 1.1. Main EU Programs available to local administrations. Table 1.2. Comparative conceptual analysis of decentralized cooperation. Table 1.3 . Essential features of decentralized cooperation in the EU. Table 1.4. Geographical distribution of decentralized cooperation activities. Table 3.1. International organizations for local development. Table 3.2. Levels, institutions and department in Spanish developing cooperation. Table 3.3. Normative table of decentralized cooperation.

Table 3.4. Inter annual increase (in percent) of development cooperation aid in the region of Madrid. Table 3.5. Budget of some major municipalities in 2001. Table 3.6. Budget of the municipality of Madrid. Table 3.7. Profile of funds for cooperation and solidarity. Table 4.1. Post-conflict emergency assistance (1995-2005). Table 4.2. The geographic and thematic priorities areas of Rome and Madrid. Table 4.3. Municipality of Madrid. Grant by geographic areas. Table 5.1. Least Developed Countries. Table 5.2. Emergency assistance related to natural disasters (1995-2005). Table 5.3. Emergency projects subsidized by the Municipality of Madrid (1999-2002). Table 6.1. The prevailing strategy.

Introduction

During the last decades the developing cooperation has proven to be one of the most relevant issues within the field of International Relations. Particular attention has been devoted to Decentralized Cooperation (DC) regarded as an interesting and original form of external assistance to the developing countries. This assistance usually consists of a direct funding from well established developed to undeveloped countries through non governmental organizations (NGOs), sub national authorities and supra-national official donors such as the European Commission, the UNDP, and the World Bank (Desmet, A. and Develtere, P., 2002, p. 5) . Today the vast majority of Eastern European countries, Africa, South-East Asia, and Latin America are beneficed from donor agencies or rich countries. However, this cooperation is by no means restricted to central governments but other actors such as executing agencies and civil society (NGOs, universities, business community) may also play a major role in advocacy, awareness raising and the implementation of development cooperation objectives. Since the early 1980s sub national authorities such as regions, cities, districts, Länder , provinces and municipalities have had a leading attitude in this field (Desmet, A. and Develtere, P., 2002, p. 1). Historically, the first international association of local authorities was set up in 1913, principally for the purpose of general information exchange and mutual support, with a small number of direct city-to-city links. But it was in the aftermath of the Second World War via the “twining programs” that direct connections between local authorities of two or more countries really began to spread out. Most of the pioneer initiatives were among the developed countries of the North, but it was soon after that when the first links with developing countries began to be formed. The first concrete formulation of decentralized cooperation at the international level took place in the European Council of Municipalities and Regions in 1984, where the local entities were encouraged to participate in the tasks of international aid. This issue has not remained unnoticed to the European Community which from 1989 onward began to define decentralized co-development working modes, procedures, methods, instruments and opened a specific budget line for this purpose 1. The Council of Europe also intervened in the affair and decided in 1989 the creation of the European Center for Interdependence and World-Wide

1 Initially the tag of this budget was B7-6430. Today is labeled as Line B7– 6002 European Commission – Directorate General for Development.

Solidarity in order to promote cooperation between parliamentarians, governments, NGOs and local and regional powers. In brief, European integration gave to the cities the opportunity to free themselves from the initial constraint of the Nation-States via transnational activities like networking or city twining programs. Such legitimization from the European Union institutions was backed by other international organizations (WB, UN) and transnational networks (Metropolis or United Towns Organizations). These organizations were eventually deeply involved in challenging the monopolistic role that the States had had until then in specific international affairs such as North- South cooperation. In other words, during the last decades there has been a noticeable convergence between the growth of city to city practices initiated by local authorities and a growing focus on urban issues among international institutions. The international cooperation projects with the least developed world may provide real benefits to municipalities in target areas in terms of improved structures of local governance, facilities and services to citizens (Hewitt, W.E., 1999, p. 312) 2. This has lead to believe that the unique objective of decentralized cooperation is the reduction of poverty and the development of the least developed countries (LDCs) 3. However, a critical examination of the international aid programs reflects that there is no pure altruism among states. In other words, although the donors’ assistance often provides substantial benefits to the recipients, donors may try to achieve self interest (hidden) objectives via these activities (Hecox, E., 1999). Even though decentralized cooperation programs often deal with a much reduced budget than other forms of international assistance, they are not an exception to this rule. In general the reality illustrates that decentralized cooperation is not a panacea. A clear example of this claim is that most decentralized cooperation activities have been focused on large, urban municipalities that are both rich in terms of capital and incomes, rather than in least developed countries 4.

2 A current problem of the decentralized cooperation is the lack of a clear system of evaluation of the impact. In fact, it is hard to establish a good matrix of evaluation which facilitates a correct understanding of the added value of this kind of cooperation. Typically the results are measurable in the medium and long term thus making difficult to connect the outcomes to the initial inputs or steps. In any case, the study of the policy outcomes although deserves further investigations it is beyond the scope of the present work. 3 LDCs (Least Developed Countries) and LICs (Low Income Countries) are those with GNP per capita between US$80 and US$860, LMICs (Lower Middle-Income Countries) $880-$1,370, UMICs (Upper Middle-Income Countries) $2,696 and $8,335 and, HICs (High-Income Countries) those with GNP per capita above $8,355. See Stokke, p. 46. 4 Before taking this discussion any further forward, it is important to state that the terms ‘cities’ will be used in this thesis without any preconceptions about the size or historical importance of the settlements concerned. Thus, the

In general, previous studies fall short in addressing and identifying the several reasons for the growing emphasis on decentralized cooperation (Materu, J., T. Land, V. and Knight. J., 2000; Nickson, A., 2004; UN- Habitat 2001) . One reason for this limitation arises from the fact that earlier works focused mainly on the “recipient” rather than on the “donors” communities (Hewitt, W.E., 1999, p. 313). In the present research we attempt to remedy the above mentioned deficiency bringing some balance to current discussions on the incentives of decentralized cooperation activities in donors European cities. We introduce and discuss different propositions concerning why donor cities get involve in this activity. We demonstrate that many times aid programs (as decentralized cooperation) are used to solve local problems of the donor cities. Certainly, domestic factors in terms of geographic proximity and economic benefits could account for the motivations that European cities have in order to carry out DC activities. However, these ingredients can hardly justify the high level of support, stability and emotional involvement attached to the political acts (Bjola, C., 2000, p. 2). In any case, nowadays a theoretical and interpretative perspective capable of complementing and “adding value” to this perception is necessary. By trying to fill this methodological gap, this study shows that symbolic politics may prove a very useful conceptual and empirical tool for analyzing certain elements in the search of these motivations. In brief, the main argument of this thesis is that aid programs are frequently motivated not only by domestic concerns but also by symbolic politics. In the latter donor local governments spend more political resources in term of promoting the city in the international scenario or looking for internal socio-political consent and boosting their domestic legitimacy. This policy can be seen at different levels (regional, national, supranational) and not only in the case of decentralized cooperation activities. For instance, at the national level, Haggard and Moravcsik suggest that the West’s primary motivation for distributing $30-$40 billion of assistance to former Soviet bloc states was not democracy, economic growth, and environmental protection– the stated objectives– but “privatizable” benefits advantaging special interests in donor countries. The same authors argue, at the supranational level, “the lack of any coherent justification for the creation of

word ‘city’ will be used in the American English sense of an urban settlement or cluster of settlements of any size, with its own elected or appointed local government body, which may go under a whole range of administrative titles such as ‘municipality’, ‘township’, ‘town’, ‘borough’, ‘district’, or ‘metropolitan area’.

the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) … [suggests] … it was an act of political symbolism rather than functional necessity 5”. In other words, in our research we explain the different concepts about DC and contrast the rhetoric one, where DC is thought of as aids for development, fighting poverty, etc., with the reality that evidences the existence of selfish interested motivations. In fact, this interpretative argument represents cities’ egoistic motives and strategies in a very similar way to the States’ selfish and national strategies. We shall see that States and cities have the same motivations in order to carry out DC activities such as geographic proximity, cultural and historical links, economic promotion, etc. Moreover, it is also important to stress that in these activities there is not competition among the different levels of government. Summarizing, the main objective of this thesis is to study and analyze the motivations that might stimulate European cities to adopt a decentralized cooperation activity. In particular, we want to explore whether the motivations behind DC are more symbolic rather than oriented to solve the domestic concerns of the donors’ cities. Our approach shows that the DC of cities results from interplay among economic, socio-cultural, political and geographic factors. The first step in order to achieve this research goal consist of identifying the mechanisms by which Europeanization, Globalization and Decentralization affect the behavior of the cities within the international context. As we shall see, cities play an active role in the above mentioned processes trying to adapt themselves to a new, dynamical and always evolving international situation.

Research Questions This research tries to partially fill the rather unexplored topic of non-profitable and profitable cooperation between cities with a clear economical unbalance. In order to fulfill this objective we will analyze why and how cities develop international strategies within the context of Europeanization, Globalization and Decentralization. More specifically, how Madrid and Rome adapt to the above mentioned processes, what are ultimately the motivations and

5 Haggard and Moravcsik 1993, P. 280, emphasis added. Darst writes that “the EBRD’s efforts to take a ‘hard line’ have been regularly undercut by pressure from donor states with politically influential nuclear engineering industries, such as the United States and France”. Marc Levy also “accept[s] the argument made by Stephen Haggard and Andrew Moravcsik that the EBRD is a largely redundant exercise in political symbolism, and suspect[s] that the decision to extend participation in the European Environmental Agency to eastern governments was motivated in large part by a perceived opportunity to garner similar symbolic laurels” (1993, P.332).

incentives of donor European cities to get involved in decentralized cooperation activities? And does a symbolic politics or domestic concern strategy prevail within the policy of DC?

Hypothesis It is worth noticing that this investigation intends to address the primary motivations behind the decentralized cooperation activities of donor Europeans cities. We believe that although donor assistance may provides substantial benefits for the recipient, there are always self interest objectives that donors cities try to achieve via their assistance programs (Hecox, E. 1999). We show that there are powerful factors that may guide the decentralized cooperation activities towards developing countries. The central hypothesis of our research is that the motivations of European cities to carry out decentralized cooperation can be grouped in the following six factors:

a) Geographic proximity b) Historic-cultural links c) Economic interest d) Strengthening legitimacy e) Political visibility f) Local leadership s

Methodology The decentralized cooperation (the development cooperation promoted by the sub national entities) is present in Spain, Italy, Belgium, France and partially in Germany. However, only in Spain and Italy the decentralized cooperation involve all the institutional sub national levels of government, such as States, regions, municipalities, etc. In contrast to this, in Belgium and Germany the most important actors of the decentralized cooperation are the regions and in France only the metropolitan cities and the municipalities. Therefore, since we are interested in the study of decentralized cooperation activities at the different institutional levels, this thesis is principally devoted to a comparative analysis of Rome and Madrid in the period from the middle 80’s until now. These capital cities are rather different in terms of size, economic base, financial and human resources, political history and institutional setting. Despite of these dissimilarities,

we are able to distill and identify the different factor that ultimately trigger and engage the decentralize cooperation in these metropolis 6. In particular we focus on the very wide range of activities which fall under the heading of the international strategies of Rome and Madrid, paying a particular attention to the decentralized cooperation programs as one kind of the many international activities that can be developed by cities. We also investigate whether they carry out the decentralized cooperation only with those cites with strong historical and cultural laces or whether they have the tendency to develop cooperation activities with neighbors cities in order to obtain a geo-political stability in the zone. Furthermore, we analyze whether local leaderships try to use the decentralized cooperation to solve problems that have a big media impact in order to achieve political visibility and reinforce their consensus from the public opinion.

Data Analysis The information used in this thesis has been extracted from the following sources: • EU policy documents and materials from the EU’s projects and programs towards developing countries, especially the one regarding to cities. We analyze subsequent projects and programs from: EU/ URBAL; UN /Habitat and WB, among others. The information obtained from those organizations was used as sources of policy styles, frame and background (regulative, cultural, financial, etc). • Cities policy documents and materials from the regional and local governments (searching for projects and programs on decentralized cooperation in Spain and Italy). Exploration of the official sites of the Italian and Spanish regions and municipalities.

6 At the municipal level this comparison is based on the fact that both capitals share the following characteristics: • Own budget for decentralized cooperation activities. In the Italian case, the law no. 68 provides that provincial and municipal councils may allocate funds up to 0.8% of their annual budget. In the Spanish case, there is not a regulation but it is adopted the 0.7% of the municipal budget. This is in reference to the agreed UN target of 0.7% of the GNI of the developed countries given in aid. • Citizenship participation. In both cases, Rome and Madrid, the involvement of citizen via the civil society organization (NGOs, private actors, universities, etc) is very important, the organized civil society is thus the main protagonist of local human development initiatives, with its territory, its resources, its culture, its history and its potential. • Organization. In Rome and Madrid, it is possible to see the institutionalization of the cooperation within the municipalities. This is apparent in the case of Rome where was established the” City Committee for decentralized Cooperation and Solidarity” and in the case of Madrid, the municipality created “The development cooperation program” within the department of cooperation of the city of Madrid.

• Semi-structured interviews with key policy makers from the EU Commission and from the local and sub national governments from Spain and Italy (political actors, administrative, third sector, entrepreneurial, etc) 7.

Structure of the thesis This thesis is organized as follows: In Chapter 1 we introduce the necessary basic concepts that will be used as building blocks in the upcoming chapters. First we set up a general definition of Globalization, Europeanization and Decentralization. In doing so, we try to describe how the above mentioned processes have influenced the international participation of cities. The second step is to define the international activities of cities such as Para diplomacy, networking and decentralized cooperation among other, particularly focusing on decentralized cooperation activities. Finally, we present the decentralized cooperation model. This model explains how DC is influenced by the interplay of economic, socio-cultural, political and security factors. It also shows how the above mentioned factors are inter connected in order to empower or limit the decision/ making process taken within the cities by local politicians. In order to explain our model we discuss two different types of decentralized cooperation policies: symbolic politics versus domestic concerns motivations. We demonstrate that behind all aid programs there are strong selfish components and there is no altruism in donor cities’ motives. In Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 we discuss the cases of Rome and Madrid, respectively. We present data in a comparative format, so the two cities can be assessed along a common criterion. We explain how the concepts defined in Chapter 1 can be applied to these cases. We start our study by describing and analyzing the place that DC occupies in the international strategies and activities of Rome and Madrid. In doing so, we explore the position of DC in the political agenda and in the institutions that deal with DC in each city. We also distinguish the fingerprints that characterize the decentralized cooperation in Rome and Madrid such as legislation, intergovernmental relations, financial resources and the instruments of decentralized cooperation. In Chapter 4 we assume that donors’ interests play an important role in motivating decisions on granting aid to specific issues such as geo-political security, cultural and historical

7 For farther details about the interviews that have been done see references in appendices.

relations, and the economic promotion of donor municipalities. In order to support this evidence we present an analysis of the main domestic motivations that Rome and Madrid have to adopt cooperation programs with cities in developing countries. From our investigation, we find that in the case of Madrid the domestic concerns incentives prevail over the symbolic politics. Chapter 5 is devoted to test the symbolic use of decentralized cooperation activities, i.e. as a way to self-promote the political visibility of the local politicians via aid programs with the LDCs, or through catalytic events that can be used as an important resource to reinforce the political legitimacy of the city and the local leadership. We examine how the two cities (Rome and Madrid) match up to our explanatory variables which allow us to infer some key observations. We will show that in the case of Rome the used of symbolic politics prevails over the domestic concerns motivations. In chapter 6 we summarize the main results and highlight the most important observations dealing with decentralized cooperation. This investigation shows that even though there is not altruism among donor cities in developing decentralized cooperation activities, different kind of factors, such as economic and geographical forces, cultural and historical relations, and political visibility may guide the decentralized cooperation activities towards developing countries.

Chapter 1 Basic concepts

1.1 The adaptation of cities to the international scenario In recent decades, many studies have examined and questioned the dominating role played by the Nation-States in the international arena. Some authors like Ohmae assess that the Nation- States have forfeited their role as critical participants in the global economy (Ohmae, K., 1996) . Other scholars emphasize that the erosion of the Nation-States and the process of globalization have direct implications for actors and social groups within the cities in Europe (Le Gales, P. 2002). Three reasons can be adduced from the above mentioned arguments. First, local governments have taken initiatives to assert their place in the world and to develop international links through international organizations like European Union , that contribute to their future economic and social well-being (City-to-city cooperation, 2001) . For this reason awareness is being raised also in the European Union regarding the active role that cities and regions should play in the international cooperation. Second, globalization has led to a clear recognition of cities determining position in a world that is both interdependent and committed to share finite quantities of natural resources. Globalization highlighted the importance of world inter-linkages and the Nation-States relative shrinking role. Third, the international cooperation is concentrated more and more in questions of local development. Cities are called to develop virtuous dialectics circles between competition and cooperation. In doing so, the processes of administrative decentralization and decentralized cooperation are seen as tools to participate actively in the international scenario (Rhi-Sausi, J. L. 2001). Cities together with their local authorities have been developing their international cooperation for many decades. With the marked trends towards democratization and decentralization in the 1980s and 1990s, the scope for concrete cooperation between local authorities on practical issues of mutual interest expanded considerably. Moreover, cities as the political entities closest to the needs of their communities, were increasingly responding to their role in combating the causes of poverty and fostering sustainable economic and social development. At the same time, it is generally argued that although cities and States were highly interdependent in Western Europe, and to some extent are becoming more and more so, many

cities have acquired an increasing role in political and economic terms (Le Galés, P. and Harding, A., 1996) . The restructuring of Nation-States and the economy has created space for sub national mobilization, especially at the city level (Le Galés, P., 2000) . The evidence of the economic strategies of the cities and their increasing political autonomy has been put forward in various comparatives research in the past ten years (for instance, Judd, D. and Parkinson, R., 1990; Dunford M. and Kafkalas, G.1992) . Indeed, the local powers of cities are becoming more important as national governments are progressively delegating more control to city governments. Cities have become active participants in the global world, organizing and making new demands on local governments (Kloos, P., 1999) and carrying out their own international strategies. In this work, among the variety of international activities carried out by cities, we concentrate our study on decentralized cooperation. In this chapter we present a brief overview of the continuous transformation occurring in the globalised world. We examine the enormous impact that this transformation has had upon the international cities strategies and role, mainly referring to the DC activities carried out by the cities. We analyze this transformation within the context of Europeanization, Globalization and Decentralization processes.

Europeanization Europeanization as an analytical concept is used to examine the changes in domestic structures and policies that occur in response practices institutionalized at the European level. It stands for a process in which European rules, mechanisms and collective understandings interact with given domestic structures. This means that Europeanization is marked by interrelationships between the various layers constituting the European multi-level structure. Scholars of Europeanization have furnished different definitions of this concept and applied it for a variety of research purposes 8. The concepts stress, for instance, the distinct features of governance within

8 Risse, T., Cowles, M.G. and Caporaso, J. define Europeanization as the emergence and development of distinct structures of governance at the European level. In order words, Europeanization can be defined as the process of change at the domestic level (policies, preferences or institutions) originated by the adaptation pressures generated by the European integration; a process of change whose intensity and character depend on the “goodness of fit” of domestic institutions and adaptation pressures. Ladrech, R. understands Europeanization as an “incremental process reorienting the direction and shape of politics to the degree that EC political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics and policy-making” Olsen, J. differentiates between five possible meanings of Europeanization. According to him, Europeanization may refer to changes in the external territorial boundaries of the EU, to the development of institutions of governance at EU level, to central penetration of national and sub-national systems of governance, to the export of forms of distinctively European political organization and

the European Union that are exported beyond its borders, or the impact of European integration dynamics on domestic policy-making processes, discourses and identities. In general, Europeanization has occurred not only at the national level but also at the regional and municipal one. The main changes that can be perceived include: (i) the strengthening of the regional and municipal executive in relation to both the regional and municipal legislative body and the national executive; (ii) the opening up of the networks of interests and actors to some extent involved in both policy formulation and implementation; (iii) an initial adaptation process on behalf of the bureaucracy (although quite different across regions and municipalities); (iv) the limitation of party influence on regional decision making (Graziano, P., 2000, p. 9). Europeanization process provides a new structure of opportunities for cities that allows promoting the spatial or sectoral interest with other actors through both vertical and horizontal networks (Le Gales, P., 2002, p. 96) . Thus, the participation of cities at the EU level makes apparent the effect of Europeanization. This effect can be seen through the involvement of cities in various activities and projects, via the horizontal transnational relations with other local authorities; by getting deeply implicated in different networks among social and political actors for certain policies (practically always related to EU programs and initiatives); or organizing lobbying in Brussels to influence the decisions and policies via the Committee of the Regions (CoR). This dynamics is demonstrated by the major, diversified and continually evolving resources for decentralized cooperation initiatives that the EU provides. However, it is difficult to estimate a total for these funds, due to the particular structure and management of the EU’s cooperation policies, which are distributed and interconnected among numerous administrations and lines of financing, likewise in continuous transformation. For the year 2002, the specific budget line for DC activities (Line B7-6002) allocated only 3.2 M€ to local authorities. However, if network programs such as URBAL or Asia URBS (42 and 44.8 M€ respectively, for

governance beyond the territory of the EU, and to a political project aiming at a unified and politically stronger EU Radaelli, C. defines Europeanization as a process of “(i) construction (ii) diffusion and (iii) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ‘ways of doing things’ and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated into the logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies”. Fabbrini defines Europeanization as emerging and development, at the European level, of distinct structures of governance that link public institutions (supranational, sub national, national), agencies, private networks, functional interests and third sector. Most studies of Europeanization have an explicit emphasis on the EU policy process and limit Europeanization effects to the EU member states. Olsen suggests a possible transfer of EU rules, procedures and paradigms to third countries but it is Heather Grabbe who offers a systematic analysis of the EU’s impact on the applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe in the context of the EU accession process.

the period 2001-2005), or thematic programs such as Life III (38.4 M€ for 2000-2004) are taken into account, this amount increases substantially 9. Table 1.1 shows the Community regulation at EU level in the case of Italy and Spain. As the table illustrates, those countries participate in the European Union activities via MEDA, ALA, PHARE, etc. In particular the ALA Program involves: URBAL ALFA, etc.

Table 1.1. Main EU programs available to local administrations.

Community regulation Italian and Spanish case Access via European Union: MEDA, ALA, PHARE, INTERREG III, CARDS, ISPA, SAPARD, TACIS, LIFE III

All in all, while cities try to develop international activities through transnational networking, twining programs or decentralized cooperation, European integration gave them this opportunity together with a new political legitimacy. The representatives of cities have learned new roles, repertories, and modes of action, and have found legitimacy on this larger playing field, which has increased their room for maneuver in relation to the State. Local governments also learnt how to obtain funds, from small sums for innovative programs to substantial budgets for industrial cities in crisis in poor regions (Le Gales, P., 2002, p. 109) . The activity of the EU has influenced and legitimized local authorities in reference to the strategic orientation of local policies. The cooperation between local authorities in different countries, which is often condition to obtain financial support by the European Commission, has created a different culture in local governance. Several local authorities never had international relations until the promotion of the EU initiatives, especially in the southern Europe. In brief, the participation of cities at the EU level permit them to understand the dynamics of EU’s policy making, to obtain funds, and to identify the dynamic of coalition building and the diversity of interest represented within the EU (Le Gales, P., 2002, p. 107) .

