CLGF’s Secretary-General gave a clear message to the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) Annual Conference about the role of partnerships in overcoming future challenges.

Addressing an audience of politicians and officers last week in Castlereagh, Dr Munro described the increasingly complex challenges facing local government across the globe, such as urbanisation, youth unemployment, ageing infrastructure, climate change, revenue generation and the rising demands for more services.

Stressing that partnership and innovation must be at the heart of the solution; he talked about the exciting new ways that Commonwealth local governments are increasing revenue to fund important initiatives. This includes municipal bonds, public private partnerships, social enterprise partnerships, joint ventures etc.

"It is important to find local solutions to local problems and place communities at the heart of this work. But we must also ensure that there is global relevance by working with key partners and delivering regionally tailored responses. What we do locally will impact globally," he told a packed audience.

Dr Munro concluded by saying that local