Globalization Another important element that has influenced the performance of cities in the international scenario is the process of globalization. This process and the rise of transnational

9 Intrview with Pierre Ghilain, European Union (EuropeAid).

regimes, especially regional trading areas, have eroded the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs and by the same token have transformed the division of responsibilities between States and sub national governments (Keating, M., 1998). Cities and regions are subjects to globalization and its impacts on local identities and economies can influence the state of the world via collaboration and competition. Thus, globalization takes place in cities and cities embody and reflect globalization. Several dimensions of globalization can usefully be identified. These dimensions can often be analyzed separately even though they may have powerful interconnections. Economic globalization means the greater global connectedness of economic activities, through transnational trade, and capital flows. The term globalization suggests that competition in world market affect almost all aspects of economic organization and political regulation (John, P., 2001, p. 11) . One clear consequence of the international market at the local level is that the competition among cities increases, including world cities (Sassen, S., 1991) . In turn, the logic of globalization has made cities and regions to compete among themselves on an international scale. Therefore, the adaptation of regional policies to the new institutional environment has made them into policies negotiated between the economic, social and political actors (Veltz, P., 1993; Storper, M., 1997). In sum, globalization affects the productive system of both developed and backward regions, and large as well as small and medium size cities. The improvement of productivity and competition in innovative cities and urban regions has been possible thanks to the adoption of more flexible modes of organization (creation of networks, subcontracting, the externalization of production systems), the introduction of innovation in production methods and the diffusion of knowledge within the local productive systems, and the improvement of urban attraction (Scott, A., 1998). In addition to the economical factors, the political face of globalization should also be taken into consideration as pointed out by Giddens, A., 1990; Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., Perraton, J., 1999. This political aspect of globalization is visible in the rise of multilateral organizations, regional pacts, and talk of a borderless world. States, localities, non-governmental organizations, and labor increasingly ignore old boundaries and are driven more than before by the seemingly contradictory stimuli of cooperation and competition ( Savitch, H.V., and Kantor, P. 2002, p. 14) . In other words, globalization implies reduced significance of national boundaries

(Ohmae, K., 1994 and 1996) where individuals, corporations and governments are interacting with those in a distant location much more intensively than before. Another face of globalization is socio-cultural . Globalization is synonymous to the phenomenon of acceleration. For the past 25 years rapid changes have affected political, economic and social developments. Acceleration is seen in vast technological changes, media revolution, global economic integration and massive changes in production systems and labor markets. All these rapid increases in transnational flow of capital, trade and technology have marked their effects on international migration as well. The basic determinants of international migration lie in the inequalities which exist in levels of development, and the enormous magnitude, persistence and flagrancy of those inequalities in the globalized world of today heighten the so-called pressures for migration (UNFPA, 1998) 10 . Globalization also has generated a need for central direction in which financial, legal, and professional services are concentrated within a common locale. Cities have made free trade much easier to accomplish, they have facilitated a new international division of labor, and they have absorbed waves of migration (Kresl, P.K, 1994; Sassen, S., 1994; Glickman, N. J., 1985 11 ). According to Savitch, H.V., and Kantor, P. (2002) Globalism is an encompassing concept, it covers a broad rage of activities, and it has brought both positive and negative results . Despite the general hope that globalization might represent a compelling way to bring political stability around the world, this is in fact far from the truth as the twenty-first century has been characterized thus far by economic, social and political disorder. International terrorism, corporate scandals, and various ethnic and military conflicts have flourished, whereas globalization’s once-hailed promises of peace and prosperity have failed to deliver (Savir, U., 2003) . Globalization has left too many behind, both within and between societies, whereas technological advancements have improved life for many, the developing world still lacks basic necessities such as food, water and medicine. According to UN reports, at a time of record global prosperity nearly half of the least developed countries (LDCs) get less to eat than they did ten years ago and 840 million people live with daily hunger and an uncertain food supply. Almost a third of children in developing countries under age five are malnourished, and in the past decade,

10 http://www.unfpa.org 11 Quoted in Savitch, H.V. and Kantor, P. (2002), p. 15.

more than 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict (UNICEF 2001, State of the World’s Children). The world urgently needs a more complex approach to international stability, one which contends with both the effects and the nature of globalization, and addresses socio-economic imbalances and cultural differences. A new approach should be developed to incorporate global and local interests and to analyze both international opportunities and dangers. Global governance is not a realistic response, and existing forms of national governance barely produce change on a global scale when acting alone. Paradoxically in the global era, the one socio- political unit growing in power and able to respond to these new challenges are the cities (Savir, U., 2003). In brief, globalization is reshaping the regions where urban areas are located and is contributing to increase the participation of cities pointing out the receding of the Nation-States in the international relations through their involvement in different international organizations, transnational city networks and bilateral relations.

Decentralization In the international scenario, among the transformations that have influenced the decision- making process, it is important to highlight the reduction of centrality of the Nation- State. Dente and Lo Sciavo (2001) summarize a number of inter-related factors that can explain this situation 12 : • The creation of the European Union and the capacity of the EU to influence on national politics (environmental, monetary, transport politics, etc) have had a direct effect on the relation between the national governments members and their autonomous territories. Many of the programs and EU politics have as direct interlocutor the regions, provinces and local entities, passing over the States • The decentralization of the State as consequence of the inefficient decisions taken at the central level referring to local issues • The more inter-dependence of the different agents (political and private actors among other)

12 See also Bobbio, L. (2002) Il governi locali nelle democrazie contemporanee where the author describes the factors that have lead to decentralization: the end of the dictatorships, the ethnic or national issue, the crisis of the welfare state, and the pressure of rich areas.

• The crisis in the representation form and in the national institutions such as political parties, trade unions, etc Within this context, decentralization appears as an instrument for “administrating and governing the diversity” and thus the local institutions are appreciated because they are closer to the citizens’ needs (Cabeza, M., 2004, p. 16) . The transformation occurred in the international scenario, the emerging of new actors that interact with the State and the new role of the sub national entities, like cities, make a new international situation. According to the World Bank staff (2000) “countries everywhere are devolving political, fiscal, and administrative powers to sub national tiers of government” (World Bank 2000, p. 107). Today, the State’s role, although still important, has significantly changed largely due to the decentralization process (Lefevre, C., 2003). Therefore, there is a worldwide trend towards decentralization (Dillinger, W., 1994) . As Stren, R. (2003) explains, “by decentralization we mean the transfer of significant powers and functions, along with fiscal responsibility to carry out these powers and functions, from the national to the local level of government”. He continues: For this transfer to be meaningful, Mawhood, P. argues, the decentralized local body should have its own budget, a separate legal existence, and the authority to allocate substantial resources on a range of different functions, the decisions being made by representatives of the local people (Mawhood, P., 1983, 9-10). In federal States, decentralization may involve both the transfer of powers and functions from the national to the State or provincial level, as well as the transfer of powers and functions from the State or provincial level to the local. In both unitary and federal systems, the essential point is that local authorities (no matter how they are defined) are strengthened. To summarize this section it is important to mention that the processes of globalization, European integration and decentralization contribute to develop a more active participation of the local authorities in the international scenario.

1.2 Cities’ international strategies Cities have responded to Europeanization, Globalization and Decentralization by adapting in various ways. After having explained how and why they act in such a manner, we offer a general framework in order to understand the international strategies and activities of cities, such as Para diplomacy, networking, big events, decentralized cooperation, etc. This frame is presented in order to insert the DC activities within a general overview of the cities’ strategies.

As we pointed out above (Section 1.1), the processes of Globalization, Europeanization and Decentralization, have reshaped the Nation-State, particularly by the pressure exercised by the sub national level that led local actors in Europe to act as relevant agents of cooperation in the international scenario. In this sense, the international activism of the sub national authorities has two main institutional consequences (at two different levels) in the internationalization of cities and regions: 1) Supranational level: Cities participate in the international scenario through their involvement in the international organizations (for instance EU) 2) Regional or Sub national level: Active participation of local governments and main agencies for local development in external activities. This last situation can be represented by 5 different mechanisms or instruments for the internationalization of cities among others:

• Para diplomacy • Networks • Participation in international events • Decentralized Cooperation

A broad range of activities fall under the international strategies of cities, all of them sharing a commitment to work directly between and among cities, base on the fundamental premise that cities have a great deal to learn from and teach to each other and that cities are the best judges of their own needs and priorities. The international strategies of the cities differ, however, in many important ways, reflecting the tremendous diversity of interests, purposes, institutions, resources, and situations. The challenge here is to present a general framework for the international strategies of the cities where DC activities are situated, within this context, as one kind of cities’ instruments. The Figure 1.1 displays the general framework for understanding the decentralized cooperation activities. This figure shows a wide circle with the mechanisms by which Europeanization, Globalization and Decentralization affect the behavior of the cities within the international context. As we showed, cities play an active role in the above mentioned processes trying to adapt themselves to a new, dynamical and always evolving international situation. The multilevel governance (with the emergence of European Union and regional level governments) suggests that governing has become a more complex task. Local governments not

simply have to cooperate with other levels of government but also mediate and lobby local and regional, national and supra-national authorities. Moreover, the globalizing economy and the emergence of networks has motivated local government to create a supportive and facilitative environment in order to work in partnership with other actors in the field, such as the private sector and also the non-profit associations (Castells, M., 1997, p.15) . Additionally, decentralization reforms have partly emptied State abilities by transferring many political, legal and financial resources to sub national governments. Such a loss of autonomy and capacity on the part of States has therefore given rise to speculations about the end of State sovereignty, opening up new perspectives for sub national territories, besides enhancing competition among them. Faced with such new challenges, the international strategies of the cities have to adjust themselves to satisfy these external constraints. These bounded politics are illustrated by the medium circle in Figure 1.1. At this point the question of how the cities work is still more complex to analyze considering that they compete and cooperate in an international system. The need to attract investments and innovations is part of the game, but at the same time the specialization of cities and the share of common interests enhance the cooperation among them. Hence, urban networks, the participation in big events like the Olympics Games, decentralized cooperation, etc. constitute a key feature of modern spatial structures, creating logic of interdependencies among them and taking part in a globalize economy. These kinds of mechanisms allow cities to enhance their competitiveness and cooperativeness. Finally, the smallest circle in Figure 1.1 represents our object of study: the decentralized cooperation activities. As we mentioned before, our current interest in the DC approach needs to be seen within a wider discussion of the changing institutional and policy environment of cooperation in developed countries, and in particular, of the renewed interest in participatory approaches to development. In the following section we outline the evolution of participatory approaches in development cooperation, from the post-independence (focus on centralist models of development) to the search for alternative ways to address development challenges of economic decline, rapid urbanization, deepening poverty, and environmental degradation. We also clarify the research concept of decentralized cooperation , how this concept has been approached from different perspectives and their variants in each case. This provides the basis and rationale for the presentation and analysis of Rome and Madrid in the following chapters.

Figure 1.1 . General framework for understanding DC activities.

Globalization Europeanization Decentralization

Cities’ international strategies and activities Adaptation

Decentralised Cooperation

(Meaning and explanation)

DC as a peculiar form of international participation: Conceptualization During the 1980s, European countries entered a far-reaching process of political, economic and institutional reforms, which has transformed the institutional and policy environment within which development takes place. These reforms were a response to a mix of internal and external pressures for change, representing an assault on the development State which had, for nearly three decades, assumed the leading role in managing development and excluding other actors in society. These reform processes, though far from complete, has resulted in the gradual dismantling of the centralist model of development, and in doing so has created conditions for a more participatory development approach. From outside, the ending of the Cold War and the discrediting of the socialist model in the 1990s, created space for neo-liberal and liberal-democratic ideology to influence the change process across the continent (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000) . The institutional context of development has therefore changed dramatically over the past decade, and new more participatory forms of governance are beginning to emerge. The role of the State in development has changed (less doing, more facilitating) and greater responsibility is placed on an approach which values the participation of different actors towards achieving common development goals. As a consequence, the State “formerly the exclusive recipient, partner and rationale for international aid lost its most favored status” (Doornbos, M., 1990). To respond to these changes, and to support these processes,

development agencies have been looking for new innovative modes of development cooperation (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000) . It is within this perspective that the discussion on decentralized cooperation can be examined.

Definition of Decentralized Cooperation 13 Decentralization from the point of view of public administration manifests itself as a transfer of power from major institutions towards smaller scale centers. Centering in the field of development cooperation and according to Desmet, A. and Develtere, P. (2002) a general definition of decentralized cooperation consists of a direct funding from well established developed to undeveloped countries through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), sub national authorities and supra-national official donors (European Commission, UNDP, World Bank). As we mentioned above, during the 1980s the centralist, top-down approach to cooperation was challenged. The decentralization and democratization processes created space for direct involvement of civil society actors. In other words, the civil and public service reforms and the sector policy reforms (in order to achieve fiscal savings) sought to redefine State responsibilities, clarify roles and achieve higher standards of performance (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000) . These processes have included the shedding of functions to non-governmental actors, and have given rise to a wider recognition of the potential benefits of a more participatory approach to development management. The legitimate role of civil society and the private sector in participating in the formulation and the execution of policy has been increasingly accepted. Institutional pluralism, participatory development and decentralization became the new buzzwords. In addition, particularly in western countries, a strong attention to the problems of development and international cooperation has been given at the grass-roots level. Citizens organized in associations, groups or NGOs representing the civil society, have taken the initiative and concrete actions towards less developed countries or countries in emergency affected by either natural or man-made disasters. Traditionally the international development cooperation has been seen as the concern of international agencies, national governments, institutional experts and consultants. But, it is now increasingly being recognized

13 Understanding the need to be flexible for such a complex issue as DC, we think it is useful to give a general definition of DC, which does not pretend anyway to be comprehensive of other ones or to detract from their legitimacy.

that cities, local governments and other local institutions have a major potential contribution to make international programs of development cooperation via decentralized cooperation. Although it is difficult to exanimate all the reasons that lead to the adoption of decentralized cooperation actions, it is possible to indicate some factors that facilitated its development:

• Political and economical transformations: Political reform also embraced a renewed interest in political and administrative decentralization, with several countries moving to devolve powers to locally elected and accountable administrations. In terms of the economy, State control was replaced by greater reliance on the market. Privatization, deregulation, and macro-economic adjustment redefined the roles of the public and private sectors in economic management (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000) • New role of the State : Central governments were not able to control the determination process of development policy. From this point of view, the development is rather a process of learning instead of something closed and rigid. Decentralization, democracy and participation of diverse actors allow valorizing the local knowledge, integrating the necessities of the smallest communities (Sota Ramos, J., 2001, p. 3) • Limitations of the "top-down” approach : This limitation manifest itself for example in the difficulty to work with the African bureaucracies, often synonymous of lack of transparency. Therefore, the adoption of decentralized cooperation permit to obtain greater benefits, arriving directly at the true beneficiaries of the development processes and breaking the monopolistic use of the resources, developing the local capacities (Sota Ramos, J., 2001, p. 3) According to Rhi-Sausi, J. L. (2001 ) decentralized cooperation acts as a laboratory where actors seek to apply an original approach to problems that are presently at the centre of development policies, such as the relations between governmental and non-governmental activities, among central and sub national levels of public administration, between the rules of market and the demand for social solidarity. In other words, decentralized cooperation appears as an innovative mechanism to give answers to the inherent weaknesses of the “top-down” development cooperation programs. DC is by no means a new instrument, but a different approach, complementing the traditional methods of planning and implementing cooperation. This different approach of DC shows how cities (and other institutions) work together on

defining their problems and devising appropriate solutions on the basis of shared experience among peer groups. This is increasingly recognized as a powerful means of advancing collective know-how and improving governance at the local level ( City-to-City Cooperation, 2002, p. 8). Since 1980s cities started carrying out DC activities aiming to complement the traditional top- down approaches which had too often left unworkable solutions behind them. Cities and their associations have stated their wish to participate in drawing up the rules for future international programs and to engage in sustained dialogue with the international community about development priorities and approaches. Therefore, the direct participation of cities in the international cooperation arena allowed the creation of a different approach known as decentralized cooperation that has become a common feature for international developing cooperation in recent years. In brief, decentralized cooperation policies are based upon the principle of partnership and joint working between public authorities, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations, cooperatives, the private sector, and the informal sector. Table 1.2 summaries the main characteristics of the decentralized cooperation in contrast to the traditional cooperation programs.

Table 1.2. Comparative conceptual analysis of decentralized cooperation.

Cities and regions are the main actors State as main actor Active role of the civil Traditional Decentralized society Cooperation Cooperation Bottom up perspective Top Down Or Perspective Peer to peer

It is also important to stress that decentralized cooperation is a popular concept with different meanings and it tends to be used in different ways by different organizations. Two main trends are relevant to this discussion. The first relates to the use of the term in the context of the European development cooperation. The second refers to the use of this concept by many European countries, particularly Spain and Italy.

Different views about decentralized cooperation 14 . For the European Union, decentralized cooperation activities are “a different approach in the cooperation relations that look for establishing direct relations with the local representation organs and to stimulate its own capacities to project and to carry out initiatives of development with the direct participation of the interested groups of population, taking in consideration their interests and points of view on development” (EC, 1992). In other words, for the European Community, DC is a development method (not a specific instrument), through which public funds (in particular those of the Lomé Convention 15 ) support decentralized agents (NGOs and other associations working for development of populations, representative local authorities) in their initiative in designing and managing local sector development programs. Therefore, this concept of decentralized cooperation emerged and gradually took shape also as part of European Community’s policy at the end of the 80’s. Decentralized cooperation, as set out in the introductory chapters to Lomé IV, can be applied to any of the standard instruments of financial, technical and economic cooperation. It covers all the EU's target regions for development cooperation: the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP), the overseas countries and territories (OCT), Asian and Latin American countries (ALA), and the Mediterranean. In this respect, the European Union (EU) is just one among many bilateral and multilateral aid agencies now rethinking its priorities and development instruments. Table 1.3 sums up the main characteristic of the decentralized cooperation at the European Union level.

14 The term decentralized cooperation, was initially used in relation to an innovation in French development cooperation. Targeting decentralized actors in developing countries, especially regional and municipal government, development resources were change through counterpart in France (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000, p. 6). 15 The Lomé IV Convention introduced the concept of Decentralized Cooperation in 1989. In the mid-term review the concept was further regrouped into Title III (Development Finance Co-operation), Chapter 2, Section 4a. The four subsequent articles (Article 251a-e) attempted to shed more light on the concept of decentralized cooperation. Contrary to other donor agencies, the Lomé Convention payment procedures for European Development Funds (EDF) do not differentiate between recipients. The National Initiative Programs (NIPs) are given lump sum allocations in which the recipient countries then define the areas of concentration for which a certain percentage of the EDF allocation is then earmarked. In the case of the Lomé Convention, the over-ruling principle of the Convention is that the Convention is a State to State agreement. Hence, any activity that utilizes these funds would have to seek the endorsement of the Government, civil society activities included.

Table 1.3. Essential features of decentralized cooperation in the EU ( Source: Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000).

Put the actors at the centre of EU development cooperation

• broaden the range of actors (not only NGO's but other decentralized actors or non- profit private sector organizations); • decentralized actors are in the 'driving seat' (promoting ownership and responsibility); • a special emphasis on capacity development (empowerment).

Adopt participatory and programmatic process approaches

• away from isolated initiatives in the form of micro projects; promoting a strategic and programmatic approach; • fora for genuine expression/participation of actors ('neutral spaces'); • define respective roles and responsibilities of different actors (e.g. local authorities and NGO's); • search for complementarities and joint action (e.g. different actors pooling roles, resources and capacities in a 'common basket'), both in formulation and implementation.

Improve the articulation between public sector and civil society

• put decentralized actors in the 'driving seat' while ensuring linkages with government policies and actors; • search for new partnerships based on comparative advantages.

Introduce more flexible and decentralized management

• delegate management responsibilities (such as program design and implementation) to decentralized actors with due respect to the principles of subsidiary, governance and financial accountability; • a strong focus on capacity development; • plan and execute activities in an iterative way.

Ensure that the population remains the final beneficiary

• 'result-oriented' monitoring and evaluation adapted to the decentralized cooperation philosophy; • focus on 'process' results such as improved organizational capacity of civil society or greater empowerment.

For the Italian government, decentralized cooperation refers to the international development cooperation projects financed by local governments’ levels (regions and municipalities). In other words, the Italian model of decentralized cooperation sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refers to systematic cooperation links between local communities in donor countries and local communities in countries where multilateral human development initiatives are being implemented. In this context, local communities refer to a decentralized political-administrative level of a country such as municipality, or groups of towns. Two meanings of decentralized cooperation are commonly used in Spain. First, related to agencies or institutions that do not belong to the Central Administration. They are international Organizations and Civil society from developing or developed countries (Abad Castelos, M., 2004). Secondly is related to decentralized and local public governments. These last decentralized public governments are important in Spanish cooperation case. Our specific case study uses both conceptions, so it is a case study of decentralized departmental government cooperation where NGOs have an important role in both cities, Rome and Madrid. Moreover, as we show in Chapter 4, a comparative analysis of Spaniard and Italian decentralized cooperation shows the same geographical map at the national and local levels. In the case of Italian ODA 16 , particular attention has been paid to neighboring countries (the Balkans and Mediterranean) 17 . Led by national geo-political priorities, this trend is in line with the decentralized cooperation activities carry out by the Italian local bodies (regions and cities). In the case of Spain, it has a comparative advantage in its assistance to Latin America with strong linguistic, historical, and cultural ties 18 . This can also be applied to the Spanish decentralized cooperation programs through the autonomous regions, municipalities and other local bodies (See Table 1.4).

16 The definition of ODA, coined by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, is “grants or loans –undertaken by the official sector; with promotion of economic development or welfare as main objectives; at concessional financial terms (if a loan, at least 25 percent grant element)”. See Stokke, p.18. 17 For more information on Italy: Debt reduction fails to reverse downward trend (Carlotta Aiello, José Luis Rhi- Sausi and Marco Zupi, CeSPI ) see: http://www.realityofaid.org 18 For more information on Spain Development Co-operation Review: Main Findings and Recommendations see: www.oecd.org

Table 1.4. Geographical distribution of decentralized cooperation activities. The relative relevance of each cooperation activity is indicated in an obvious way (Source: Stocchiero, A., Frattolillo, O. e Gonella, N.2000; DGCS; Stocchiero, A. 2001; Aguirre, M. and Rey, F. 2000; Consejalia de Empleo y Servicio al ciudadano, 2002; Freres, C. and Cabo, C., 2003. Note: Regional: Lazio region and autonomous community of Madrid; Local: Municipality of Rome and Madrid).

National (ODA) Regional Local Ibero America Ibero America Ibero America North Africa North Africa North Africa Sub- Sub- Sub- Saharan Africa Saharan Africa Saharan Africa Spain Asia and Middle East Middle East

Mediterranean and Mediterranean and Mediterranean the Balkans the Balkans and the Balkans North Africa North Africa Italy Middle East Palestine Asia

1.3 The decentralized cooperation model In recent years European cities have become increasingly involved in international cooperation projects with partner municipalities located in other parts of the world. As it has been previously shown (Materu, J.; Land, T.; Hauck, V. and Knight, J., 2000; Nickson A., 2004; UN- Habitat 2001) , such initiatives may bring real benefits to municipalities in developing countries in terms of improved structures of local governance, facilities and services to citizens. Although a considerable number of studies have been devoted to analyze the direct benefits of a DC cooperation program for the recipient countries, much less attention has been paid so far to the motivations of donor European municipalities in such involvement (Hewitt, W.E., 1999, pp. 312-313.). In the present research we attempt to fill this gap addressing the issue of incentives to adopt decentralized cooperation activities in donor’s cities. In order to do that we introduce a theoretical framework necessary to understand the role and impact of the different relevant factors to carry out decentralized cooperation activities. Let’s start defining probably the most common dominant factor, the domestic concern . This terminology refers to domestic problems that donor cities have, such as geo-political

stability, economic promotion or migration flows, which eventually justify the development of aid programs through DC activities. As it is defined here, this movement does not involve any kind of altruism among states but rather is primarily driven by self-interest motivations. In other words, although donor assistance often may provides substantial benefits for the recipients, many aid programs are designed mainly to address the domestic problems of the donor cities (Hecox, E., 1999, Connolly, B. 1996) . Yet a two-win situation where the interest of the donor is also for the best of the recipient might also occur. However, this is not always the case, and when donor and recipient objectives do diverge, donor interests will prevail (Keohane and Levy, 1996) . Indeed, under these circumstances donors are the ones who determine which problems deserve to receive aid or the solutions to implement (Keohane, R. and Levy, M., 1996). In general terms, international negotiations involve a two-level game in which national constituencies compete in the formation of national positions and those national positions are then advanced in international negotiations 19 . An obvious drawback of the previously described unbalanced cooperation is that in many cases developing countries end up resolving problems that are not important for them such as migration flows from developing to developed countries. At the time of judging any DC activity, however, we must be cautious, since there is a natural (by definition) asymmetry in terms of power. As we will show along this thesis, domestic factors are not sufficient to explain the conduct of donor cities involved in decentralized cooperation activities. This is just a consequence of the fact that not only economical, cultural and security reasons are considered, but also symbolic politics play an important role. For instance, the over-advertising of an aid campaign by certain politicians in disproportion with the actual budget designated for that particular help or the way in which the international actions respond in a generalized manner to the strategies of the political actors (mainly the Mayors) in order to put the city in the international scenario. This kind of attitudes is what we define as symbolic politics . Indeed, political symbols may play an important role as an instrument used by rulers or parties to gain political support by influencing the public opinion or competing elites (Bjola, C., 2000, p. 11) . It can be concluded that, although difficult to quantify, the symptoms of an incipient symbolic

19 See Putman, R. (1988) “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games,” International Organization 427; and Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Peter B. Evans et al., eds., 1993).

politics are: the discourses on poverty alleviation, the exaggerated media coverage or any kind of promotion of the city through the cooperation programs. All those factors will be examined in the next chapters in relation with the decentralized cooperation activities of Rome and Madrid.

Defining the dependent and independent variables We adapted the Savitch and Kantor’s variables: “driving and steering” in order to present our model. Originally these variables arose from the metaphor of an automobile, where the drive train furnishes power to propel the vehicle, while manipulation of the steering mechanism puts the vehicle on its actual route (Savitch, H.V., and Kantor, P., 2002). In our case, Geographic proximity, Historic-cultural links and Economic interest act as “driving variables” whereas Strengthen legitimacy, Political visibility and Local leaderships are designated as “steering variables”. The driving concept helps us to identify component variables closely connected to structural circumstances; the steering resources, as endogenous resources, can therefore influence a city’s bargaining leverage. Moreover, steering resources enable cities to tap local activism and public opinion in order to sustain and direct their strategies. Each set of variables play distinct, though complementary roles in the development process. By examining their interplay it is possible to highlight what, if anything, city governments’, cities can do to alter their trajectories of development. This also enables us to compare the constraints on policy choices in different cities and to explain why particular cities take different policy roads. During our research we will attempt to answer the following questions: What are the motivations of Madrid and Rome municipalities to get involved in decentralized cooperation activities? Does a symbolic politics or domestic concern strategy prevail within the policy of DC? In order to address these questions we try to isolate the different variables that might explain the decentralized cooperation activities of Madrid and Rome. The following working variables can be advanced: The kind of “policy orientation”: Symbolic politics vs. Domestic concern is the dependent variable. It means what are the priorities in DC, which is the prevailing aim and how this affects the different programs and actions. The independent or explanatory variables are related to the motivations behind the cities’ actions and can be summarize through six factors (See Figure 1.2): • Geographic proximity . This variable has to do with the geopolitical position of the two cities and of Italy and Spain. Then the question is about how and why this geopolitical position

has (or not) an impact on the policy orientation of the city. We quantify this variable by measuring the fraction of the number of projects that each city has with their neighbors to the rest of the (non-neighboring) cities. • Historic-cultural links . We analyses the existing links of Rome and Madrid with other cities and countries (independently from to DC activities) that may explain the way a strategy of international relations is built and then the number of programs that cities carry out with them (which is part of the policy orientation). This variable indicates the trend of a given community to help cities which have a historical and cultural link with it, e.g. the rate of the number of programs that cities carry on with their ex colonies to those with the rest the developing world. • Economic interest . This variable is part of the policy network of DC activities. In this sense, it means that the actors involved in the policy are an important independent variable that can explain the policy orientation. For example, as far as the civil society's role in DC policy networks is concerned, if economic actors are prevailing over no-profit NGOs (or the contrary) this may be expected to have an impact on the policy orientation. The nature of cities' bodies and administrations involved in DC may have the same meaning and effect. Also here we examine which are the economic benefits for a certain city and also for the other actors involved in the considered cooperation activities. We analyze the amount of jobs, educational studies and NGOs that are created in that particular cooperation. • Strengthening legitimacy . Political symbols are also used for reinforcing perceptions of the basic legitimacy of the political regime or incumbent leadership by tying it with certain symbolic representations (Bjola, C., 2000, p. 12). Thus, for many political elites adoption of decentralized cooperation programs with the LDCs in order to fight against the poverty are perceived as expedient means for bolstering domestic legitimacy, in spite of the relative insignificant importance of these two acts in economic and political terms. In order to quantify this variable we use as an indicator the number of aid programs and their destination. In this way it is possible to contrast the number of aid programs and the budget involved that each city designates to some of the well defined LDCs with that spent on richer countries. • Political Visibility . We measure this variable via the media coverage. Even thought media coverage is not part of the policy orientation, it can be considered as a side effect of the actually pursued strategy and actions. Media coverage as an indicator of leadership political visibility (which is part of the expected outcome of a symbolic politics) quantifies the relative weight of

the aid devoted to big catastrophes with a clear media impact (typically occurring in a very short time scale) to that assigned to permanent humanitarian crisis. • Local leaderships. This variable explains how the personalities of the actors influence the choices and therefore the internationalization strategies of the cities. In order to assess this variable we analyses the local political elites in Rome and Madrid, and essentially the figure of the Mayor. This variable is crucial in order to understand the policy orientation of the two cities. Most of the above defined variables indicate the contrast or relative weight between two possible targets. As expected, in many cases, the definitions are not separated by a sharp boundary but rather some degree of overlap is inevitable.

Figure 1.2 . Operationalization of variables.

Geographical Oriented to Driving Domestic Historical and cultural Variables Politics

Economical

Instrument Mechanism DC Strengthening legitimacy of the cities and actors

Steering Political Visibility Variables Local leaderships Oriented to Symbolic Politics

Chapter 2 The City of Rome

Rome is the largest city in extension and populations of Italy, and it is also the headquarter of the Lazio Region and the Province of Rome. As a capital city Rome has a certain degree of political internationalization coming from the sub national government, local organizations, economic and civil society actors that are engaged in international actions, each of them using different instruments and motivated by unlike purposes. Within these context four different levels of governing bodies must be considered: the Region, the Province, the City of Rome and its 19 sub-municipalities, resulting from the decentralization policy of the city. Indeed, the role of the sub national actors has recently been strengthened by two major reforms: a) the direct election of Mayors in all sub-national governments in 1993 and b) the re-introduction of a substantial amount of tax autonomy. Municipal governments are still at the heart of the Italian decentralized system of government. As in most other countries, they are responsible for typical urban policies, such as town planning and zoning, transport, traffic control, water provision, street lighting and cleaning, garbage collection and disposal and a growing number of social, cultural and leisure services. With respect to the international activities carried out by the above mentioned actors, it is worth mentioning that they have been neither competitive nor actually coordinated, but coexistent and parallel, even if strongly differentiated as far as weight and importance in the political agenda are concerned (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 2). The demographic, economic, political and administrative prevalence of the core city 20 explains why there can be no real competition between its international actions and those of other actors: the City of Rome is the strongest institutional actor, who can speak on behalf of the city, both to economic interests and inter/supranational political power. Therefore, there is no question about the major importance of its international activities (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 3). This chapter is devoted to study the international activities of Rome; we mainly focus on the decentralized cooperation actions of the city and the way each Mayor include it in their

20 Demographically the central city of Rome is the half of the region and 75% of the Province, and it also represents the 80% of the regional GPD, 74% of employed, 72% of firms, among which the most innovative. The central city’s government also has the most important governing power within the different tiers of sub national government.

political agenda. Also, we describe the institution in charge of decentralized cooperation activities and the main characteristics of this policy such as the legislation on DC, the intergovernmental relations (IGR), the financial resources, as well as the instruments and modality of decentralized cooperation.

2.1 The international strategy of Rome As we mentioned above, within the city itself there are rather several lines of action, as many actors carry out international activities, each of them motivated by a peculiar strategy and using different instruments. In the field of decentralized cooperation, we can see the presence of the municipality of Rome in the different EU programs. Those programs allow at the municipal level some important organizational changes in the implementation and management of EU projects which have proved to be quite relevant for the city (institutional impact/ capacity building) and also in order to obtain some funds from the EU. In particular, EU financial resources have helped to institutionalize and formalize cooperation networks among Comuni , Province and social actors. These social actors (like NGOs, research groups, universities, etc) are undertaking a process of profound innovation, since they have understood the importance of a horizontal network at a sub national level in order to profit not only from the unexploited territorial resources, but also from EU funds. Recently, major initiatives in local development cooperation have been taken by municipal institutional and social actors, these programs have led to policy network coalitions which were able not only to “get together” and apply for EU funds, but also to discuss and find agreements on common development strategies within the territory of Rome (e.g. URBAL program) 21 . In the same way, the municipality of Rome through

21 URBAL is a horizontal decentralized cooperation program of the European Commission, aimed at cities, conurbations and regions of the European Union and Latin America. The Program, operational since 1996, has involved 650 cities and local communities of the EU and Latin America. The Municipality of Rome participates in the following thematic networks: •The city as promoter of economic development (Network 4) •Ambient city (Network 6) •Fight against poverty within cities (Network 10) •City and society of information (Network 13) This program is under the XV Department of Roma City “Economy and Development” (Interview with Doctor Luca Lo Bianco, XV Department of Roma City, Decentralized Cooperation/ URBAL).

ECOMED 22 participates in EU Commission’s Programs and operates organisms in the Mediterranean (e.g. Med-Urbs Program) 23 . Moreover, the municipality of Rome is involved in projects or programs promoted and/or managed from international organizations in the field of decentralized cooperation. In particular, the UNOPS (Ufficio delle Nazioni Unite per i Servizi ed i Progetti)/ PDHL (programmi di sviluppo umano a livello local), the World Bank Municipal Development Program, the feeding world-wide day promoted by FAO, the IFAD (International Found for Agricultural development) fighting desertification program, etc. This indicates that in the case of Italy, a peculiar aspect of Italian decentralized cooperation is the high percentage of Italian aid via multilateral channels (65% in 1998). Furthermore, Italy implements part of its bilateral programs through the multilateral channels by contributing liberally to trust funds, to multilateral-bilateral projects 24 , and to other multilateral mechanisms 25 . While the presence of Spanish decentralized administration in the international organizations for development is modest and little effective. In sharp contract with Rome where the history of Italian decentralized cooperation has thus become interwoven and, more recently, largely confused with the various United Nations agencies (Ianni, V., 2002). In the case of Spain there is an increase of bilateral grants. This increase has been the result of larger budget resources for the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation projects and programs (AECI), a rapidly growing amount of debt relief and the rise in aid provided by the autonomous regions and municipalities via their active decentralized cooperation activities 26 . In addition, it is also worth analyzing how DC appears as an international activity used by the Mayors in order to compete and cooperate in the global scenario. Here we show how the nature of DC in Madrid and Rome can be explained through the nature of the overall city’s

22 ECOMED is founded by the city of Rome. It is an agency for the sustainable development in the Mediterranean. This agency has been promoted by the Rome’s Mayor in 1995 as a reference structure for cooperation between Mediterranean cities and the political promotion and technological innovation in the environmental field. It is financed by AMA (Azienda Municipale Ambiente) and ACEA (Azienda Comunale Energia e Ambiente)/ Companies of publics’ services. 23 Interview with Franco La Torre, Director of ECOMED Agency, Municipality of Roma, Decentralized Cooperation. 24 Multibilateral cooperation is an operating instrument used to create a connection between the activities of multilateral bodies and cooperation programs implemented on a bilateral level. Multibilateral aid is defined as initiatives agreed to and financed at a bilateral level, but entrusted to a specialised Agency or international body for execution. 25 http://www.esteri.it 26 http://www.oecd.org

international strategy. Indeed, the strategy of the Mayors rules over all the other coexisting activities and impose a general coherence (D’Albergo, E., 2005). In this sense, it can be see how the international actions (Para-diplomacy, communitarian programs, decentralized cooperation, city networks, etc) respond in a generalized manner to the strategies of the political actors. Now we concentrate in the role played by the Mayors of Rome in the field of decentralized cooperation. In the case of Rome, the former Mayor Francisco Rutelli carried out a prevailing strategy based on the economic promotion of the city, while the current Mayor Walter Veltroni focuses more on the world-wide solidarity and the social sustainability problems 27 . It is necessary to notice that these strategies are not mutually exclusive neither incompatible one with each other. Rutelli and Veltroni have, in fact, pursued different strategies of internationalization because they govern the city in different moments. Rutelli, chose to improve the image of the city through the economic promotion, mainly via the instruments of the European planning and the network participation, whereas Veltroni, has changed direction and has decided to move towards the world-wide solidarity. This does not mean that Veltroni has abandoned the idea of economic promotion of the previous Mayor but he has decided to open the doors also to other topics of similar relevance. During the first (1993-1997) and the second (1997-2001) administration of Rutelli the decentralized cooperation projects were mainly related with the geo-political stability and priority of the city (Ex Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Serbia), along with projects related to poverty (Mozambique and Zambia) and humanitarian help (Nicaragua and Jubilee 2000). However during this period there was not much emphasis in the fight against poverty 28 . This attitude coincides with the greatest transformation of the Italian political system after the World War II. At this time Rutelli was elected, with new “presidential” power, within a new “bipolar” political system and supported by a centre-left wing political coalition, which also was a political change for Rome 29 . During this phase in the balance between the economic and the political dimensions

27 Further information about the international strategy of Rome see: D’Albergo, E. (2005) “The politics of Rome’s international strategies”, Department Innovazione e Società, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, CITTA-ESF Meeting, June 10-11, Zurich. 28 This point will be analised in details when we study the motivations that the city of Rome has in order to develop a decentralised cooperation policy. 29 Since 1985 to 1992 political power in Rome was subjected to the internal struggle within a fragmented centre coalition, with many mayors, belonging to the Christian Democrats and the Socialist party. In 1992 a judicial tempest led to a general crisis of the Italian political system. The Mayor of Rome himself (Carraro, Socialist Party) resigned in 1993, as four deputy mayors had been arrested for bribery. For some months Rome was governed by an extraordinary Commissioner, appointed by the national government. The subsequent transformation started from

of the international strategy the weight was mostly on the economic side, while political actions were mainly oriented toward Europe, the Mediterranean and the “North” side of the world political environment. The 2004 Olympic candidacy and the 2000 Jubilee have been considered important opportunities for both making investments and bettering the international image of the city. (D’Albergo, E., 2005) . Subsequently, when W. Veltroni was elected Mayor of Rome 30 , the prevailing strategy has become mostly oriented toward the political dimension (even if not dumping economic issues), its geographic target also moved toward the “South”: Africa and the LDCs, the Mediterranean and the European Union ( D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 5). During the current administration of Veltroni, the Mayor is trying to involve more the participation of the city in projects concerning the poverty. Therefore, Rome is tied by cooperation programs with the city of Kigali, in Rwanda, and is financing the rebuilding of a school in Guinea Conakry. In brief, during the administration of Veltroni, DC appears as an instruments use by the political actors in order to gain not only economic resources but symbolic and above all political results. Furthermore, is worth mentioning the concordance between the civil society’s culture (also taking into account the presence of the Catholic Church), the UN agencies, and the political coalition of the Mayor 31 as an important condition for cooperation and political consent. This also helps to explain why so far the political dimension of the international strategy of Rome has been more imaginative and proactive than the economic one (D’Albergo, E., 2005). Therefore, the city of Rome appears as the ideal place to combine Christianity, peace, social justice and solidarity.

both new political parties (polarized on a centre-left and a centre-right coalition) and institutional reforms, first of all the direct election of mayors. In 1993 the first directly elected Mayor of Rome, F. Rutelli, was supported by a centre-left coalition (in the election he won against the nowadays right wing deputy Prime Minister G. Fini). He was confirmed on the first electoral turn in 1997, with a coalition enlarged to the neo-communist party, taking 60% of the votes, against a right wing coalition led by a local entrepreneur. 30 In 2001, the present Mayor W. Veltroni was elected at the first electoral turn as well, with the same enlarged centre-left coalition. 31 The two mayors (as well as some of their electoral opponents) share the important feature of being political personalities at the national level. Both Rutelli and Veltroni had been members of the Parliament before becoming members of the Rome city council. The former (who had supported environmentalist and laic, almost anti-clerical, political culture) would become in 2001 a candidate to the charge of prime minister. The latter had been Minister of Cultural heritage in the centre-left government and the national leader of the DS (Democrats of Left) Party. This linkage between the local and national political and governmental systems confirms a trend that began in the 1970s, at least for the biggest parties (Christian Democrats and Communists).

The political agenda As already noticed above, in the period 1994-2005 the international issues within the political agenda of the city- Mayor are characterized by the coexistence of two main dimensions, either of economical or political nature. When political actors of Rome portray the future of the city in their electoral programs both the political and economic internationalization of the city have an important place, however, when planning an international strategy these two factors do not have the same weight (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 5) . It is possible to measure the importance of decentralized cooperation in the political agenda of the current Mayor by the visibility of this activity. This refers mainly to the way and frequency in which one determined action is advertised in the local press (the Messenger, and the Republic). For instance, during Veltroni’s administration, the press emphasizes his frequent travels of solidarity and also the cultural activities, such as the decentralized cooperation actions with some African cities and initiatives like “the white night”. Although Veltroni has been involved in problems of world-wide solidarity and social sustainability (peace, solidarity and culture) in order to achieve political visibility 32 , no concrete actions (besides minor aims as the construction of one school in Maputo- Mozambique), have been observed. Indeed, a closer look at the amount of money spent in programs and projects to African and Latin American cities shows that the resources used on those projects are very modest. The local government has carried out only a few projects with African cities (5 projects with Sub Saharan Africa) and even less in Latin American (3 projects). The reason for this attitude is that the reduction of poverty is by no means the only motivation for his external participation. In addition, we should also take into account that the realization and implementation of projects and programs turn out to be much more difficult when the poverty reaches extremely low levels. Clearly, local governments have also other kind of motivations such as search for political visibility via humanitarian actions, the economic promotion of the city, the geo-political stabilization in the bordering area mainly due to possible conflict situation, migrations, uncontrolled illegal waves of people and goods, etc. All those elements are explained in detail in the flowing chapters.

32 Interview with Jose Luis Rhi- Sausi, Director of CeSPI (Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale), Rome.

The office for international relations During the period 1994-1997 (first mandate of Rutelli) the office for international relations depended directly from the Mayor himself. The functions of the office were the collection of data and documentation, the elaboration of proposals, and the coordination of functions assigned to other municipal offices regarding international aid. In this phase, the office was divided in to two sectors: (a) “Rome solidarity”, in charge of decentralized cooperation and international solidarity; (b) “EU policies and funding”. During the second mandate of Rutelli (1997-2000) international functions were distributed between two departments, each of them depending on a different deputy Mayor. One department was devoted to tourism, the 2000 Jubilee and International Relations being in charge of a politician belonging to the same political party and personally entrusted by the Mayor. Another department was dedicated to EU relations and EU funding (D’Albergo, E., 2005) . In 2001 when the new Mayor was elected, the intention of Veltroni was to play an influential role in the field of international activities by attempting to replace the office for international relations under his dependency. In fact, since 2001 the above mentioned office has been directly depending from the Mayor and the top manager of the office for international relations of the city of Rome is a state diplomat, entrusted by the Mayor and appointed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In brief, during the current administration of Veltroni, the office for international relations does not depend on a specific councillorship but it depends directly to the cabinet of the Mayor 33 . This change gives evidence to the importance of the political and cultural initiates of the Mayor.

2.2 Main characteristics of decentralized cooperation In this section we analyze the key features of the decentralized cooperation activities of Rome with regard to their capacity to act at the international level. Thus, decentralized cooperation presents a good opportunity to examine the restructuring of intergovernmental relations (IGR) between local and national levels of governments as consequence of the decentralization process. In particular, we provide an overall picture of the political and legislative framework of the Italian sub national administrations: regions and cities. Furthermore, we describe the institutional background of the relevant actions, providing indications on the

33 Interview with Patrizia Luzzatto, coordinate the sector “Decentralized Cooperation and International Solidarity” in the URI (International Relations Office in the Municipality of Rome).

modalities and financial resources allocated. Finally, special attention is given to liaison, concertation and operational mechanisms at the different levels of governments. Italian decentralized cooperation, which began in the mid-1990’s, is marked by a prevalently community-based approach, which sets it apart in Europe, but also internationally. In Italy, the varied declinations of decentralized cooperation stem from three main modalities, which are articulated, in turn, in numerous internal typologies (Ianni, V., 2002, pp. 24- 25) : Support modality , characterized by the co-financing of initiatives by local bodies 34 , NGO’s or other local actors, and by the adherence to advocacy activities; Horizontal modality , based on partnerships between two or three homologous actors from the North and South, which also include network activities (prevalently EU programs related to typologies of diverse actors and geographical areas: Asia, Latin America and the central and eastern European countries) Territorial modality , based on partnerships among organized communities from the North and South which have constituted the most important manifestations of decentralized cooperation linked to human development programs. In the case of Italy, it is the territorial (community-based) modality which has characterized the choices and itineraries followed thus far. Although not the only form available, it is the prevalent one and influences all of the others, as it best embodies and expresses Italy’s particular model of economic development, social organization and civic culture (Ianni V., 2002) . Thus, even when local bodies or the Italian regions participate in horizontal network programs, the prevailing community approach expresses itself in the strong relationship which the different projects tend to express with the territory. There is a clear gap which separates situations in North and Central Italy, from those in the South. Beyond and above the clientelistic aspect typical until recently of Italian politics at all levels, it is possible to distinguish between two different groups of regions in terms both of performance and popular esteem. Various studies have brought to light the consistently better performance of the Central and Northern regions vis-à-vis the Southern ones (Leonardi, R., Nanetti, R. and Putnam, R., 1985; Putnam, R., 1993 ; Savitch, H.V and Kantor, P., 2002). This gap reflects a historical, economical and social cleavage which weighs on national development

34 In keeping with the usage of the MFA, this thesis uses such terminology to refer to a whole series of decentralized authorities that make up the Italian administrative system of sub-national and regional governments, local entities, provinces and municipalities.

and is reflected not only in the different financial resources available, but also the different planning capacities and types of expenditures. In other words, the reasons for this are varied and have been traced back to different levels of economic development, uneven distribution of resources, historical traditions and, more recently, different degrees of “civic-ness”, measured in terms of active participation in democratic and political associations, trust and solidarity, community values and political equality (Putnam, R. 1993, pp. 86-120) . Indeed, the lack of specific legislation or norms for decentralized cooperation in three southern Regions is an explicit indication of the difficulties which such cooperation encounters in attempting to establish it more firmly (See Figure 2.1). Cultural factors, the precariousness of the administrative-bureaucratic “hinterland”, the weakness of acting through groups and associations, difficulties in networking and a continuous state of emergency hinder the start-up of local development processes based on that strategic North-South linkage which is intrinsic to the vision of co-development which characterizes the decentralized approach (Ianni, V., 2002).

Figure 2.1. Normative frame on decentralized cooperation in Italy ( Source: OICS).

Normative Frame on Decentralized CooperationQUADRO NORMATIVO DELLA

Communitarian National Regulations and Regional Law the possibility of Legislation (All the access to several Law n. 49 /87 and regions and lines of EU autonomous Deliberations of (PHARE, Provinces but CICS, n. 12/89 and CARDS, MEDA, Campania, MAE Calabria and INTERREG, (14/3/2000). Etc.) Sicilia)

Legislation on decentralized cooperation The regulatory framework governing the developing cooperation schemes of Italian regions (over 20, plus two autonomous provinces) and other local administrations (100 provinces and over 800 cities) includes national laws and associates delegated enforcement regulations as well as regional laws, which lay down the scopes of action of individual regional councils in this field. Development cooperation by local Italian governing bodies is regulated by two national laws (Law no. 49 of 1987 and Law no. 68 of 1993), a series of norms for their application and regional legislation. Although at the late 80’s, the law no. 49 was intended to give an important role to the civil society, regions, autonomous provinces and municipalities, at that time the decentralization was far from being completely developed. Later on, the Law no. 68 identifies a wider platform of eligible participants in government-sponsored co-development actions and empowers the National Association of Italian Cities (ANCI) and the Union of Italian Provinces (UPI) “to implement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) cooperation programs in developing countries” and with the General Directorate for Development Cooperation ( DGDC) “to enter into agreements providing for the disbursement of allocated funds even to individuals wishing to implement cooperation initiatives”. It also provides that provincial and municipal councils may allocate funds (in an aggregate amount not to exceed 0.8% of the total of the first three current revenue items of their annual budgets) for “co-development programs and other international solidarity actions”. By empowering municipal and provincial councils to allocate specific budget expenditure items for co-development actions, this law vests in local administrations the right to make comparatively discretionary use of a small portion of their revenues. Therefore, since middle 1990’s, local government levels have financed and coordinated their own programs. They have provided a modest input into a number of programs (for instance: the African municipal development program with the World Bank, the PRODERE Program in Central America, the humanitarian relief in former Yugoslavia under the Table of Coordination-Tavolo di coordinamento -set up by the Prime Minister’s Office). The Legislative Decree 267 of 18 August 2000 (Consolidated act of the laws governing the organization of local administrations), includes a provision (Art. 272, activities of associations engaging in development cooperation actions) which formally states that: “ANCI and UPI are eligible for implementing MAE cooperation projects planned under Law no. 49, as

amended, and the relevant enforcement regulations. To this end, the proper departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are hereby empowered to enter into specific agreements and thereby allocate resources for use in implementing cooperation initiatives albeit launched by individual members of the aforesaid associations. With regard to the regional legislation, the laws governing co-development in the case of the Lazio region are the following: • Regional Law no. 19 of 7 April 2000 (second generation), “Development cooperation ” initiatives and projects to promote collaboration and co-managed international solidarity actions • Regional Law no. 30 of 26 July 1991 “Provisions to govern regional action in the field of international cooperation with developing countries”. Moreover, special decentralized cooperation activities are included in the framework Law no. 84 of 2001. This legislation contains “measures for Italian’s participation in the stabilization, reconstruction and development of Balkan areas countries”. A special section of the fund set up by the law is used to finance projects proposed and managed by the regions and local governments, identified and selected in agreement with component ministries 35 .

Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Decentralized cooperation is also affected by Italy’s political-institutional transition. The legislation which governs it is thus unstable and in transformation, exposed to differing interpretations and has become an area of conflict in the difficult process of redefining the powers of the central and local governments (Ianni, V., 2002) . In the relationship between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the local bodies it is important to stress that the GDDC approved the General guidelines and implementation tools for decentralized cooperation for development (March, 2000). This document marked an important change in the relationship between the MFA and local governing bodies. It was a major step forwards the full recognition of this kind of cooperation as a form of international cooperation (See Figure 2.2). Furthermore, in the complex and non-linear relationship between the MFA and local governing bodies since 2001, the GDDC is no longer the only interlocutor for international development cooperation activities. Within the MFA, for example, the application of Law no. 84, which regulates Italy’s

35 For more imformation see: www.esteri.it

intervention in the Balkans, was entrusted, through the office for relations with the regions and local bodies, to the European Management Office (Ianni, V., 2002) . In Italy, the commitment of local governing bodies to international cooperation activities was accompanied by the creation of their own specific coordinating and support structures. Specifically, this meant the establishment, in 1991, the Inter-regional Observatory for Development Cooperation (IODC) and the growing involvement of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (NAIM), which established a special office for decentralized cooperation in 1997. In addition to their representative role, these structures perform increasingly important activities of coordination, training and information on behalf of their associates. In some cases, and for certain specific sectors, they also carry out operational cooperation activities. The IODC, in particular, is also involved in supporting proposed legal and regulatory changes and the internationalization of regional economic systems 36 .

Figure 2.2 . The Italian system of development cooperation ( Source: CeSPI- OICS).

Guide Line 1995

Address Line MAE DGCS 2001 2003

Systems Aid Credit Found of Italian Fiduciary Donor develop. Coop. Commodity and Aid Program

Decentralized Address Line Cooperation MAE DGCS

Municipalities Regions

36 For more imformation see: www.esteri.it

Many municipalities have established special offices and annual programming activities, while plurennial programming is less frequent for developing decentralized cooperation actions. The overall situation is thus very mixed, with some municipalities presenting a high degree of institutionalized activity and others, especially the smaller ones, with no structures at all. It should also be noted that even in the latter part of 2002, some of the larger municipalities, such as Milan (with the highest allocations nationwide), still do not utilize public bids or transparent criteria for the allocation of their co-financing, preferring informal channels of information and concerted action with local actors (Stocchiero, A.; Frattolillo, O. and Gonella, N., 2001; Ianni, V., 2002). The weakest aspects of this process of institutionalization are to be found in the inter- institutional and political-managerial coordination, and in its vulnerability to changes in political relationships. Since 2000, some regions and municipalities have begun to respond to the former aspect with the creation of Services, or Head Offices linked to the various Councillorships (e.g. the region of Tuscany, and the cities of Venice and Bologna). However, the link between the political (increasingly confined to the Cabinets of the Mayor or the Regional President) and the technical-management aspects remain problematic. Changes in the political situation also have a strong impact, with turnovers in administrations resulting, in a number of cases, in the closing of Offices and the interruption or significant reduction of the activities undertaken (Ianni, V., 2002). For example, in the municipality of Rome there is not a “Decentralized Cooperation Office” but there is a sector for “International Cooperation and Solidarity” inside of the Office for International Relations/ URI (Ufficio Relazioni Internazionali). As we mentioned before, the URI has been instituted in 1994 and currently is inserted in the Cabinet of the Major. This office has close relationships with other municipality fields on single initiatives, like the political and educational department and the environmental department 37 . However, according to Stocchiero, A.; Frattolillo, O. and Gonella, N. (2001) there is an insufficient coordination between the administrative structures in the municipal apparatus . The municipality of Rome does not have a structured and continued relationship with the MAE (Ministero degli Affari Esteri), or with other Italian institutions such as region, province or agencies. Usually there is a lack of coordination between the governmental cooperation and the decentralized cooperation, although still a minority part of the projects can be agreed or coordinated; for example, the projects between the

37 Interview with Patrizia Luzzatto, Ibid.

cities of Rome and Kigali (Rwanda) have been decided jointly by Ministry of Foreign, FAO and the municipality of Rome 38 . In brief, it is important to stress that the intergovernmental relations between the different institutional levels are characterized by the co-existence and not by the confrontation. In the case of Rome, for example, it is evident that there is not a deep relation among the various institutional levels, but this fact should not be interpreted as clash between them. The local political actors lead their activities without contrasts with the Nation-State.

Financial resources As far as to the financial resources of decentralized cooperation activities concerns, parts of the funds come from different international organization such as EU, WB or UN. According to the data presented by Ianni, V. (2002 ), the local Italian governing bodies have accessed exclusively funds allocated by the Italy/UNDP/IFAD/UNOPS multi-bilateral programs for the co-financing of DC initiatives. These programs include the Atlas for local communities of Bosnia Herzegovina , the Human development program in Cuba and the City to City program in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, all of which either were or are engaged in decentralized cooperation activities. As we mentioned before, the Italian strong interest in decentralized cooperation linked to multi-bilateral programs is corroborated by the allocation, about 2.3 millions USD in 2001, for the financing of an Italy-FAO decentralized cooperation program . Figure 2.3 summarizes the annual volume of Italian decentralized cooperation activities. As mentioned before, due to a number of reasons including insufficient management capacity or the repercussions of an uncertain political climate or vaguely defined legislative framework, throughout the 1990s the MFA preferred to channel its co-development support allocations through the multi-bilateral instrument. By doing so, it had an opportunity to perform guidance and coordination functions and, at the same time, benefit from the know-how provided to it by United Nations agencies. As late as 2000, when the working modes and mechanisms of decentralized cooperation had been adequately tested on the ground, the Ministry gradually ventured into the sector of bilateral decentralized co-development. The scant resources so far allocated are barely enough to fund early attempts at experimentation, and even these are still associated with considerable difficulties (Ianni V., 2002, pp. 13, 14) . According to Luzzatto, P.,

38 Interview with Patrizia Luzzatto, Ibid.

the MFA has not provided major funds to the municipality of Rome for decentralized cooperation activities, and thus the municipality works with its own co-financings resources (or with funds from the EU in case of cooperation projects financed by the European Commission) 39 . With respect to the regional allocations, the Figure 2.4 shows the annual distribution of the money for decentralized cooperation activities by Italian regions. In 2000, the regions topping the list were, in a descending sequence, Trentino, Piamonte, Lombardy, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, the province of Trento and Sardinia. Calculating per capita allocation based on population numbers, North Italy is still the largest contributor. As for the activities developed by provinces, a report by the Province of Pisa estimates the total 2002 decentralized cooperation budget of central, northern and southern Italy was about €832,000. On the other hand, a survey covering the activities of provinces in Lazio, Campania and Calabria in 2002 pointed to extremely low-level allocations, with a somewhat greater volume, €90,000 only for the provincial administration of Rome (Ianni V., 2002, pp. 20, 21) .

Figure 2.3. Volume of Italian decentralized cooperation activities ( Source: OICS ).

Annual volume of Italian Decentralized Cooperation (2000)

IN MILIONS OF EUROS

Own resources 100

Resources Circa 700 from UE, MAE, ONU, etc ,

39 Interview with Patrizia Luzzatto, Ibid.

The financial commitment of Italian municipalities can be seen in a national study conducted on a representative sample (Stocchiero, A., Frattolillo, O. and Gonella, A., 2001). This shows an allocation, of about 2 M€ in 2001, though this figure is certainly underestimated due to the dispersion of cooperation activities among various offices and the difficulty in identifying all of them. In other words, in the case of the municipality of Rome does not exist a specific understanding for the budget on decentralized cooperation. The budget assigned to DC activities is difficult to estimate due to the large number of actors carrying on international solidarity activities (such as Councillorships, Departments, Town halls) and the lack of a centralized management 40 . According to Patrizia Luzzatto, only the office for international relations in 2004 has spent around 650,000.00 euros (for projects, contributions and initiatives realized on the roman territory, conventions, meetings, etc), but a larger budget would result by grouping other programs

Figure 2.4. Annual budget distribution for decentralized cooperation activities by Italian regions (Source: OICS ).

Annual distribution by Italian regions (2000)

IN MILIONS OF EUROS

40 Interview with Patrizia Luzzatto, Ibid.

In brief, it is not possible to estimate the amount of money spent on this activity due to the lack of a centralized management in charge of collecting this information from the many actors involved. This makes apparent the fragmentation of actions, actors and also motives to put in practice DC activities. Indeed, there are many veins of DC actions with different purposes such the activities carried out by ECOMED agency (programs with the Mediterranean cities) or the URBAL program (see footnotes on pages 40 and 41).

Instruments and modality of decentralized cooperation In order to carry out diverse initiatives, the local bodies activate internal skills and abilities and, in particular, local actors who have the required know-how: NGOs, chambers of commerce, health agencies, etc. The search for local partnerships has helped to create new forms of collective action, like consortiums and associations. These entities bring together different actors: associations, cooperatives and NGO’s, who use the decentralized approach in their own methods of action. In fact, community-based decentralized cooperation has a significant impact on the make-up of society and the relationships between different actors. It brings together forms of collective action formerly separated by the choice to direct their own activities towards developing countries or the national territory. In a changeable scenario, NGO’s, associations, universities and study centers have found, and continue to find in the logic of decentralized cooperation an impetus towards new forms of interaction (Ianni, V., 2002, pp. 27-30). More specifically, the role played by the NGOs and other associations can be seen in a series of diverse and interconnecting functions: information and awareness programs, activation of the territory, planning, implementation, support for the creation and continuity of links and connections, coordination of local committees in Italy. Concerning the regions, all the resources earmarked for co-financed initiatives implemented by local administrations, NGOs and other local actors are awarded based on calls for tenders laying down detailed awarding criteria and priorities. While in the case of local government allocations, in part, the relevant resources are assigned based on calls for tenders which in some cases illustrate awarding criteria and priorities in some detail. But a substantial part of the resources concerned is still assigned based on informal contacts ( Ianni, V., 2002, p. 21) . In the case of Rome, there is a close relationship between the municipality and the roman NGOs. In the year 2002, the municipality of Rome has formally instituted the “Citizen

Committee for Decentralized Cooperation” (mixed organism administration/ associations instituted as a permanent place of meeting between the municipality and the civil society in the field of international solidarity) in order to promote combined initiatives in Rome or in the least developed countries (LDCs) 41 . Therefore, the establishment of this Committee allowed a more deeply involved of the civil society organizations within the international actions of the city. The Figure 2.5 illustrates the decentralized cooperation structure of the municipality of Rome.

Figure 2.5. Decentralized cooperation structure of Rome municipality (Source: Patrizia Luzzatto, 2004).

Mayor

Mayor Cabinet Other structure of Rome Municipality: Library, Consultant, International etc NGOs, relations Office Assoc, Cooperation ONLUS Sector

Other private and public actors: University, Citizen Committee for Schools, Research Decentralised Cooperation centres, etc

Tab. 1 Tab. 2 Fight Tab. 3 Inter cultural, Tab. 4 Sustainable Peace against poverty development Ed. develop.

41 An antecedent of the “Citizen Committee for Decentralized Cooperation” was the creation of the first “Comitato cittadino per la cooperzzione internatioale” in 1995, Rome. It was organized in three “tavoli di coordinamento” in order to promote partnership: with the city of Sarajevo for reactivation of the city net water; with the city of Jinotega (Nicaragua) for reconstruction of houses destroyed by the hurricane Mitch and with Maputo, it was realized various projects in the field of water supplying and hygiene (See Luzzato, P. 2004).

Chapter 3 The City of Madrid

Capital of Spain (only since the 16 th century) Madrid is the core of the third metropolitan region in the EU. With more than half of the population of its functional urban region, which broadly fits the space defined by the Comunidad de Madrid (CAM), it is very prominent within the region (and within the country) in economic, financial and cultural matters. Nevertheless, the municipal government is not locally the most important level of authority insofar as the regional level holds important resources and competences. And Madrid is not an exception in the Spanish context. Indeed, Spain’s political and administrative structure has undergone profound changes, and this process is not almost complete, directly related with the decentralization process initiated by the Constitution of 1978. In Spain, democratization and decentralization processes cannot really be separated. The rationale for regional decentralization was political and its roots are to be found far back in history and economic considerations were not relevant. Historically, regions dominate the subject of decentralization (Clegg T., 1987; Montero, A., 2001a). Regions increased their spending power and discretion in fiscal resources over the central government (Montero, A., 2001a) while the municipalities enjoy very limited political autonomy from regional and central governments (Aja, E., 2001). As the capital of new democratic Spain, Madrid has been receiving disproportionate amount of investments from the central government to symbolize the centre of the new nation (Resina, J., 2001). Such decentralization process was seen by municipal governments as an opportunity for further autonomy in decision-making . Negotiations took place between political parties and finally the Spanish decentralization model involved considerable devolution of resources and competences at the regional level, keeping the municipal governments with limited resources and limited capacity of investment (one of the lowest in Europe). Municipal government participation in public spending has increased slowly from 9.95% in 1970 to around 12% in 1990 and 15% in 2001. In contrast, regional administrations have rapidly increased their share of public spending from just 0.2% in 1980 to over 23% in 1991 and 35% in 2001 (Iocco, M.; Martins, L. and Rodriguez Alvarez, J., 2005) . Actually, the new level of authority, the autonomous (regional) government, created by the Constitution yield more political power than any other region in industrialized countries,

particularly with its fairly extensive legislative powers regarding its competences (health, education, urban planning, transportation, tourism, etc). However, this regional participation does not overlap the simultaneous municipal role in the field of decentralized cooperation. In fact, the first initiatives in this field of cooperation were born at the municipal level. In particular, as we shall see, Madrid has been a booster of the Inter American Organization of Inter municipal Cooperation (OICI), created in 1938, and later on (1982) of the Union of Ibero- American Capitals Cities (UCCI). Moreover, the municipalities of Mostoles and Alarcon have initiated cooperation activities in the first half of the eighties, before than the regional government (Freres, C., and Cabo, C., 2003, pp.15, 16) .

3.1 The international strategy of Madrid The dictatorial regime of Franco (1939-1975) was characterized by a strong repression over local initiatives on the originally diversified regional cultures together with an accentuated general isolation. This long period of forced centralization set off peerless conditions for a strong reaction against that politics that resulted in the successful modern movement towards an increased regional autonomy. Thus, it was not until 1979 that Spain, and particularly Madrid, began to promote new strategies in order to re-assert itself on the international scenario. The first step towards this opening arises from the democratic elites that would do their utmost to convince their European counterparts that Spain should be seen as a new and reliable western democracy (Torreblanca, J., 2001) . Similar ongoing processes happen today with the eastern European countries striving to join the European Union. Eventually, Spain was accepted as EU member in 1986 after almost ten years since its first incorporation request. Simultaneously with the endeavor to play an active role at the EU level, Madrid and other major Spaniard cities started to recover and strengthen their links with Latin America cultures. Thus, in 1982, Madrid achieved the first summit of the UCCI devoted to specific technical assistance among the governments 42 . Nowadays, Madrid is not only the headquarters of the UCCI with most of the municipal trainings implemented in the city, but also provides approximately 50% of the total budget of this organization (Freres, C., Sanz, A., 2002, p. 32). Probably the most relevant consequence of this bilateral relation was to trigger and institutionalize new cooperation activities with broader goals with other Latin American cities. Thus in 1995, the municipality of

42 Interview with Fernando Rocafull, Secretaryship of UCCI, Municipality of Madrid.

Madrid decided to create its own bilateral structure: The Development Cooperation Program. Initially these activities were carried out through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and later on, in 2003 the possibility of a direct cooperation with no intermediate instruments was introduced for the first time. By no means is decentralized cooperation restricted to cultural reasons, and other motivation should also be considered. For instance, in order to achieve a better geo-political stability with the neighboring countries, Madrid has developed a well defined cooperation program with north-African cities located mainly in Morocco. These politics prevail over the most humanitarian aspects since only 4% of the budget for DC goes to the least developed countries. All in all, the cultural and historical links seems to dominate over other alternative politics, as evidenced by the fact that 66% of the projects are with Latin America (Rodriguez, J., 2004, p. 8). This drawback is probably ought to the fact that Madrid has been perceived as a very important capital city, with a world-wide significant presence in the financial, cultural and political arena that does not need to promote itself in the international scenario. Madrid involvement in the international arena is rather new. Madrid has certainly joined several international urban associations, as IULA (International Union of Local authorities), and CCRE (Council of European Municipalities and Regions), UCUE (Union of Capital Cities of Europe) or the FMCU (The World Federation of United Cities). Such organizations have got deeply involved in promoting decentralization and local-self government but also in facilitating exchanges of experiences and thematic networks between cities all around the world on issues like city planning, economic development, environment and transport. But Madrid has not played an active role in all of them. In 1992, its membership in IULA turned to be indirect, through the Federacion Espanola de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP), and in 1998 Madrid abandoned FMCU. Individually, each city also is member of the following international organisms for local development (See Table 3.1). With regard to the bilateral relations, in 1979, the first democratic municipal elections took place in Madrid. The new municipal governments, boosted by their new legitimacy (free elections), quickly sought to gain autonomy and a certain degree of initiative in the field of public services (in order to face the deficiencies of the 40 years-long Franco regime) but also in the international arena. From this year, the new elected city council of Madrid signed a twinning agreement with Lisbon and also collaboration agreements with the local authorities of Mexico

and Moscow. These were the first steps of the capital city government in the international scene. Such bilateral relations would be particularly developed throughout the 1980s: twinning acts with Panama and San Jose of Costa Rica in 1980, with Bordeaux, Nouakchott, New York, Prague and Rabat in 1988 and with Malabo in 1989, collaboration agreements with Warsaw in 1981, with Montevideo, Lima, La Havana, Rio de Janeiro and Berlin in 1987, with Brussels, Buenos Aires, Manila, Mexico, Quito, Rome and San Jose of Costa Rica in 1988, friendship pact with La Havana in 1989. In addition to these “formally-signed” agreements, the local authorities developed relations with Caracas (1981), Managua (1981), Santo Domingo (1982), Beijing (1985, 1986) and later with Santiago de Chile (1991) and Sofia (1994). Both of them were oriented towards cultural exchanges, development and technical cooperation. In the case of Rome, the city developed an “exclusive” twinning with Paris from 1956; friendship pacts with New York and other cities, such as Tokyo, Moscow, Sarajevo, and Tunisia 43 .

Table 3.1. International organizations for local development.

Madrid Rome Organizacion Iberoamericana de WACLA Cooperacion Intermunicipal (OICI)

Polis United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) World association of cities for recycling

Union de Ciudades de Capitales IberoAmericanas (UCCI)

Moreover, Madrid participates at EU level through different activities and projects, and is involved in specific networks of cities, such as Eurocities. This participation allows Madrid to carry out lobbying activities at the EU institutional level 44 . Thus, the involvement in EU activities via projects, networking and DC activities appears as an instrument for obtaining

43 Interview with Maite Aranguren Garrido, Chief of the International Relation Section, Department of Structure and International Organization, Municipality of Madrid. 44 Specific networks of cities and regions have also organized to present their own collective interest, such us: Eurocities, among others. Eurocities aims at lobbying the EU institutions and its main objective is to set up a dynamic Europe that gives greater importance to cities in Community and national government policies. The political action is, therefore, orientated towards all the European institutions: The European Commission, the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the Council.

information, exchanging experiences, ideas and knowledge, cooperation, democratic respect and economic development. However, the Spanish capital city not always was sensitive to the European opportunities. Madrid integrated the POLIS (Promotion of Operational Links with Integrated Systems) network. This network, based on exchanges of experience between cities, has consisted in developing a common system to use high technology for better traffic management. But Madrid developed a few projects within such program. Madrid also joined the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. Nevertheless, its involvement in such representative body of the local (and regional) interests in European integration has been through the Spanish federation of municipalities and provinces. Actuality, its main participation in European activities consisted in its integration in the URBAL program. Such program has established a direct and long-lasting association between European and Latin American local figures to improve social and economic conditions and quality of life. Madrid coordinated the thematic network n°4 of the URBAL program, “The city as promoter of economic development”, in the period 1998-2002. Joint projects were elaborated and then twenty of them were approved and financed by the European Commission (it is the greatest number of projects approved by the European Commission until now). Among these twenty projects, the Madrid city council developed a project in order to create a transmunicipal training school for local development. This project involved as partners (Madrid was the coordinator) Caracas (Venezuela), the State of Jalisco (Mexico), San Salvador de Jujuy (Argentina), Rome (Italy) and other Spanish cities (Irun, Hondarribia, Hendaye). Madrid also participated in two other projects. The first one dealt with exchanges of experience about fairs and congresses management and marketing and was coordinated by the municipality of Viña del Mar (Chile). Kaiserslautern (Germany), Ourem (Portugal), Murcia, Cordoba (Spain), Montevideo (Uruguay) and Cuenca (Ecuador) also participated in it. The second one, curiously named “institutional strengthening between cities of Latin America and the European Union”, consisted on transfers of methodologies, instruments and results on urban tools such as strategic plans, local development agency, municipal trainings, etc. It was coordinated by San Salvador de Jujuy and integrated more than twenty cities 45 , essentially from Latin America and Spain.

45 Bonn, Kaiserslautern (Germany), Buenos Aires, Junin, Olavarria, Rosario, Saladillo (Argentina), Belo Horizonte, Campina Grande, Consorcio Intermunicipal de Zona de Mata (Brazil), Santiago de Cali (Colombia), Verona, Rome (Italy), Santiago de Queretero (Mexico), Chachapoyas (Peru), Montevideo (Uruguay), Caracas (Venezuela), Cadiz, Madrid, Cordoba, Jerez de la Frontera, Diputacion provincial de Huelva, Rubi.

Finally, the Madrid city council received, directly or indirectly, rather few European funds to develop its interests. In comparison, the Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid got important financial resources through the Cohesion Fund to co-finance projects on urban sanitation, on urban solid waste management and environment recovery (51 projects with a total investment of 204 million euros in the period 1995-2001) 46 . In this old-lasting context, the newly-elected Mayor Ruiz-Gallardon (2003) has responded to international issues in a rather different way while engaging the municipal policies towards the internationalization of the city economy on one hand, a strong development of the Olympic bid process on other hand. Such initiative was rather new for the Spanish capital city which had rarely bank on mega-events in order to gain recognition in the international arena. Yet, these high profile events have assumed a key role in achieving international prominence and national prestige as well as outward investment and capital accumulation. In the early 1980s, there was a weak municipal involvement in the international arena mainly devoted towards a political-oriented strategy rather than economical 47 . This can be seen in the developing sister cities agreements and transnational city networking principally with Latin American cities. All these international activities were under a coherent umbrella, strongly defended (and controlled) by the socialist mayor in office, Enrique Tierno Galvan, i.e. the promotion of local-self government and decentralization. They also included a social dimension as they aimed at helping “poor cities” (compared with European standing) through technical and financial cooperation. Nevertheless, the mayor actively participated in promoting the Spanish membership to the European Union, and particularly the role of cities in EU policies. When Galvan died, there was a three-year socialist period characterized by the continuation (yet in less active way) of the “Galvan international spirit”. Then, from 1989 to 2003, the international issue clearly disappeared from the municipal agenda, and all the more from the centre-right (conservative) mayor agenda. Nevertheless, in the late 1990s, there were some weak and piecemeal international activities. But they were carried on by deputy mayors and dealt with economic stakes.

46 Interview with Maite Aranguren Garrido, Chief of the International Relation Section, Department of Structure and International Organization, Municipality of Madrid and Carlos Clemente Aguado, General Director of development Cooperation, Autonomous Community of Madrid. 47 Further information about the international strategy of Madrid can be found in Martins, L., Rodriguez Alvarez, J. M. and Iocco, M. E., (2005), Ranking Madrid as a 21st century city: taking up the challenge of a new urban leadership, Draft paper, 5 th CITTA seminar, 10-11 June, Zurich.

Actually, the Madrid city council has shown little activity in the international sphere until the current Mayor, and also previous regional president, took the lead in orientating urban strategies towards the international scene. Before that, few international activities were developed, and they took part of a more general recognition of Spanish transition to democracy. When Ruiz-Gallardon became Mayor, new initiatives emerged. A neo-liberal policy paradigm has been implemented, and internationalization has become a key point in the municipal strategies. Two issues are evident in the case of Madrid. The first is the 2012 Olympic bid, which has received much attention (and resources) from the city council and principally the Mayor. The second issue is the internationalization of the city’s economy, which has resulted in implementing a strategic marketing process, including all urban actors. Even if the 2012 Olympic bid has a rather symbolic dimension, that is to say “put Madrid on the international map”, it also addresses economic purposes, as the 6,050 million euros expected by the city council from hosting the Games shows (Martin, L., Rodriguez Alvarez, J. and Iocco, M. E. 2005, p. 8). If we compare the cases of Rome and Madrid, it is possible to notice that in the first case, the Mayor has developed an image of a city based on his vocation of peace and solidarity, while in the case of Madrid the aim of the Mayor is mostly oriented towards the economic promotion and the competitiveness of the city. In brief, in the first case the Mayor looks for a political legitimacy via symbolic politics activities like decentralized cooperation while in the second case, in order to reinforce his political legitimacy the Mayor focuses on the socio-economic development of the city.

The political agenda After the last presidential election in 2003, a new trend in the international politics of Madrid can be identified. Indeed, the current major of Madrid, Ruiz-Gallardon, has developed a liberal, competitive and more world-oriented politics through the so called The Internalization Plan of Madrid (2005/ 2007 ). The objective of this plan is to emphasize on the socio-economic, cultural, and infrastructural advantages of the city in order to make of Madrid a paradigm among the leader cities in the world. Improving the international image of Madrid, basically aimed to achieve a more appealing terrain for potential investors, will eventually lead to economic benefits. The internationalization plan of Madrid includes 87 concrete actions, articulated around

the following two points: (i) situate the city in the international marketplace in order to attract foreign investments and (ii) the opening to new markets as Japan, China, Vietnam or India, as well as growing productive sectors 48 . One of the first steps in order to internationalize the image of the city consists of promoting a Madrid trademark together with high profile organizations associated with the city. For instance, recently the commission in charge of the candidature for the Olympic Games 2012 and the local football club Real Madrid signed an agreement where the players must advertise the Olympic Games in Madrid. Within this context, in the political agenda of Ruiz-Gallardon decentralized cooperation activities so far has not been a main issue while the press underline the focus of the actual Mayor on the internationalization of the economy of Madrid and in general any activity that may be favorable to the economic development of the city. Therefore, decentralized cooperation occupies a relevant role in the external activities of the city via the Development Cooperation Program inside of the Department of employment, services and citizenship of the Municipality but not in the political agenda of the Mayor.

The Development Cooperation Program Spain, previously a highly centralized nation, has become in recent years (after the democratic Constitution of 1978) one of the most decentralized states in the world. The decentralization of most governmental processes required a new model of intergovernmental relations, a model based on coordination and cooperation. Thus in 1995, the municipality of Madrid decided to create its own bilateral structure: The Development Cooperation Program . However, it is worth noticing that the starting point of this program is in 1994, when the main NGOs and social movements’ initiated a strong campaign in order to put pressure on the institutions for enlarging the funds and grants addressed to international activities, with the goal of reaching the 0.7% of the budget. In the city of Madrid, this campaign was developed in the main avenue of the city during a couple of week until the local council decided in February 1995 to invest the 0.7% of the municipal budget in this activity. This percentage have been kept until 2004, in a context of a very expansive passed by the majority of the new Mayor, Ruiz Gallardon, who has decided to maintain the same amount of money than in 2003 (€16.605.034), what represents to reduce the percentage to 0.44% of the municipal budget (Rodriguez, J., 2004) . If

48 For more information see: www.esmadrid.com

the former Mayor had accepted the implementation of this program it was first because of the strong social pressure and second because he could accept this initiative in the context of his paternalist, catholic patterns. While the current Mayor of Madrid, Ruiz Gallardon, formally more liberal and progressive, has reduced the percentage because the budget for 2004 is very expensive and he needs more public expenditures in infrastructures and public works in the city of Madrid to put in practice his program of big projects. To keep a percentage of 0.7% of the new budget for international cooperation had implied an extraordinary increase in the expenditure, which is not his priority in terms of euros (Rodriguez, J., 2004, p. 7) . As we mentioned above, the City council of Madrid (through the Development Cooperation Program) counts with a basic norm that regulates the concession of aids programs from the municipality to the developing countries via public calls for proposals. In this norm are defined the objects of the aid, the geographic areas and the performance, the criteria of awarding, the requirements of the applicant organizations, the administrative documentation and the obligations of the organizations with regard to the granted aid. The geographic areas where the projects are made mainly are: Latin American, Maghreb, Equatorial Guinea, Africa Sub-Saharan and Equatorial Africa and also the city of Madrid (projects destined to immigrants coming from developing countries). Moreover, the City council of Madrid reserves 10% of the budget of the Program to subsidize projects concerning situations of emergency or catastrophe. If we compare the political agenda of the two Mayors: Rome and Madrid, we notice that in the latter case there is not a political influence of the Mayor in the development and functioning of the decentralized cooperation activities that the city carry out with the developing countries. By that we mean that the current mayor of Madrid does not use the decentralized cooperation activities in order to obtain visibility and political consent.

3.2 The main characteristics of decentralized cooperation In Spain both official and non governmental development cooperation are relatively recent phenomena. Officially, Spain had no policy of cooperation during Franco’s dictatorship, despite its paternalistic rhetoric with regard to Latin America and the Arab world (Aguirre M, and Rey, F., 2000, p. 193). The origins of decentralized cooperation activities in Spain are, as in other European countries, in the processes of twinning programs between municipalities. In the 80’s these processes became more serious with the birth of solidarity movements in support to

the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua and with the Saharaui town. From these beginnings and with the democratic strengthening and decentralization, the historical autonomous communities and local governments began to make a cooperation that looked for an international presence, partly to fortify the peninsular nationalistic aspirations and partially under the solidarity idea, especially towards their fellow citizens that were exiled during Franco’s dictatorship. At that moment the government started to recognize the legal emptiness in which this cooperation were moving, mainly in the competitions between the State and the autonomous communities. Let’s turn now to analyze the evolution of the Spanish legislation in the field of decentralized cooperation.

Legislation on decentralized cooperation Even though the Spanish constitution (1978), in its article 149.1.3, defines international relations as being the exclusive responsibility of the State, the fact is that, from 1980’s onwards, the autonomous regions and local authorities began to participate in cooperation programs. This cooperation was not only considered to be a branch of the State’s foreign policy, but also a demonstration of solidarity by citizens and their representative institutions. With some reluctance on the State part this reality has eventually become recognized and since 1991 autonomous regions and local authorities have participated in the drawing-up of the annual international cooperation plans. The current Spanish Constitution indicates that the subsequent competences are assigned to the State (Martínez González-Tablas, Á, 1995, p. 360): 1) The conduction of the external policy and the signature of international treaties (art. 63.2, art.93, art. 94, art.97) 2) The external representation (art. 56.1, art. 96) 3) The assumption of the international responsibility (art. 149.1.3 and art. 93) The Constitutional Court indicated in the 1985 Sentence on December, 12 that the autonomous communities can make promotional activities, but not agreements with foreign authorities. Also the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces pointed out in its book of 1993 on the local power the following: “The international relations are not to be confused with the aid development cooperation, in whose effort all the levels of the administration would have to participate”. Finally, the decentralized cooperation has enjoyed a practical legitimization, as demonstrate to the existing agreements between AECI (Spanish Agency of International

Cooperation) and the different territorial organizations. Everything is clarified with the introduction of this type of cooperation in the law on international cooperation for development of 1998 ( Aguirre M, and Rey, F., 2000, pp. 194, 195). It is worth noticing that in Spain the consolidation of decentralized cooperation activities is during the second half of the 90’s with the repercussion of the Great Lakes humanitarian crisis and the campaign of 0.7% 49 , “which increased the public visibility of the international cooperation and the resources destined to this aim in the decentralized organs”. The most solid evidence demonstrating this statement is that in 1994 the total of decentralized cooperation in Spain was 5,316 million, which represented 3.1% of the Official Development Assistance (ODA), whereas a year later the value was 14,667, which represented 8.7% of the Spanish cooperation 50 . By the same token, an examination of the resources assigned to decentralized cooperation can be divided in three stages: 1) From 1985 to 1990, at the beginning and implantation of the first programs, it goes from 10 million in 1985 to near 2,400 million in 1990 2) Stage of consolidation, the resources of the different institutions are increased and new agents are incorporated. It goes to 5,316 million in 1994. 3) In 1995 the money almost triplicates the resources of the previous year. In 1998 decentralized cooperation made up more than 10% of the total Spanish ODA (22% of bilateral ODA). However, the evolution of the decentralized cooperation aid has been different over the years. As can be seen in Figure 3.1 until 1994 the resources dedicated to the cooperation were modest, but due to the mobilization of the 0.7% campaign, it have been triplicate, going in 1995 from 32 M€ to 88 M€ (Sanchez, E., 2003, p. 5). This fast growing remains during the legislative period 1995- 1999, due to the continuous incorporation of new municipalities and autonomous communities to the cooperation programs. In contrast, after 1999 the overall dynamic had a much slower growing rate mainly due to since practically all the autonomous communities and the large municipalities were already included, a lack of renovation in the relevant agents appears (Sanchez, E., 2003, p. 5).

49 The 0.7% campaign refers to the agreed United Nations target of 0.7 % of the combined GNI of developed countries given in aid to developing countries (see http://www.bond.org.uk/pubs/advocacy/0.7now.pdf for details). 50 This data are taken from the General Director of the external cooperation office of the Madrid Autonomous Community, Madrid, 1999, p. 28.

Figure 3.1. Budget of Spain decentralized cooperation activities.

Intergovernmental relations (IGR) Concerning the relations between the national government, the autonomous communities and the municipalities, it is not applicable the concept of “complementarily”, mainly because there is not an interest in that sense. However, in the case of the local governments do not exist, in general terms, the wish to develop a parallel external actions or a totally different one from the Nation-State. As we shall see, the Latin America area is seen as the ideal place to test out decentralized development aid carry out by the Nation-State and most of the cities. This conclusion is confirmed by reflections developed in the annual planning documents drafted by the city of Madrid and the autonomous community of Madrid. The Spanish decentralized cooperation has an original organizational structure that makes it autonomous from the central states organs. Table 3.2 shows the different levels, institutions and departments in the case of Spanish system of intergovernmental relations.

Table 3.2. Levels, institutions and department in Spanish developing cooperation (Source: Rodríguez Ariza, C. and Pereira Jerez, D., 2004).

It is worth comparing the decentralized cooperation actions made by the autonomous community of Madrid and the municipality of Madrid. Both of them constitute particularly interesting examples of the effort to apply the decentralized cooperation approach. The autonomous community of Madrid has been the first independent community of Spain in equipping itself with a Law of Cooperation (Law 13/1999). This law is the result of a long process of dialogue with multiple entities, such as the Madrilenian public and private actors (Restán, J., 2000 ). In fulfilling that Law, a General Cooperation Plan was prepared for the period 2001-2004, with the objectives and priorities that are wanted to reach. This Plan assumes in its first chapters the Strategy of Association for the Development, adopted by the members of the Committee Aid for Development (CAD) and, mainly incorporates the determined form to the decentralized cooperation approach, promoting a horizontal cooperation with a participative character, and fighting against the centralist and vertical traditional visions. Table 3.3 summarizes the main institutions and laws that regulate the decentralized cooperation activities in both cases, Spain and Italy at the different intergovernmental levels.

Table 3.3. Normative table of decentralized cooperation. Spain Italy MAE/ AECI MFA/ DGDC (General Institutions National (Spanish Agency of International National Director for Development Cooperation) Cooperation) Department of cooperation, Presidency of the Committee Regional immigration and volunteer affairs Regional and Councillorship of International relations, Office of communitarian and International Relations Department of Cooperation of the Department of International Local City Hall/ Sector employment and Local Relations/ sector for citizenship services international cooperation and solidarity Law of International Cooperation Law 49 (1987) Laws National for development (1998) National Art. 2 Law of Cooperation (Law Regional Law no. 19 of 7 Regional 13/1999), Regional April 2000 Regional Law no. 30 of 26 July 1991 (development Cooperation)

Local The Development Cooperation Local Art. 272 del TUE (Single test Program (1995) of the Local Agencies)

As we pointed out above, the program of cooperation for development of Madrid were regulated by a Regulation passed by the Local Council in February 1995, which have been put in practice until 2003, when the Local Council has passed a new provisory regulation, awaiting for a new Strategic Plan of International Cooperation for 2004- 2007.

Financial resources Related to the regional and local funds, Spanish regions gave 6.67%, 6.06% and 7.34%, respectively of the national public aid for development. While in 1996, 1997 and 1998, their Italian counterparts contributed 0.6%, 1.2% and 0.9% in that order. In 1999 the Italian regions allocated 16 million Euro and 18 million in 2000 (Ianni, V., 2002) . These amounts are small when compared with other European countries (e.g. Spain) and residual in terms of MFA’s annual budget. This difference can be explained by the fact that the Italian local governing bodies, which perform well in terms of experiment taxation and innovation, have not yet succeeded in activating all of their sectors. It should also be noticed that the allocated funds act as a catalyst for attracting other, greater resources, and therefore do not constitute direct indicators of their actual planning capacity or impact. The regional resources aimed at co- financing initiatives by local bodies, NGOs and other local actors are made available through public banns, which also indicate priorities and specific criteria for assignment (Ianni, V., 2002, pp. 20, 21) . According to the above mentioned scenario, table 3.4 shows the Inter annual increase of development cooperation aid in the region of Madrid.

Table 3.4. Inter annual increase (in percent) of development cooperation aid in the region of Madrid ( Source: FONGDCAM).

1999 2000 2001 2002 Sum 99/02 Madrid Autonomous Community 1,2 3,2 7,2 8,27 19,52 Madrid Municipality 5,7 11,8 1,65 0,6 16,85 The other Municipalities 20,3 21,7 38,7 0,4 10,08 Average Madrid Region 1,03 10,8 3,7 2,2 16,25

In the case of Spain only few municipalities have assigned the expected 0.7% of their budget for developing cooperation activities. It is worth emphasizing that the municipality of

Madrid achieved this goal whereas the autonomous community does not, even though the municipality has a substantially lower budget (Sánchez Jacob, E., 1993, p. 18) . Table 3.5 shows the budget of some large municipalities in Spain in the year 2001.

Table 3.5 . Budget of some major municipalities in 2001 (Source: The reality of aid 2002-2003 and the Andalusia Coordinator of NGOs).

Municipality Million of EUROS % on Budget Victoria- Gasteiz 2.05 1.07 Burgos 0.94 1.00 Madrid 15.44 0.70 Pamplona 1.14 0.70 Sevilla 2.50 0.57 Leida 0.64 0.54 Alicante 0.95 0.53 Zaragoza 1.92 0.44 Cordoba 0.69 0.34 Granada 0.60 0.30 Barcelona 4.11 0.28 Malaga 0.86 0.27 Bilbao 0.81 0.20 Valencia 0.63 0.11

Concerning to the municipality of Madrid, the financial resources for cooperation projects has increased up to 3.2% in 2002, keeping the annual 0.7% of the budget assigned for the Development Cooperation Program. Moreover, the municipality had co-financed 129 projects. The total budget for 2002 was about 16 millions of Euros. In the period between 1999 and 2002 an important budgetary evolution has taken place, it has increased up to 17.64% (Development cooperation Program, 2002, p. 12). Table 3.6 summarizes the budgets that the municipality of Madrid destines over the years for development cooperation activities.

Table 3.6. Budget of the municipality of Madrid ( Source: Report of development cooperation made by Madrid Public Administration ).

1999 2000 2001 2002 dowry 13.3 M€ 14.6 M€ 15.4 M€ 16 M€ Program 0.7 Surplus call 0.2 M€ 0.2 M€ Total budget 13.5 M€ 14.8 M€ 15.4 M€ 16 M€

In Spain, like in Italy the commitment of local governing bodies to international cooperation activities was accompanied by the creation of their own specific coordinating and support structures. The overall situation is thus very mixed, with some municipalities presenting a high degree of institutionalized activity and resources, and others, especially the smaller ones, with a week structure and less economic resources or with no structures at all. Thus, the latter cannot count on with services; specific budgetary money; specialized municipal technicians; municipal advice cooperation; directors’ plans; regulating bases for subventions to NGOs; geographical and sectoral priorities and public calls for subventions to NGOs projects. Therefore, due to the difficulties in carry out cooperation activities by small municipalities, many of them are grouping in supra municipalities’ structures in order to avoid the above mentioned problems. Two types of groups can be found: those that already existed and have extended their services and aims to the international cooperation, like the mancomunidades , the local advice, the town halls, or the federations of municipalities; and those that have been created specifically to make cooperation activities, like the alliances of municipalities and the cooperation funds (Sánchez Jacob, E., 1993, pp. 19, 20). Although important experiences of cooperation exist from already existing structures, like the mancomunidad of municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, or the Madrilenian Federation of Municipalities, and remarkable alliances of municipalities, like the Madrid-Madriz program that groups more than 20 Madrilenian municipalities that cooperate with other municipalities of the Madriz department of Nicaragua; the main instrument of supra municipal cooperation are the Funds for Cooperation and Solidarity . The Funds are a non-profit- making organization where town councils and other public and private institutions gather, with the following objectives 51 : • To contribute to the development of the planet’s impoverished countries by means of the constitution and management of an economical fund, which provides decentralized cooperation and which touches upon the human and sustainable development of the peoples in the South. • To administer and manage the economical funds delivered to the Fund for aid projects to impoverished countries, and for public awareness campaigns on the causes that bring about the present unbalance of wealth distribution, between the peoples in the North and the South.

51 For more information see: http://www.confederacionfondos.org

• To boost the citizens’ participation, through adequate campaigns and information, in the cooperation projects with impoverished countries, and in the construction of a more participatory democracy. • To collaborate so that the minimum earmark of the 0.7% of the gross national product for public aid to impoverished countries comes true, according to the United Nations agreements, signed by Spain. • To become a collective ethical voice which reports on any situation that commits a grave outrage against human rights, and which can put forward proposed bills and proposed resolutions in favor of solidarity and cooperation, in any sphere of political representation. The Funds normally adopt the legal form of an association, although also they can take the form of a partnership. The territorial scope of the Funds for Cooperation and Solidarity are the autonomous communities, except in the Balearic Islands, where the geographic reality caused that the island was adopted as territorial scope. The priority geographical sectors, where the projects approved in 2001-2002 were developed, are Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean (43%), Africa (19%), and South America (19%). The rest of the projects were carried out in the Spanish State on awareness-raising (13%), Asia (5%), and the Balkans (1%) 52 . The Funds for Cooperation and Solidarity are formed by the 9 Funds now existing in the State which are, according to their creation date: Catalan Fund for Development Cooperation, Basque Fund-Association of Local Basque Cooperating Bodies, Valencian Fund for Solidarity, Majorcan Fund for Solidarity and Cooperation, Minorcan Fund for Cooperation, Galician Fund for Cooperation and Solidarity, Pitiús (Eivissa and Formentera) Fund for Cooperation , Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity and Local Estremaduran Fund for Development Cooperation. Nowadays, over 650 public institutions are associated with the different Funds shaping the Confederation of Funds for Cooperation and Solidarity. Over 10.6 million euros were jointly managed by all the Funds in 2002 53 . Table 3.7 shows the broken down figures for each one of the Confederation of Funds ‘members.

52 For more information see: http://www.confederacionfondos.org 53 For more information see: http://www.confederacionfondos.org

Table 3.7. Profile of funds for cooperation and solidarity.

Note: Adapted from Confederación de Fondos de Cooperación y Solidaridad (2004). For further information on the Confederation and the nine funds, see also the website at www.confederacionfondos.org (In Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Galician plus French and English).

Instruments and modalities of decentralized cooperation In reference to the main instruments and modalities of decentralized cooperation, the aid can be made through public call for tenders where the different NGOs submit their projects or via direct cooperation. In this last modality, the financial institution determines the funds and manages some projects. The autonomous community of Madrid destines 27% of their budget to direct aid. However, the biggest part of decentralized cooperation actions is made through public call to NGOs that compete for funds via submitting their projects. It should also be noticed that in the case of the municipality of Madrid, in 1982 the city institutionalized it cooperation action with it own patrimony and with the UCCI (Union de Cuidades Capitales Iberoamericanas) impulse. As we already mentioned in this chapter, only in 1995, the municipality decided to

create its own bilateral structure: The Development Cooperation Program. Since then, the biggest part of their ODA is made through annual calls to help NGOs projects and the calls regulating bases constitute the juridical frame of the municipality. With regard to the main instruments and modalities of decentralized cooperation, the major characteristic between 1995 and 2002 was that the cooperation was not direct, but through calls to NGOs. However, the new Regulation of 2003 has introduced this possibility for the first time. To sum up this section we can draw some conclusions by comparing whether the city of Rome and Madrid act as “collective actors” in the field of decentralized cooperation. According to Pichierri, A. (1997) 54 , cities become collective actors when they accomplish five elements or characteristics: “a collective decision-making system, common interests, integration mechanisms, internal and external representation of the collective actor, and a capacity for innovation”. While some other authors assess that a city cannot be considered as an actor, but “as a place occupied and used from many actors (...), contains more city stratified from one to others, separated from time and the space, that constitute the atmosphere of life and job of different classes and groups, which interacts in an order of dominations and interdependences that reflect increasing distances” (Marcuse, V. K. 2000, p. 265). This discussion about the actions of the cities as collective actors addresses the problem of internal fragmentation 55 . Thus, urban areas are fragmented systems: • In their horizontal dimension: territorial nodes of economic development and economic actors, social differentiation within urban areas and between sub-urban areas. In metropolitan areas, there is autonomy of institutions, which are potentially competitive (between municipalities and within municipalities and neighborhood councils). • In their vertical dimension: region, province, municipalities, and neighborhood councils. As result of our analyses we can notice that the organizational and political configuration of the two cities is fragmented even if looking only at international activities and decentralized cooperation. We showed a disconnection between the various political levels of government (modest communication). Indeed, we demonstrated a vertical fragmentation of the public institutions, each of them develops it own decentralized cooperation policy. However, in carry out with this activity, cities do not challenge the State and the other sub national institutions,

54 Quoted by Le Galès P. (2002) "European cities within European societies", Oxford University Press, pp. 11 55 C. Lefèvre and Enerst D’Albergo (work in Progress).

such as provinces and regions. In the horizontal dimension we find an insufficient horizontal cooperation. The fragmentation of responsibilities is a major problem mainly in the case of Rome, where this inadequate cooperation reduces the opportunity for addressing the management of functional relationship, potential reciprocal benefits and the fragmentation of competencies among the different sectors dealing with the decentralized cooperation programs.

Chapter 4 The domestic concern as a motivation to develop DC activities

In this chapter and the next we investigate the motivations that encourage donor European cities to develop a decentralized cooperation policy. As we pointed out above, according to the literature on aid motivations, the allocation of development aid from major donor states tends to be motivated by their own interests. A basic assumption in the commonly used justification is that the amount of aid received by any low-income country is proportional to the level of interest of the donor (Olsen, G., Carstensen, N. and Hoyen, K., 2002) . In this thesis we assume that a similar link exists in a minor scale at the municipal level, where the donor’s interests play a crucial role in the distribution of the budget. In other words, any community has a list of domestic concerns that need to alleviate. Basically these concerns can be grouped as follows:

• Geographic proximity: by that we mean the tendency of donor cities to help other neighboring cities in order to obtain a geo-political stability in the region • Historic-cultural links: represents the inclination of donor communities to assist cities with historical and cultural relations • Economic interest: is the persistence of donor cities to “capture” the benefits of international cooperation, like investment, creation of jobs, commercial, etc. In this chapter we present an analysis of the main domestic concerns that motive Rome and Madrid to develop decentralized cooperation programs.

4.1 Geographic Proximity During the 90’s, finished the bipolar era, it was well known the interest for a new geo- political balance, appearing the security as a very important issue . In this case decentralized cooperation emerged as a new tool for dealing, among others concerns, with post conflict situations (humanitarian interventions). In our investigation we find that cities help other municipalities in developing countries in order to achieve social sustainability and thus ensuring the stability in the region. As a consequence, donor European cities contribute to the stabilization

and economic development of nearby geographical areas as well as to prevent and solve conflicts in the developing countries and regions that are important to them. This can be illustrated, for instance by the continuous help of the Italian local governments to the Balkans. Table 4.1 shows the post conflict emergency assistance during the last decade. Here it can be clearly seen that Madrid and Rome have biased their aid programs to very particular cases.

Table 4.1. Post-conflict emergency assistance, 1995-2005 (Source: www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/conflict.htm).

o Municipality of Rome o Municipality of Madrid

Geo- political Stability The Relief Assistance after a Post-Conflict Emergency 1995-2005

Country Year Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995 Rwanda 1997

Albania 1997 Tajikistan 1997 Tajikistan 1998

Republic of Congo 1998 Sierra Leone 1998 Guinea - Bissau 1999 Sierra Leone 1999 Guinea - Bissau 2000 Sierra Leone 2000 Republic of Congo 2000

FR of Yugoslavia 2000 (Kosovo) Burundi 2002 Burundi 2003

Central African Republic 2004 Iraq 2004 Haiti 2005

Let’s now analyze what is the ultimate reason behind this peculiar behavior. An examination of the case of Italy reveals that at the end of the 1990s, the development cooperation activities promoted by regional, provincial and municipal councils had an inhomogeneous substantial rising. For instance, the regions of the North (Trentino-Alto Adige and the

autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano) were among the most active in DC while the Southern areas (Campania and Sicily) played a more passive role. Moreover, the decentralized cooperation programs were distributed among a huge variety of different geographical areas. Thus, in the period 1996-1998 a quantitative analysis presented by Ianni, V. (2002) shows that most of the initiatives (one third) were carried out in Bosnia, Albania and all the remaining former Yugoslav countries. Then, the other two thirds are distributed among Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The 53.6% of the regional projects overall and the 42.1% of those sponsored by the cities surveyed were concentrated in the Mediterranean area. The relevant sub-totals are 50% of the initiatives of cities in the Italian islands, 46 % of those carried out by northern Italian cities and 39.0% of those sponsored by central Italian cities. The applicable percentages for Northern, Central, Southern and Island Regions were, respectively, 47%, 74.4 %, 75% and 64.8%. Regions such as Basilicata, Calabria and Friuli, Venezia, Giulia only operated in the Mediterranean areas, as have the city administrations of Bolzano, Reggio Emilia, Siracusa and Terni. These evidences indicate that the Mediterranean area, traditionally a melting pot of different cultures and countries at different levels of economic development, is seen as the ideal place to test out decentralized cooperation programs. This conclusion is also confirmed by reflections developed in the annual planning documents drafted by most of the regions and cities involved. According to the latter, the main reasons underlying the choice of these and other countries located at comparatively short distances include ( Ianni, V., 2002, p. 22) : • handling migration flows; • economic internationalization, with SEE countries (Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and FR Yugoslavia) as preferential target areas; • Solidarity with countries affected by ongoing and dramatic conflicts, for instance associated with the dissolution of Yugoslavia, or the continuing warfare between Palestinians and Israelis From the above geographic map of regional decentralized cooperation initiatives we can also infer that the northern regions of Italy are mainly dedicated to Bosnia and Sub-Saharan Africa, while the central regions pay more attention to Bosnia and Palestine. Southern regions focus on Albania and PECO countries, whereas island regions cooperate mainly with North Africa. The overall picture that emerges is one of solidarity and cooperation actions mainly

targeted towards problem-stricken countries and areas with which Italians are likely to sympathize due to previous migration flows or other historical ties (e.g. countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa). In short, the Mediterranean area is the main recipient of Italian regional cooperation projects, even though valuable initiatives are also carried out in other parts of the world ( Ianni, V., 2002, p. 22). The above mentioned situation is also apparent in the case of Rome, where the geo- political security with the neighboring countries appears as an important issue. In fact, Rome promotes decentralized cooperation programs in favor of Mediterranean and Balkans cities trying to obtain democratization and pacification in the area. Following the research done by CeSPI (2004), 56 the municipality of Rome has 3 decentralized cooperation programs with North African cities, 4 programs with the Middle East and 3 programs with the Balkans and Central- East European cities. All these programs outnumber those assigned to the LDCs. This indicates that the geo-political factors dominate over the fight against poverty in the decentralized cooperation activities of Rome. Some examples of these DC programs concerning the geographic areas are: • Ex Yugoslavia: Bosnia/ Sarajevo: Project of DC “Water for Sarajevo” (1995) Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina); it has been signed under the Pact of friendship, some help have been given on local services (funeral services, water supplying, etc). • Kosovo: Crisis and violence in Kosovo and fugitive escape in the region (1999) The city promoted a solidarity campaign in favor of the refugees and promoted several initiatives, coordinated by a specific city “table” and promoted by the Italian Consortium of solidarity and the Balkans ethics; for supporting micro credit projects to Kosovo’s families. • Serbia- Pancevo (Serbian Republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina): Project of humanitarian cooperation “CITTA-CITTA” for the reconstruction of Serbia cities as consequence of NATO bombarding. We switch now to the case of Madrid where the decentralized cooperation programs, from the point of view of geographical distribution, basically follows the same pattern than the cooperation carried out by the AECI. The Spanish Guidelines on aid shows that the Latin

56 Jose Luis Rhi- Sausi et all. (2004) L’impegno dellla citta di Roma per lo sviluppo e la pace. Esperienze e prospective, Laboratorio CeSPI.

America cities have priority on the geographic distribution 57 . Another priority area for Spanish aid, according to the Guidelines, is North Africa, a choice related to its geographic proximity. Relatively substantial amounts of aid are still directed to the better-off Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil as well as to Morocco. The key to understand this situation is due to Spain is situated geo-politically in the Mediterranean area, a zone of harboring diverse potential crises of varying intensity, from Algerian situation to the question of immigrant from Africa and South America. Figure 4.1 illustrates the projects concerning the DC activities for Rome and Madrid.

Figure 4.1. Decentralized cooperation activities: municipality of Rome and Madrid. Rome

Madrid

In brief, cities use DC activities in other to mitigate the immigration flows, and try to bring peace in their surroundings, that means to have security in the neighboring areas. This

57 The Minister for Foreign Affairs, dictates the main strategies for reaching the goals set by the Government in relation to Public Aid for Development (budget and planning report). Although the official guidelines for Spanish aid also apply to the decentralised cooperation, each of the autonomous regions and municipalities appears to have established its own priorities and principles concerning relations with the developing countries .

indicates that the geographical stability of the region is more important than the help given in post conflict situations to cities that are far away from their vicinity. So, geographically and even historically speaking (as we shall see in the case of Madrid with Latin America) cities will give relief assistance to other cities; that are closer to them (See Table 4.2).

Table 4.2 . The geographic and thematic priorities areas of Rome and Madrid. Geographic proximity and sharing common problems (peace, emergency, immigration, etc) Rome Madrid Bosnia-Herzegovina North Africa, basically Morocco Kosovo Africa Sub Saharan Albania Latin America North Africa Palestine

4.2 Historic-cultural links As we showed in the previous section, taking into consideration all the Madrilenian administrations, it is possible to specify the following geographic priority areas: South America, Caribbean, and North Africa, with the latter, comprising basically Morocco, in a much smaller proportion than in the case of Ibero America. These geographical areas coincide with the ones identified by the Central Administration, and they are defined as the areas with which they have historical links 58 . These considerations make evident that any attempt to describe the motivations behind DC activities must include the historic and cultural variable as relevant factors. Furthermore, this idea is reinforced by the lack of decentralized cooperation activities carried out with countries of almost negligible cultural and historical relations even tough they are part of the least developed countries (e.g. Sub Saharan Africa). Figure 4.2 shows the ex colonies that Spain had in Ibero America. If we compare the priorities areas that Madrid has designed to carry out DC activities and their ex colonies we can notice that most of the projects that the city of Madrid has are with their ex colonies in Latin America countries particularly: Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador while in Central America are: Honduras, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua among others.

58 For more information see: www.oecd.org

Figure 4.2. Map of the ex-Spanish colonies.

It becomes clear that, then, the political, geographical and economical priorities of Madrid are in Latin America and therefore this city is sensitive to crises of development and eventual complex political crises, as well as natural disasters, in those countries. As we mentioned in previous chapters, the city of Madrid is trying to orient its aid more towards Sub- Saharan African cities (1.17% of their help from 1999 and 2002) but still there are clear preferences to develop relations with Latin America cities. This can be indicated in the fact that most of the projects are made with South America (35.37%) and Caribbean cities (30.29% of the projects) and in third place is located Morocco (4.17% of the projects) 59 . Table 4.3 summarizes this point according to the financial support that the municipality of Madrid assigns to decentralized cooperation initiatives by geographic areas.

59 This data are taken from: Informe de la Cooperacion para el desarrollo realizada por las administraciones Publicas Madrilenias (2002), Ayuda Oficial al desarrollo, Consejalia de Empleo y Servicio al ciudadano, Municipalidad de Madrid, Madrid.

Table 4.3. Municipality of Madrid. Grant by geographic areas ( Source: Consejalia de Empleo y Servicio al ciudadano, 2002).

Geographic Area 1999 2000 2001 2002 Total % Total % Ibero America 68 59 56 70 253 54.18 32 M€ 65.66 Central America 36 26 26 32 120 25.70 15 M€ 30.29 Guatemala 3 6 5 6 20 4.28 2 M€ 4.44 El Salvador 4 3 6 3 16 3.43 2 M€ 4.55 Honduras 6 7 4 8 25 5.35 3.6 M€ 7.40 Dominican Rep. 6 3 2 6 17 3.64 2.6 M€ 5.40 South America 32 33 30 38 133 28.69 17 M€ 35.37 Bolivia 11 8 3 5 27 5.78 3.8 M€ 7.87 Colombia 3 4 7 7 21 4.71 2.8 M€ 5.71 Ecuador 1 3 6 8 18 3.85 2 M€ 4.28 Peru 16 12 11 18 57 12.21 7 M€ 15.02 Africa 18 14 16 13 61 13,06 8 M€ 16.36 Africa Equatorial 12 8 10 6 36 7.71 4.5 M€ 9.22 Congo 6 1 2 0 9 1.93 1 M€ 2.39 Tanzania 1 1 2 0 4 0.86 0.9 M€ 1.85 Uganda 2 0 1 3 6 1.28 0.7 M€ 1.50 Africa Sub Saharan 1 0 1 1 3 0.64 0.6 M€ 1.17 Cape Verde 1 0 1 0 2 0.43 0.4 M € 0.75 Senegal 0 1 1 0.21 0.2 € 0.41 Magbreb 2 5 4 6 17 3.64 2.5 M€ 5.29 Morocco 2 4 2 5 13 2.78 2 M€ 4.17 Algeria 1 1 1 3 0.64 0.3 M € 0.58

To summarize this point, is also important to keep in mind not only the geographical remoteness and cultural proximity between Spain and Latin America, but also the linguistic homogeneity. In other words, Spanish and Latin Americans share over 5 centuries of common history despite a great geographical distance. So, in the case of Madrid the cultural and historical links are very important in order to carry out DC activities. However, is worth emphasizing that the idea of giving priority to the countries with middle rent under the argument of keeping historic links is being discussed in the internationals forums trying to orient the decentralized development cooperation towards the objective of eradication of poverty (Sanchez, E., 2003, p.

21). In contrast to Madrid, in Rome the cultural and historical relations do not seem to be a dominant factor. To some extent it is possible to mention the historical ties that Rome has with some Sub-Saharan African cities within the ex colonies of Italy (Italian Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia (See Figure 4.3)).

Figure 4.3. Maps of the ex-Italian colonies.

A closer look shows that there is no clear relation between Italy and its colonial past. This is in stark contrast with the case of Spain where a strong link with their ex-colonies is observed. All Latin American countries (but Brazil) speak the same language and also share the same culture (food for instance). In the case of Rome, there is not a common culture between the country and their ex colonies. Only in Eritrea, Italian language is widely understood. Moreover, the only connection that we found in the field of DC is that Rome helped Eritrea sending medicine due to the emergency crisis that this country had in 1998/ 2000. The migrations flows are another important factor that explains the promotion of decentralized cooperation activities of the municipality of Rome and Madrid. In recent years, sub national governments have played an increasingly important role in both migration and

decentralized cooperation. In many cases, at least during an initial phase, the role of regions and municipalities in migration matters has been the result of the difficulties experienced by the Italian central government in drawing up appropriate and effective hospitality and integration policies. Regions have been induced to engage more actively in this field also as a consequence of Italy’s late development as a country of immigration (Chaloff, J., Piperno, F., 2004, p. 14) . Significant migration flows have begun to affect Italy in coincidence with the post-fordist period and the related segmentation of labor markets and labor demand; this segmentation has entailed, in turn, a trend towards a regionally differentiated need for migrant workforce. Such a need, with all its implications, is clearly more difficult to foresee, monitor and manage at the central level. A further element is associated with the geographical feature of Italy as a border-country, which adds to the sense of urgency of some inward migration waves that regions were called to deal with, as during the Kosovo war (Chaloff, J., Piperno, F., 2004, p. 15). The vitality of local governments, often opposed to the weakness of the central government, is in part a common feature with Spain and has brought some analysts to talk about a “Southern European model”. The main sectorial areas of action by Italian decentralized cooperation are the following 60 : a) Workforce training, selection and recruitment projects b) Mandatory and voluntary return c) Projects to create employment and reduce migratory pressure d) Projects for the optimal use of remittances Projects concerning migrants’ training and return are implemented by most Italian regions and are also foreseen by almost all migratory and development regional laws. Furthermore, workforce training, selection and recruitment projects can be framed in the Italian immigration law (189/2002) which explicitly favors the entry of emigrants who have completed a professional training in the country of origin (art.17). Another recruitment scheme has been adopted by the Lazio Region, which published, in 2001, a tender for a six-month training course in Tunisia. The participants that were selected (about 120) after succeeding in a final exam received a visa to Italy (out of the special quotas issued for Tunisia) and were supported in their search for employment. Such projects have been criticized for their excessive unilateral approach

60 Frattolillo, O. and Stocchiero, A. Le regioni e le province autonome italiane tra cooperazione e immigrazione , Programma di ricerca MigraCtion, Centro Studi Politica Internazionale (CeSPI), June 2002/ Quoted from (Chaloff, J. and Piperno, F. 2004, p. 15).

that would not sufficiently consider the impact of recruitment on the immigrants countries of origin; as a matter of fact, policies of this kind can facilitate immigrant integration in the host countries, but if they are not accompanied by a strategy aimed at increasing brain circulation and training supply in emigration countries, they risk channeling dramatically skills from the poorest areas towards the richest (Chaloff, J., Piperno, F., 2004). In the case of Rome the most important migrations flows are coming from Asia and Central and Eastern Europe (See Figure 4.4). However not many programs in the field of DC have been developed by the municipality of Rome toward those countries. Thus, we cannot use the historic- cultural variable in order to explain this situation.

Figure 4.4. Migration flows of Rome on 2003.

In sharp contrast with the above mentioned situation, the historic-cultural variable become very important in the case of Madrid. Indeed, in the Madrilenian aid assistance, one of the fundamental lines of the municipal cooperation is determined by the concept of co- development, mainly with Latin American countries (Colombia, Ecuador, etc.) and Morocco. This policy is coherent with the migratory flows, and thus projects of return and labor insertion have been stimulated. By geographic zones, the foreigners coming from the Caribbean and Latin America countries represent 65.62% of the non Spanish population resident in Madrid, followed

of distant spot by the ones coming from Africa and East Europe, 10.14% and 8.5% respectively 61 (See Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5. Immigrant population by geographic zone of origin in Madrid ( Source: Mayor Office of Madrid, Department of Employment and Citizens’ Service).

In addition, the Figure 4.6 shows the evolution of the main nationality of origin since 1999. If we analyze the representation by groups, the greater presence it has the group of Ecuadorian with 143,653 people who reach 31.6% of the immigrants. Other representative groups are the Colombians with 10.0%, Peruvians with 6.1%, Moroccans with 5.5% and Rumanians with 5.3% 62 . It is also important to stress a potential area of conflict in the cooperation politics: the overlapping between the development aid with other interest of local and regional governments. This issue can be seen particularly with regard to the immigration that has become an important subject of the local policy, together with other classical topics like the employment. It is perceived a kind of tendency to use the resources of cooperation to programs assigned to immigrants. In doing so, the risk is to confuse the main objective of decentralized cooperation

61 This data are taken from the Mayor Office of Madrid, Department of Employment and Citizens’ Service, Autonomous Community of Madrid, Madrid. 62 This data are taken from the Mayor Office of Madrid, Department of Employment and Citizens’ Service, Autonomous Community of Madrid, Madrid.

and at the same time to reduce the amount of resources (already modest) destined to the developing countries ( (Freres, C. y Cabo, C., 2003, p. 29).

Figure 4.6. Evolution of the main nationality of origin in Madrid (Source: Mayor Office of Madrid, Department of Employment and Citizens’ Service).

4.3 Economic interest So far we have shown the relevance of the geographic proximity and the historic-cultural links as part of the domestic concerns that motivate to develop decentralized cooperation activities. This list of factors is nearly completed once we add the potential investment, the opening of markets for products and the technology for modernization that inevitable come along with any cooperation program. These incentives can be grouped in a single denominator known as economic factors. These factors can alternatively manifest themselves as a self- tourist promotion or inward investment as a mean for obtaining employment and growth, as well as moving into new economic sectors (Aldecoa, F; Keating, M., 1999). As we mentioned along this thesis, the main objective of the decentralized cooperation activities is the reduction of poverty in the LDCs. However, many authors (Sanchez, E., 2003; (Stocchiero, A., 2003; Freres, C. and Cabo, C., 2003; Gonzales Parada, J. (ed.), 1998) assess that the decentralized cooperation actions are attached to the promotion of economic and trade interests of the cities. This point has been noticed in the report prepared by the FONGDCAM (the Spanish NGO Coordination for development) on the decentralized cooperation activities made by the Spanish cities and autonomous communities . This report emphasizes that many

local authorities develop an external political action and an economic promotion of the city and use the decentralized cooperation activities in order to support these policies (Sanchez, E., 2003, pp. 3-6) . In many occasions the decentralized cooperation actions are subordinated to different objectives from the logic of development and the fight against poverty such as economic, commercial, political or cultural interest. An example of this behavior is the exportation of Spanish companies 63 . In general, the main critics towards the economic promotion of the city or personal endorsement of the local leaders are coming from the NGOs according to which the Spanish development cooperation suffers seriously from a lack of clear strategy. They do also report that beyond debt relief and humanitarian assist, aid programs have been limited in resources (The Reality of Aid, 2002) 64 . The same argument is pointed out by Andrea Stocchiero, who considers that the local autonomies in Italy are showing some tendencies to mix the cooperation with the economic internalization of the city or the utilization of the decentralized cooperation activities for the internationalization of the Italian companies (Stocchiero, A., 2003, p. 9). As consequence, there are some tendencies to start cooperation activities with developing countries and then transforms these actions in technical assistance by different consultants from donor European countries. In other words, the attraction for the donor European cities in carry out decentralized cooperation is the possibility to be simultaneously altruistic and selfish, that means to give some benefits and to take back some economic benefits (Parada, J., 1998, p. 22). Moreover, it is important to take into consideration the relation between corruption and cooperation when business is combined with assistance (Parada, J., 1998, p. 23). And thus, the effect in this case is to confuse cooperation with financial benefits. According to the above mentioned situation some Mayors may be using decentralized cooperation activities in order to obtain some economic benefits for the city such as promoting the city economy and finance in the global market. As we showed above, in the case of Spain, the decentralized cooperation activities are mainly with Latin America. In a similar fashion the foreign trade and the direct investment of the autonomous community of Madrid is with the developing countries, especially with those in Latin America, as it shows in the Figure 4.7. Thus, the economic promotion and the development cooperation are the instruments that have a greater

63 Interview with María del Mar Rosillo, FONGCAM (Spanish NGO Coordination for development). 64 For more information see: http://www.realityofaid.org

weight in the relations between the autonomous communities and Latin America and thus, the latter become the high-priority destiny for all Spanish regions. Some of the reasons that justify this relation (are the same for all the Spanish communities, although we can notice specific circumstances in some regions) is that Latin America appears as a place where, although different levels of economic development exist, the perspective of growth is relatively optimistic in the middle term, which constitutes a factor of attraction for the exporting companies 65 .

Figure 4.7. Economic Relations with Latin America (Source: freres, C. and Cabo, C., 2003)

While in the case of Rome, the Mediterranean area appears for the current Mayor of Rome as a geographical dimension that facilitates the economic and political sides of the international strategies to meet with each other. On the economic side, the Mediterranean is considered to be the best-option for internationalizing Rome 66 in order to become a “regional metropolis” and to improve the city’s capacity to be connected within the most important economic (trade, investments, information) networks among European cities. And on the political side, Veltroni has taken this area as a favorite target as well (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 7, 8). Moreover, economic and social development of the Southern Mediterranean countries is seen as a resource for peaceful coexistence, while peace and security are considered to be

65 For more information see: Freres, C. and Sanz, A. (2002) La acción exterior de las comunidades autónomas españolas hacia América Latina: instrumentos, mecanismos y prioridades, in http://www.iigov.org 66 Unione degli Industriali di Roma, Roma, infrastrutture e sviluppo per il Mediterraneo: linee guida per un piano integrato , Rome, June 2003.

preconditions of profitable trade relations, advantageous also for the economy of Rome (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 19). In addition, as we showed in chapter 2 and 3, Mayors may be using decentralized cooperation activities in order to obtain some economic benefits for the city making it the recipient of knowledge through exchange of best practices via decentralized cooperation activities; searching for the promotion of local authorities through the direct involvement of the city in supranational organizations; or lobbying the EU and strengthening the role of cities in the European policy making (via the different EU programs). Closely related to this is the opinion that the participation of sub national governments in development cooperation is to be seen as a logical consequence of the increased Para diplomacy activity of these authorities (Desmet, A. and Develtere, P., 2002, p. 6). In this sense, Para diplomacy is considered as an increasing involvement of local governments in the international arena (Duchacek, I.D. et al., 1988; Hocking, B., 1993; Aldecoa, F. and Keating, M., 1999). The reasons of this action lay both in changes at the level of the state and in the international system, and in the political and economic developments within regions themselves. Sub national governments are getting more and more active on the international arena and develop bilateral and multilateral relations with other states, other sub national governments and international institutions. Development cooperation then comes as a by-product of this Para diplomacy action (Desmet, A. and Develtere, P., 2002, p.7). Therefore, Para diplomacy is part of a broadening of the universe of international affairs, in which states are no longer the only actors. Sub national governments operate alongside firms, trade unions, social movements and transnational organizations like Greenpeace or Oxfam and Universities each of them developing their own strategy (Aldecoa, F., and Keating, M., 1999) . As we show below, this aspect of the decentralized cooperation may bring direct benefits as a job sources to NGOs or other involved organizations. In fact, local municipal authorities and NGOs work together to obtain financial support and develop joint planning and initiatives for international development cooperation. In the case of Italian NGOs, they can receive funding for development cooperation activities from the DGDC if eligible by decree under defined criteria (e.g. have institutional development cooperation objectives, be non-profit orientated, be capable of implementing activities in an effective manner, demonstrate three years of experience, submit to controls and inspection,

present financial record-keeping capability and make annual reports to retain eligibility) 67 . Italian NGOs also receive funding from the EC, selected ministries other than foreign affairs, regions, municipalities and churches (OECD/ DAC, 2000) . In the case of Spain, most of the funds for decentralized cooperation activities are channeled through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which play a substantial role here and also a co-financing from the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI). Although NGOs play a major function, they are not the only actors involved in DC activities. This diversity eventually brings competitiveness and promotes the fight for the same limited “resources.” Thus, some NGOs that have obtained an important own space and enough resources of the different public instances, observe with reluctance that new actors enter in the cooperation community. As affirms a specialist in this topic, “the vision that certain sectors of the NGOs have of the universities is not very good” (Unceta, K. 2001, p. 127). These organizations have seen, in addition, how some university departments have created their own NGOs to accede to their lines of financing. For that reason, the NGOs have generally not lent much aid for the creation of specific programs to support the cooperation done by the universities. However, not all NGOs act in that way, in fact, many NGOs collaborate actively with the universities through courses of formation, investigation and solidarity’s campaigns. In addition; many people from universities collaborate with non governmental organizations, trying to avoid a direct conflict between the sectors. On the other hand, only recently the universities have begun to organize themselves in this scope of actions . So, the decentralized cooperation activities have opened new links among the different sectors. Many universities in Spain and Italy are proposing graduate studies in decentralized cooperation. In the last years programs of post degree formation have proliferated, especially “Masters” in different areas and the issue of cooperation and development do not escape to this tendency. Thus, a complete report prepared by Freres, C. and Cabo, C. (2003) shows the activities of the different Universities of Madrid in the field of development cooperation 68 . In the case of Madrid, this transnational cooperation has been centered, logically, in the European

67 Approximately 136 NGOs are presently eligible for funding. The majority of Italian NGOs have joined one of the three national NGO federations [FOCSIV, Coordinamento di Iniziative di Solidarietà Popolare (CIPSI), Coordinamento delle ONG per la Cooperazione Internazionale allo Sviluppo (COCIS)]. 68 For more information about the development cooperation activities developed by the Universities in Madrid see: Freres, C., Cabo, C. (2003), "Las Universidades de la Comunidad de Madrid y la Cooperación al Desarrollo", Colección Documentos Técnicos , Consejerías de Educación y de Servicios Sociales de la Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid, No.2.

surroundings, due to the proximity, the necessities of the integration process in the European Union and the existence of a multitude of programs (e.g., Erasmus, Leonardo, etc.). Another zone of intense university cooperation has been North America. However, the most part of the network relations are with universities in Latin American that had been created throughout many years of cooperation. This tendency can be deduced from the historical and cultural relations among those regions. In the same line of action many programs on development cooperation have been developed by different Universities and Research Centers in Rome. A report coordinated by Rhi- Sausi, J.L. on decentralized cooperation and the international role of Rome illustrate that not only the municipality of Rome but an important number of different actors are involved in the decentralized cooperation activities 69 . For instance, in the Universities there are around 16 degree formation and Masters Programs and 28 Centers of Studies and Research Institutes dedicated to the sector of international and development cooperation. Therefore, the University has an active participation in this field, some Universities like “La Sapienza” has an internal structure devote mainly to the cooperation and sustainable development (e.g. CIRPS inside La Sapienza or The Center for the International Cooperation in the Catholic University of the Sacro Cuore). In addition, the universities developed a variety of formative offer of specialization on the diverse aspects of the cooperation. Parallel, there are many departments making projects of decentralized cooperation between roman universities and universities in developing countries (Rhi- Sausi, J. L., et all. 2004, p. 63) as well as in the case of the Madrilenian universities. Moreover, with respect to the social, economic and cultural system of coalition with actors and interests we find that in the case of Rome, the two mayors have constructed a different strategy. Rutelli and Veltroni come from the same political majority but Rutelli put the accent on the partnership with the entrepreneurial of the city, while Veltroni, not excluding the economic world, tries to privilege the relation with other nom- institutional actors such as NGOs and civil society organizations. This happened through the establishment of a “ City Committee for Decentralised Cooperation and Solidarity ” (2002), in which take part the City, NGOs, private firms and Rome universities (D’Albergo, E., 2005).

69 For more information see: Jose Luis Rhi- Sausi et all. (2004), L’impegno dellla citta di Roma per lo sviluppo e la pace. Esperienze e prospective, Laboratorio CeSPI.

In the case of Madrid, the current Mayor implemented a neo-liberal policy, and internationalization has become a key point in municipal strategies. Two intertwined issues are evident in this case. The first is the internationalization of the city economy, which has resulted in implementing a strategic marketing process, with all urban actors. The city council has therefore created several institutions besides strengthened its relationships with local economic and trade union actors in order to achieve its main priority, i.e. to rank Madrid as an international entrepreneurial city. In addition, economy and citizen involvement are associated in the city administration via the Government Department of Economy and Citizen Involvement. Such association shows who are the non-public urban actors integrated in the municipal decision- making process. On the contrary, it explains its orientation in the 1980s towards a political-social dimension insofar as social movements were still, in that period, very prominent in the political debate, and could therefore influence the municipal strategy with its values of peace, solidarity and local autonomy (Martin, L., Rodriguez Alvarez, J. and Iocco, M. E. 2005). To summarize this section it is important to mention that, from the economic point of view, in Rome and Madrid, the motivations for DC activities lay not only in the security of the cities or making the economy of both cities more attractive for foreign capital investments but also in the creation of new job opportunities in this field. However, as we discuss in the next chapter the explanations so far considered represents only one part of the whole picture and further ingredients have to be included in order to achieve a more complete panorama.

Chapter 5 The symbolic politics of decentralized cooperation

Here we concentrate mostly on the symbolic use of decentralized cooperation activities, i.e. as an instrument to self-promote the political visibility of the local politicians at power via aid programs with the LDCs, or through catalytic events that can be used as an important resource to reinforce the political legitimacy of the city and the local leaderships. Also we demonstrate how DC activities answer in a generalized manner and in various ways to the strategies of the political actors and mainly the Mayors. In other words, by giving aid, donor cities hide their real motivation such as geo-strategic and commercial goals ( Alesina, A. and Dollar, D. 2000; Burnside, C. and Dollar, D. 2000) . The way in which this is achieved and the conditions necessary for this to occur are points that we address in the following sections paying particular attention to the cases of Rome and Madrid.

5.1 Strengthening legitimacy Multilateral organisms like UN and WB 70 , and the donors committee 71 have expressed a unanimous consent on the priority of fighting against poverty in the development cooperation actions. As such, it is expected that international organizations and European cities focus their attention on the least developed countries (see Table 5.1). However, the financial resources devoted to the achievement of this goal are extremely restricted. A clear example of this is the distribution of aid by the European Union 72 , e.g. the European Commission and its member states. European external assistance is clearly under-performing with regard to the share allocated to the least developed countries: in 2001/02, only one LDC, Mauritania, was among the top 10 ODA recipients from the EC. At the beginning of the 1980s, EC aid to Sub-Saharan Africa amounted to 58.9% of the EC’s external assistance programs (e.g. food aid). Since the 1990s, the relative volume of EC aid to Africa has declined considerably: at the beginning of the

70 See for instance the report on Human development of UN development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank (2000), Attacking poverty- World Development Report 2000/20001, Oxford University Press, New York. 71 DAC- OECD (1996), Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Cooperation, Paris. 72 See the Communication of European Commission to the Council and European Parliament, The European Community development policy, Brussels, 26. 04. 2000.

1990s Africa received 51.1% of the EC’s aid budget; now Sub-Saharan Africa receives only 39.5% of EC aid budget (Rhi- Sausi, J. L., p. 2, 2004).

Table 5.1. Least Developed Countries ( Source: UN and OCDE).

Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh Benin, Burkina Faso, Bhutan Burundi, Cape Verde, Cambodia Chad, Camorras, Congo Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau Guinea Equatorial, Haiti, Salome Island Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique Myanmar, Nepal, Niger Laos, Rwanda Samoa (Occidental), Saint Tomas and Prince, Senegal Sierra Leona, Somalia, Sudan Tanzania, Togo, Tuvalu Uganda, Vanuatu Yemen, Zambia

The observed discrepancy between the officially recognized least developed countries and the actual benefited targets of development aid programs, is not only present at the supranational level but it is also reflected at the lower levels (governmental, regional, municipal). Indeed, for instance recent studies on decentralized cooperation of Italian regions and municipalities show that the concentrations of decentralized cooperation activities are mainly in the Mediterranean areas (53% of the region’s projects and 42% of the municipal projects) 73 . Therefore, the geo-political priorities prevail on the objective of poverty reduction 74 . As we showed in chapter 4, there is a concentration of the resources in the Balkans and the

73 Ianni, V., Toigo, M., Salvucci, C. e Mirani, D. (2000), “Rapporto sulle attività di cooperazione decentrata delle Regioni e dei Comuni periodo 1996-1998”, in Cooperazione Italiana e Osservatorio Interregionale sulla cooperazione allo sviluppo, Il ruolo internazionale delle regioni e degli enti locali tra crisi, stabilità e sviluppo , Quaderni della cooperazione decentrata allo sviluppo, Roma; 74 Ianni, V. (a cura di) (1999), La Cooperazione decentrata in Toscana , Movimondo e Regione Toscana, Roma; Istituto Regionale di Ricerca della Lombardia (IRER) (2000), “Indagine conoscitiva sulla cooperazione decentrata nella regione Lombardia”, Quaderni Regionali di Ricerca 10 , Regione Lombardia, Milano; Stocchiero, A. (2000), “La cooperazione decentrata delle regioni italiane”, Laboratorio CeSPI , n.4, Ottobre, Roma; Stocchiero, A., Frattolillo, O. e Gonella, N. (2001), “I comuni italiani e la cooperazione internazionale”, in Laboratorio CeSPI , n. 6, Giugno 2001.

Mediterranean countries due to foreign affairs reasons, the support to the democratization and peace processes in the nearby areas in the case of Rome. All in all the laws on decentralized cooperation of the Italian regions and municipalities state that their purpose is to contribute to the social and sustainable development at the local level, the promotion of the human rights, the support to the culture of peace and the reduction of poverty. In some cases these objectives are fulfilled as it is illustrated in list of projects shown below of Rome with developing countries:

• Maputo (Mozambique)/ Project of decentralized Cooperation MDP (Municipal Development Program), promoted from the World Bank and supported from the MAE and under the coordination of ECOMED. The project is aimed at improving living conditions in the suburbs of the African cities. Figure 5.1 shows the Matrix of decentralized cooperation as part of the World Bank’s Municipal Development Program. • Zambia/ project of agricultural development (fight against desertification) started in 1998. The first activities were initiated in the course of the 2000. The IFAD (International Found for Agricultural development) invited to the Mayor of Rome to work together for the agricultural development of Mozambique, in collaboration with the roman NGO Movimondo Molisv • The Rome (Italy)/ Kigali (Rwanda) Model (2003). The city of Rome Municipality and FAO have signed an agreement for decentralized cooperation in order to reduce the hunger in developing countries (to establish an improved general food market). The Glocal Forum (a non- profit organization) is helping to establish a capacity-building project among local agricultural NGOs and the municipality of Kigali 75 .

In the case of Spain, although the official guidelines for Spanish aid also apply to the decentralized cooperation activities, each of the autonomous regions and municipalities has established their own priorities and principles concerning the relations with developing countries 76 . The emphasis is generally placed on poverty reduction, the promotion of social justice, participatory development and relief assistance. In this sense, the city of Madrid is trying

75 Interview with Castelgrande Paola, Italy-FAO Decentralized Cooperation Program. Resources and strategic Partnerships Unit, Technical Cooperation Department-FAO. 76 For more information see: Spain Development Coopewration Review in www.oecd.org

to orient its aid more towards Sub-Saharan African cities and thus, Madrid is the one of the few that has helped this group of countries in comparison with other local bodies in Spain (14% of ODA), but not in a constant way. This aid decreases between 1999 and 2000 (from 15.4% to 7.9%) and it was followed by a steep increase to 19. 6% in 2001. At the moment, it is difficult to determine whether these fluctuations are side effects of the conjuncture situations. All in all during 1999- 2001, the developing projects made with the LDCs have been marginalized and only an average of 2.79% of the budget has been designated to those countries (Freres, C. y Cabo, C., 2003, pp. 47- 53 ). As we have anticipated above, the discrepancy between the officially recognized least developed countries and the actual benefited targets of development aid programs becomes also apparent in the Spanish decentralized cooperation activities. Indeed, the autonomous regions, municipalities and other local bodies have defined the cities in Latin American countries as priority areas followed by North African cities. As we showed in chapter 4, the latter choice is related to the geographic proximity of Maghreb. This is mainly due to the migration problem and the fact that there is cultural and historical relation with Latin America cities. The main critic (Sanchez, E., 2003; Restan, J. 2000; Freres, C. and Cabo, C., 2003) towards the Spanish cooperation is that instead of defining the fight against poverty as the central axis of its action, it persecutes a plurality of development objectives. Moreover, Spain is located in the last place in the classification of good donors. This is due to the little contribution of aid to the LDCs, in benefit of the countries with middle income, especially the ones in Latin America and North Africa (Sanchez, E., 2003). The above mentioned initiatives have demonstrated that decentralized cooperation appears as an instrument that allows cities to play an operational role in development cooperation, and thus local governments can place the fighting against poverty on their political agenda. However, as we demonstrated above, no matter how altruistically the aid programs appear, they always exist to serve some interests or objectives of the donor countries, (Hecox, E., 1999), for instance the migrations flows, the political instability in the nearby areas or the international strategy of the Mayors . A telling proof of this is the fact that the current Mayor of Rome has developed his political strategy towards the promotion of transnational agendas for sustainable development, social justice, peace and human rights mostly in Africa (e.g. Italia-Africa, the Glocal Forum, and

the actions of solidarity in the field of decentralized cooperation). Sometimes these initiatives are carried out through partnerships with intergovernmental organizations (World Bank; UN agencies). In some other cases they present direct and personal initiatives from the Mayor together with NGOs, without the involvement of the administration of the city, as happens in the case of cooperation with Maputo (Mozambique). Therefore, this makes possible to portray Rome as a city of spirituality, solidarity and peace via the promotion of Rome as a paradigm of non- materialism. In Veltroni’s view the identity and the resources of Rome are not prevailingly well- suited to integrate the city in the marketplace, but they rather should be used to enhance values of solidarity and cosmopolitanism and, through this, the role of the city in the national and international scenario 77 . Under these circumstances the new political leadership has identified himself with those popular aspirations symbolized primarily by the promotion of aid programs with the LDCs. From this point of view, decentralized cooperation has become an important international activity for providing interpretative gratifications for the incumbent political leadership in terms of “local pride” and for bolstering its domestic legitimacy. In contrast to the case of Rome, in the municipality of Madrid the economic development of the city is prioritized in order to gain a place in the international scenario. Therefore, the department for international development cooperation is not directly depending from the Mayor himself but from the department of employment and service’s citizens. This Office annually shows a complete and detailed description of the programs with the LDCs 78 . A report presented by Freres, C. and Cabo, C., (December 2003) reveal that the sub-Saharan Africa cities have received (in average) 4 % of the aid of this municipality in the period 1998/ 2002 ( Freres, C. and Cabo, C., 2003, p. 47) . However, although the priority areas for this city are still Latin America and North Africa, these aid programs are not used for political visibility but for economic

77 For more in depth information concerning the international strategy of Rome see: D’Albergo, E. (2005) “The politics of Rome’s international strategies”, Department Innovazione e Società, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, CITTA-ESF Meeting, June 10-11, Zurich. 78 In the case of Madrid all projects presented by the actors implicated in DC activities are evaluated through a specialized governmental commission, i.e. Area de Gobierno de empleo y servicios al Ciudadano. In contrast to that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no such an evaluation aiming to judge the effectiveness of the donor’s assistance for projects carried out by Rome. At any rate, it is worth emphasizing that a broader range of actors (not only NGOs but other decentralized actors or non-profit private sector organizations) are taking part in DC activities thus making more difficult to asses the effective support, guidance and examination of the sources. This is an entangled multilevel cooperation where all the partners (from developed and developing countries, local authorities and NGOs) are actively involved in the programs. The conditions for getting good results from this kind of cooperation and partnership depends from the real good faith of the actors, both local authorities and civil society and in most cases finding a proper indicator for effectiveness is a serious endeavour. This is a relevant and interesting topic beyond the scope of this thesis which certainly deserves further investigations.

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promotion of the city. Consequently, it may be inferred that the relatively low proportion of money and decentralized cooperation activities show clearly that fight against poverty represent only one part of the issue. In order to complete this schema we should turn now to analyze the other two symbolic politics: political visibility and local leaderships.

Figure 5.1. Matrix of decentralized cooperation as part of the World Bank’s Municipal Development Program (source: World Bank).

DGCS/EDI/MDP/ANCI

MDP ANCI

Municipality of Municipality Maputo of Rome

Citizen Are of Committee: intervention: Table Environment Mozambique Protection Actors: (Hygiene) ACEA AMA ISCOS Movimondo

5.2 Political visibility What determines how issues are discussed, whether in economic, moral, equity, or other framings? Political context, material characteristics of the issue and immediate catalysts are three major determinants of the political attention devoted to a problem ( Mitchell, R. B., 2001, p. 502) Contextual forces explain broad patterns in agendas, a problem’s material characteristics help explain variation within those patterns. We can expect aid problems involving transboundary impacts, large and dramatic risks or direct and immediate threats to humans, and clearly understood trends, sources and solutions to appear on the international agenda more often than those lacking such traits. The press mediates the influence of such events, headlining some issues while relegating others to the back pages (Mitchell, R. B., 2001). To give but one example, maritime regulation has quickly followed pollution incidents near developed states even though much larger disasters off Africa and Latin America had occurred many years before. Yet,

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catalysts have heavily contingent causal power, they “are not driving forces like material conditions, interests, or ideas” but move things forward only when deeper forces and conditions align (Haas, P., 1992b p. 14; Young, 1998a, p.77). Let’s see in the case of decentralized cooperation how local politicians may quickly react in front of humanitarian crisis that have a big media impact. Table 5.2 shows the cost and the number of victims for the natural disasters occurred during the last decade.

Table 5.2. Emergency assistance related to natural disasters in the period 1995-2005. Blue fonts indicate those events where Rome and Madrid have paid more attention (Source: Berga, L., Professor of the Polytechnical University of Barcelona, Spain, Chairman of ICOLD Committee on Dams and Floods).

Country Year Event Victims Economic Losses Bangladesh 1998 Floods 1,655 $13.000 million Dominican Rep. 1998 Hurricane 13,000 $1 billion Haiti 1998 Hurricane 2,000 $180 million Nicaragua/Honduras 1998 Hurricane 20,000 $4,000 million St. Kitts and Nevis 1998 Hurricane 3,000 $402 million Turkey 1999 Earthquake 60,000 $3 billion Venezuela 1999 Floods 20,000 $15 million Mozambique 2000 Floods 200,00 $600 million Malawi 2002 Food shortage Grenada 2003 Hurricane Grenada 2004 Hurricane Maldives 2005 Tsunami 11,000 $1 billion Sri Lanka 2005 Tsunami 300,000 $10 billion

A direct analysis of Table 5.2 shows that both municipalities (Rome and Madrid) devote most of their aids simultaneously to the same catastrophes. The common factor in these catastrophes is the number of victims rather than the amount of losses, thus indicating that the former is the most relevant parameter for triggering a quick reaction. From this it can be inferred that cities take action whenever an emergency crisis with a big media impact affect the public

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opinion or when a region or a city is perceived as very near for cultural and historical reasons. In brief, media impact seems to be a particularly relevant variable in order to explain the decentralized cooperation activities of the municipalities of Madrid and Rome, mainly for visibility reasons of the city and the local leaderships as emergency assistance concern. In order to be more precise on this topic let us now delve into the details of the specific humanitarian projects for emergency assistance that each city has carried out 79 . Rome • A project with the city of Jinoteca (Nicaragua) based on the reconstruction of 16 houses destroyed for the Hurricane Mitch in 1998. • In 2005: Tsunami (Sri Lanka/ South- East Asia) Rome made a call to the citizenship in order to do donations and it has started a campaign of supporting children of the zones affected by the catastrophe Moreover, with the collaboration of FARMACAP (Azienda Speciale Farmacosociosanitaria del Comune di Roma), AMA and ACEA, the municipality of Rome has taken part in some cases of humanitarian emergency sending medicine. Some examples of these cases are the following: • Transfer of medicine to Eritrea (in occasion of the two emergency crisis 1998 and 2000) • Distribution of medicine to Turkey (in occasion of the earthquake in 1999) • Sending medicine to Mozambique (in occasion of the floods in 2000) Madrid The city of Madrid keeps 10% of the budget for decentralized cooperation activities for humanitarian help: • Humanitarian aid in the zone affected by the Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua and Honduras, and the Hurricane George in Dominique Republic in 1998 • The refugees’ crisis in Kosovo, the earthquake in India and Turkey in 1999. • In 2000 there have been considered as humanitarian aid projects in Central America and Africa (Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania) • In 2002 some resources went for the crises in Argentina and Palestine

79 For humanitarian projects for emergency assistance we mean the answer to the emergencies and disasters caused by the nature like earthquakes, hurricanes or droughts, or directly caused by the human intervention like armed conflicts or refugees.

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• In 2005 Tsunami (Sri Lanka/ South- East Asia). The Municipality of Madrid helped Sri Lanka and the South East of Asia as consequence of the tidal wave. Here, once again, the cultural and historical links play a relevant role in the analysis of the relation between decentralized cooperation and emergency assistance. For instance, the British have taken the lead in trying to resolve the conflict in Sierra Leone, a former colony. France is famously perceived to be partial to French-speaking people and countries. And the traditionally close ties between Germany and Croatia contributed to the German decision to recognize Croatia as an independent state in 1991, thereby contributing to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia (Thompson, L., 2002). This trend can be also seen in the case of Madrid. Table 5.3 summarizes the main emergency projects subsidized in the period 1999/2002 by the municipality of Madrid. From this Table it can be deduced that aid programs to cities in emergency situations are not only biased by catastrophes but are also important the cultural and historical relations. In fact, the municipality of Madrid have devote most of its aids towards Ibero America than to African cities and this does not mean that the number of natural catastrophes were less in Africa than in Ibero America.

Table 5.3. Emergency projects subsidized by the municipality of Madrid (1999-2002) (Source: Mayor Office of Madrid, Department of Employment and Citizens’ Service).

year Ibero America Africa Nun. of projects Nun. of projects 1999 4 0 2000 8 7 20001 19 0 2002 3 8 Total 34 15

As we showed above most of the cities and autonomous administrations is mobilized when humanitarian crises with a great media impact appears (e.g. the hurricane Mitch) but cities’ government do not respond on the same way to other crises less publicized, but not for that reason less serious. In order to demonstrate this assumption, the Figure 5.2 shows the most important regional catastrophes in the world. Here it can be seen that in the case of African cities for instance the epidemics and droughts are a major problem although the aid assigned to them does not scale with the size of the disaster. Why do some humanitarian crisis make the front

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pages while others not? This is because as Reuters poll of experts (AlertNet survey) showed in March 2005 brutal conflicts in Congo, Uganda and Sudan are the world’s three biggest “forgotten emergencies”, each dwarfing the told of Asian Tsunami but attracting scant media interest. Tsunami killed up to 300,000 in a very short time scale (visual and dramatic effect) whereas other problems as droughts, infectious diseases, and kill millions of people in a long running humanitarian crises. For instance, Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds and WFP (UN World Food Program) reports that more than 100 million people in over 20 countries currently suffer the effects of drought and that the number of affected people is 16 million, from just three million in the previous years. The Horn of Africa remains in the grip of a severe drought with more than 16 million people facing severe food shortages. Kenya, alone, is suffering from one of its worst droughts in recorded history. The devastating drought in Central Asian countries including Afghanistan and Tajikistan has spread to the Caucasus. Therefore, media coverage of the emergency can determine the levels of emergency assistance together with the interests of the aid donors, and the influence of aid organizations 80 . Within this context, humanitarian projects sometimes are used to attract broader support from the general public or as an arm of international policy 81 . Local leaderships via decentralized cooperation activities may want to achieve a higher level of commitment and participation on the part of their own population. In other words, decentralization can create or reinforce a pro-development public opinion and also constituency for the local development cooperation efforts. The twin premises of this view are that local authorities are better placed than the national authorities when it comes to awareness- rising and that their appeal for active involvement in development cooperation (through private donations or participation in public campaigns) is more efficient and effective (Desmet, A. and Develtere, P., 2002, p.6). Another factor influencing the level of humanitarian aid is the lobbying and influence of aid and citizen’s organizations for a particular cause. Individuals, NGOs, States and international organizations consciously and strategically expend ‘political capital in an effort to persuade others to recognize [certain] issues as priority agenda items’ (Young, O., 1998a, p. 7; see also Risse, T., 2001) . For instance, the war in Yugoslavia and

80 A recent study of these factors is “Olsen, G., Carstensen, N. and Hoyen, K., “Humanitarian Crises: What Determines the Level of Emergency Assistance? Media Coverage, Donor Interests, and the Aid Business,” prepared for an October 23, 2002 conference in Copenhagen on forgotten humanitarian crises. See: http://www.forgottencrises.dk/speakers.htm 81 For instance, the humanitarian aid in Kosovo in 1999 had an even closer link to the interests of the large powers, especially the Europeans. Certainly, one reason why a large amount of aid was provided to Kosovar refugees in Macedonia and Albania was to prevent the refugees from trying to immigrate to other countries in Europe.

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the genocide in Rwanda shocked public opinion in Spain and contributed to the growth of solidarity movements, including the so-called “0.7% Campaign” whereby volunteers agreed to donate 0.7% of their income to help the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America. To summaries this section it is important to mention that the political elites’ attitudes towards the media coverage in both cities (Rome and Madrid) seem to have been largely driven by symbolically instrumental motivations such as increasing their domestic legitimacy, and winning their support for certain degree of political/strategic interest of donor cities. In brief, emergency assistance (as one part of DC activities) relates to the interests, especially security concerns, of donor local governments. As already noticed, emergency donors are basically motivated by the same kind of interests as when they grant long-term development assistance. These include security, trade, investment and wider political interests. In other words, natural disasters and complex emergencies are doomed to become forgotten crises when western cities have no vested interest in the afflicted regions, as happened, for example, in the cases of African cities.

Figure 5.2. Regional distribution of disasters (1994-2003) (Source: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, http: //www.em-dat.net, UCL -Brussels, Belgium, Base map: UNEP/DEWA/GRID- Europe, November 2004).

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5.3 Local leaderships In this section we show how DC appears as one of the international activities following an overall coherent strategy defended (and controlled) by the Mayors of Rome and how, in contrast to that, the Mayor of Madrid does not give a dominant place to DC due to his more economical than socio- political inclination. In the case of Rome, Veltroni uses the decentralized cooperation activities in order to reinforce his political legitimacy in front of the public opinion and at the same time to display collective support and promote the city in the international scenario. On the other hand, the current Mayor of Madrid focuses on the economic internationalization of the city as a prevailing element to build up his political visibility whereas the decentralized cooperation activities do not have a relevant role in his agenda. Let us explore such hypotheses examining the two current and main municipal actions dealing with the international issues: the decentralized cooperation activities in the case of Rome and the candidature for the 2012 Olympics Game in the case of Madrid. During the current administration of W. Veltroni in Rome, the intention of the Mayor to play a very influential role in the field of international activities is revealed by the attempts to replace the office for international relations under his own dependency. This office was directly depending from the Mayor himself in 1994-1997 (during the first administration of the former Mayor Rutelli) and then when Veltroni was elected in 2001 again this office started directly depending on the Mayor himself. It is important to remember that inside of this office is located the sector for cooperation and international solidarity. Moreover, the political aim of the Mayor’ strategy has been the promotion of transnational agendas for sustainable development, social justice, peace and human rights. The activities that fit with initiatives of “foreign policy from below”, for example the initiatives developed in support of Least Developed Countries, such as Italia-Africa or the Glocal Forum 82 . The Italia-Africa initiative was launched in 2004 by the Mayor of Rome, together with Italian trade unions, the Catholic NGO “ Sant’Egidio Community” , Unicef , Fao environmentalist associations and other Italian NGOs, where more

82 The Glocal Forum is an annual meeting of 50 mayors of the North and South of the world, debating and taking initiatives for peace and against poverty and foreign debt of less developed countries. Founded in 2001, it encourages global powers to have broader respect for local powers and cultural diversity in a process defined as “glocalization”. The Glocal Forum's city-to-city approach brings together mayors, international institutions, private sector leaders, citizens and youth in a global-local coalition of forces. The resulting concrete projects focus on socio- economic development, tourism, youth, sports, culture, media and information technology. There are more than 300 Glocal Forum members from 134 countries and all five continents (See: www.glocalforum.org).

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than 150.000 people took part in the last day happening 83 . In January of 2005 the Mayor also proposed a low cost company to be called “Roma” and the strengthening of Rome airports’ flights to African countries (D’Albergo, E., 2005, p. 13 ). As we showed, sometimes these initiatives are carried out through partnerships with intergovernmental organizations. Other times they are direct and personal initiatives of the Mayor together with NGOs, without the involvement of the City’s administration, as it happens in the case of the cooperation with Maputo (Mozambique). A long story of cooperation started in 1992 after the signature of pacts for peace in Mozambique that had taken place in Rome and went on with the participation in a Municipal Development Program of the World Bank for sustainable development and urban hygiene in Maputo, managed by the City of Rome via the ECOMED agency. Very peculiar was the following project of cooperation between roman schools, NGOs and Maputo for the building of a school, which was a personal initiative of the Mayor for fund raising among students (20.000 copies of a music CD compilation entitled “Me We ”, personally chosen by the Mayor were sold) with a wide media coverage in Rome, also in that occasion the Mayor visit Maputo with some student from roman schools. With the proceeds from the sale of a music compilation CD edited by Mayor Veltroni himself, four water wells were dug in a suburb of Maputo, in Mozambique 84 . Moreover, as we have showed, during Veltroni administration the civil society organizations have got more deeply involved within the international actions of the city and this partnership has also been object of a certain institutionalization. An example of this situation was the establishment of the “City Committee for Decentralized Cooperation and Solidarity” (2002), in which take part not only the city, but also NGOs, private firms and Rome universities. This is a place where the Mayor and the population interact. For the purposes of DC, the local community is represented by a committee or working group which includes the local authorities, representatives of public institutions and organized civil society groups such as trade unions, NGOs, associations, professional bodies, the commercial sector, etc. These committees provide a venue for permanent dialogue between political authorities and the population dedicated to social development issues in their area. All those initiatives show the work performed by the Municipality of Rome and the Mayor Veltroni. However, while the aim of raising awareness about Africa is well known there

83 See: www.italiafrica.it 84 www.worldmayor.com

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is not much recognition for other international cooperation projects which are presently being carried out by various actors in the city of Rome (Municipality, NGOs, social associations, Foundations and Universities) 85 . Indeed, we should take into consideration the actions for development or for participatory democracy (like the ones carried out in Rome through the program with Latin America) 86 that bring about consent from the organized civil society involved in the DC, as well as their role in international tragedies such as the war in former Yugoslavia 87 . Thus, in the international strategy non-materialist values (sustainable development, solidarity, peace and human rights) are highlighted through actions and networks of relationships within which social and institutional actors get involved together and (infrequently) coincide. Civil society networks are a favorite target of the Veltroni’s strategy of consensus building. This allows local civil society organizations to be involved in the concrete decision and implementation of the city’s international activities, especially as far as decentralized cooperation is concerned 88 . In a sharp contrast with the case of Rome, the current Mayor of Madrid has used international issues as tools to gain resources in the “struggle” for territorial leadership. Indeed, the Madrid city council involvement in the international scene is rather new, and has much to do with the new Mayor: Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon. In fact, the Mayor of Madrid has fixed internationalization as his prominent issue, with both international and domestic objectives. At the international level, he wants to position Madrid among the three European cities of reference (behind Paris and London) on an international economic scale. Especially, he aspires to turn Madrid as the key node between Latin America, Europe and Asia. Moreover, he seeks to put Madrid in the international map as the Spanish capital city, and particularly its economic forces,

85 Interview with Jose Luis Rhi- Sausi, Director of CeSPI (Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale), Rome. 86 The objective of the project "To practice" is the elaboration of instruments and the diffusion of best practices for the fortification of the public politics in the fight against the new urban poverty. The project is developed inside of the general mission of the URBAL program that consists of developing direct and lasting bonds between European and Latin American local organizations by the diffusion, acquisition and application of suitable practices in the urban policies’ scope. For more information see: www.practicar.it 87 For instance, WHO has been engaged in Decentralized Cooperation activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina through Atlas and Mental health, elderly and vulnerable group projects in a coordination and technical assistance role since 1997. Twenty-nine (29) Italian local committees representing 164 municipalities, 10 provincial administrations, 7 regions and 120 NGOs, associations and other civil society groups have been participating in the DC activities. Goods, services, infrastructures, capacity building and new human relations have resulted from this experience in 22 Bosnian towns. 88 Further information about the non-materialist political agenda of Rome see: D’Albergo, E. (2005) “The politics of Rome’s international strategies”, Department Innovazione e Società, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, CITTA- ESF Meeting, June 10-11, Zurich.

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have suffered for years from a lack of international image, Barcelona being the most famous Spanish city in the world since the 1992 Olympics. At the domestic level, Ruiz-Gallardon tries to gain additive resources through international issues in order to reinforce the city council leadership in its own territory. Therefore, in the case of Madrid, the city Mayor develops international activities in order to gain resources in domestic affairs. Here once again one can see the two levels game between domestic and international arenas, where cities and states are international actors. By that we mean that not only States but also cities are also becoming increasingly involved as direct participants in international programs addressing the problems of urbanization and sustainable development among other issues. This can be seen in the fact that the Olympic bid is likely to be a tool used by the municipal government to reinforce its territorial leadership. Moreover, it is very likely that the “symbolic” Olympic bid is fully part of the Mayor strategy to reinforce his political legitimacy to display collective support and consensus-building at both national and regional level, while underlining in the mass media his vision of the city’s future (Martins, L, Rodriguez Alvarez, J. and Iocco, M. E. 2005, p. 14) . In doing so, the decentralized cooperation activities do not have a prevailing place in the political agenda of the Mayor. This activity is performed independently of the Mayor’s strategy and, in contrast to Rome, the general international strategy of the Mayor of Madrid is not symbolic politics but rather more economic oriented. Within this context, leadership in local government is changing, and, in doing so, the roles of international issues are changing as well. Local political leadership has moved on from an era when it involved heading a local political party, with the aim of controlling a local council which produced local services and not international activities (or only geo-political ones). Leadership in local government is now a more expansive activity, requiring leaders to interact with other local stakeholders, from local business, local communities, union forces, and other local public bodies, to address matters of local concern, and also international issues. Madrid is a particularly outstanding case in point of such emergence of a new urban political leadership. In every the case the individual attribute of the political leaders are very important, such emergence has much to do with the personal characteristics of the recent Mayor who aims at taking up the challenge of a new capital leadership vis-à-vis the strong regional government Martins L., Rodriguez Alvarez, J. and Iocco, M.E. 2005, p. 20).

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Chapter 6 Conclusion and discussion

In this work we have outlined some general strategies followed by the cities in international cooperation activities. These activities cannot escape from a general frame imposed by Globalization, Europeanization and Decentralization, and thus, are forced to somehow assimilate the global trends. The two cities here studied, Rome and Madrid, seem to confirm this behavior responding accordingly to the above mentioned external changes, although they do it in a different manner. While Rome adopts a strong symbolic politics strategy via decentralized cooperation activities, Madrid instead, approaches toward an economic strategy. In both cases, however, local governments play an active role either through relations with NGOs, private business, using it as a political boost or as promotion of the city in the international scenario. In the case of Rome and Madrid the structural factors (driving variable), but mainly the explanatory variables tied to the inherent characteristic of the city (steering variable), helps us to identify the place that DC occupies in the international strategy of the Mayors (See figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1. Steering Variable.

Independent Variable (Steering)

* Strengthening legitimacy * Political visibility * Local culture and leadership

Madrid Rome DC is not part of the DC is part of the prevalent strategy prevalent strategy oriented to the economic oriented to international promotion of the city. solidarity, peace and culture.

In the case of Rome, DC has a relevant place in the agenda of the current Mayor, whereas the opposite is observed in the case of Madrid where DC is carried out by other political actors

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within the city government. Figure 6.1 shows that in the case of Rome, the steering variable can explain the strategy of the current orientation towards international solidarity, peace and culture. Also this variable may explain the economic promotion of the city as the prevailing strategy adopted by the Mayor of Madrid. In both cases we see that whatever the dominant strategy is, it enjoys greater visibility and political importance. We explored and analyzed a diverse number of factors that might encourage local governments to develop decentralized cooperation. An important finding of our investigation is that although there are a variety of motives for donors’ support to aid programs via decentralized cooperation activities, much of donor assistance is driven primarily by their self-interest. This interpretation, anticipated by Connolly, B. in 1996 for the case of nation to nation cooperation, seems to propagate also to more local activities as decentralized cooperation. Indeed, although decentralized cooperation is often dressed up in altruistic sounding objectives, many aid programs are designed to address the domestic problems of the donor cities. The quantitative and qualitative evidences supporting this hypothesis indicate that the goals behind this activity are: to control the security and geo-political stability in the region, to favor the economic interest and to search for the internalization of the donor cities (external visibility of the city). Taking this argument one step further, it has been argued that decentralized cooperation activities create a window of opportunity for local leaderships. In terms of symbolic politics three (non hierarchal) points are basically considered: the (social and media) impact on the fight against poverty, the media coverage of emergency assistance and the potential visibility of the politicians behind the scene. In a different vein, we also analyzed the domestic factor s that may engage cities to carry out DC activities. In this case, those domestic factors are described in term of: geographic proximity , economic constraints and historic and cultural links (Table 6.1 summarizes the results of our investigation). Our analysis indicates that (in the case of geographic proximity) cities try to contribute to the stabilization and economic development of nearby geographical areas as well as to prevent and solve conflicts in the developing countries and regions that are important to them. For instance, for the municipality of Rome, the Balkans and the Mediterranean areas emerge as an important zone due to their geographic proximity. Besides the geo-political reasons, cities are also interested in promoting migrations programs via decentralized cooperation activities due to the fast expansions of the immigrants

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affecting all European cities. In this case, the evidence supporting the cultural and historical links shows that in Madrid a great part of the immigrants come from the developing countries, mainly from Latin American and Moroccan cities. Thus, our investigation shows a clear correlation between the level of migrations (socio- economic problems) and the domestic motivations that Madrid has in order to carry out decentralized cooperation activities with nearby countries and ex Spanish colonies. However, in stark contrast to Madrid, the municipality of Rome seems not to benefit in any way from their ex-colonies. To explain this discrepancy in these two politics one probably has to dig into the detail of the potential immigration flows, such as their native language, religion, adaptation, etc. Probably the most obvious exploited benefit from the decentralized cooperation is the economic one. This can be done through the promotion of the city economy and finance in the global market, making the city the recipient of knowledge through exchange of best practices, searching for the promotion of local authorities via direct involvement of the city in supranational organizations, or lobbying the EU through DC and strengthening the role of cities in the European policy making. Moreover, we demonstrated how decentralized cooperation appears as a new place for job opportunities and formation of skills. Also we analyzed the actors involved in Rome and Madrid. We noticed that the economic actors are prevailing over no-profit NGOs in the case of Madrid and the contrary in the case of Rome having this attitude an impact on the policy orientation of the two cities. Although the domestic concerns in many cases might be the dominant factor for motivating a DC, our study reveals that this factor do not provide a complete explanation of the incentives for decentralized cooperation activities in Rome and Madrid. The new ingredient to consider is the potential political benefit that certain rulers, political groups or parties can gain from a DC activity. In these sense, the current Mayor of Rome see the city’s (historical and contemporary) non-materialist identity as a resource for Rome. This makes possible to portray Rome as a city of spirituality, solidarity and peace via (for instance) DC activities. In Madrid, the decentralized cooperation activities are barely oriented to fight against poverty, being the Latin American cities the priority areas for the development of cooperation projects. On this regards, Spanish and Italian cities very rarely follow a clear plan of fighting against poverty, since they cooperate mainly with countries of low and middle income, countries that are in their vicinity or with countries that share same common past instead of the LDCs.

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However, still the amount of money and projects (economic resources) assigned to the LDCs is larger in the case of Madrid than Rome. The study indicates that in Rome Veltroni takes a wishful behavior seeking recognition by advertising the fight against poverty as an element of marketing the city in the international scenario. During Veltroni’s administration the international strategy has become more oriented toward non-materialist values, even though the economic purposes have not been completely disregarded. In the Mayor’s view the identity and the resources of Rome are not prevailingly well-suited to integrate the city in the marketplace, but instead should be used to enhance values of solidarity and cosmopolitanism and, through this, the role of the city in the national and international scenario.

Table 6.1. The prevailing strategy. Blue and Red fonts indicate the symbolic politics and domestic concerns factors that prevails in each city respectively, while Black fonts point out the variables that doesn’t affect the strategy or behavior of the cities.

Independent variable Dependent Instrume variable nt

Strengthe Politica Local Economic Historical Geographic Politics Internati n l leadershi promotio and proximity Orientation onal legitimac visibilit ps n cultural activity y y relations

Aid Consent Mayor Job None Security Prevails Programs from the political opportunit reasons Symbolic (more Public strategy ies/ (geo- politics DC political) opinion formation political) Rome of skills

Aid Consent Mayor Job Migration Economic Prevails Programs from the economic opportunit flows Reasons domestic (more Public strategy ies/ (migration) concern DC economic opinion formation Madrid al) of skills

It is important to notice that both municipalities provide quick-response capacity to natural disasters. This situation is apparent in the case of Spain where a widespread mobilization of public support and personal contributions is assigned particularly to Spanish-speaking countries. Therefore, we found that local governments via their leadership may look for internal socio/ political consent in their answer to emergencies showing the solidarity capacity of the city

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by giving help to persons in emergency situations. In brief, the attitude of the political leaders towards decentralized cooperation activities seem to have been largely driven by a symbolic politics motivation. Figure 6.2 attempts to summarize and give a definite answer to the research question posed at the beginning of this work.

Figure 6.2. Prevailing strategies and research question.

Research Question Does a symbolic politics or domestic concern strategy prevail within the policy orientation of DC in a city?

Rome Madrid The symbolic politics of DC prevails over Domestic concerns prevail over the symbolic Domestic concerns. politics of DC. There is a visible use of DC by the Mayor. There is not a visible use of DC by the Mayor . The DC office is strongly linked to the The DC office is independent of the mayor. T he Mayor. The current M ayor of Rome has a current M ayor of Madrid has a market oriented non-materialist view. vision.

All in all, based on our hypothesis, the study examined empirically the application of the symbolic politics and the domestic concerns motivations that may push European cities like Rome and Madrid to carry out decentralized cooperation activities. As we showed, domestic factors can not fully account for the behavior of both cities. This is the reason why Rome and Madrid carry out decentralized cooperation activities which contain the two dimensions (symbolic politics and domestic concerns), but with different emphasis according whether their needs or the politics prevail. In other words, DC of cities results from an interplay among the economic, socio- cultural, political and security factors.

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Interviews

Madrid

• Fernando Rocafull, Secretariat of UCCI, Municipality of Madrid, C/Bailén, 41, 28005 MADRID (phone: +34 91 588 48 05). • Maite Aranguren GAarrido, Chief of the International Relations section, Department of Structure and International Organization, Municipality of Madrid, Plaza de la Villa, 4, 3ª floor, 28005 MADRID (Phone: +34 91 588 29 75), e-mail: [email protected] • Cristina Vivanco, Responsible for the Department of Cooperation, Immigration, and Volunteer Affairs, Municipality of Madrid, C/Ortega y Gasset, 100, 1ª MADRID (Phone: +34 91 588 00 92). • Carlos Clemente Aguado, General Director of Development Cooperation of the Autonomous Community of Madrid. C/Espartinas, 10, 3º MADRID (Phone: +34 91 420 86 51). • María del Mar Rosillo, Federation of NGO, Autonomous Community of Madrid (FONGCAM). C/Embajadores, 30 (Phone: +34 91 528 80 33/ 530 56 30), e-mail: [email protected]

Roma:

• Doctor Luca Lo Bianco, “Economic and Development”- XV Department of Roma City, Decentralized Cooperation/ URBAL, e-mail: [email protected] • Doctor. Pietro Pipi, Decentralized Cooperation/ URBAL, email: [email protected] • Allesandra Testoni, Decentralized Cooperation/ URBAL, email: [email protected] • Patricia Luzzatto, International Relations Office, Municipality of Roma, coordinator of the sector "Decentralized Cooperation and international solidarity". e- mail: [email protected] • Franco La Torre, Director of the ECOMED Agency, Municipality of Roma, Decentralized Cooperation/ PLISE, e- mail: [email protected]

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• Dr. Jorge Ithurburu, International Relations Office, Municipality of Roma: Lungotevere dei Pierleoni 1 00186 – Roma Tel: (00 39) 06 6710 4189 Fax: (00 39) 06 679 8172 Cel: (00 39) 339 28 75 195 (Phone interview) email: [email protected] • Jose Lus Rhi- Sausi, Director, Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale (CeSPI), Roma, email: [email protected]

Supranational Organizations:

• Pierre Ghilain, European Union, e mail: [email protected] , http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/ong_cd/index_fr.htm • Castelgrande Paola, Italy-FAO Decentralized Cooperation Program. Resources and strategic Partnerships Unit, Technical Cooperation Department/ FAO email: [email protected]

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Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge useful discussions and stimulating conversations with Prof. Ernesto D’Albergo. This job is also part of the research activities realized within the framework of CITTA (www.diesonline.it/citta-esf ) I am pleased to thanks the whole CITTA member group for their intellectual stimulation, experiences and knowledge during the different meetings. I am greatly in debt with all those persons who (at the municipal level, supranational organizations and NGO’s) kindly collaborate and furnished this work with useful information and opinions. I would like to thank the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the financial support. I also acknowledge the assistance of the department of Political Science at the University of Siena and all my PhD colleagues. I am particularly in debt with Nicoletta (and Emiliano), for their hospitality and friendship. Also I would like to thanks Angela Movileanu, for her valuable help. My greatest debt is to my husband, Alejandro. His love and unselfish tolerance of the work and separations occasioned by the research made all the difference in the end. His support, comments and discussion made this thesis possible. This thesis could not have been written without his close collaboration and support. Finally, I want to thank my family for their continuous and unconditional support.

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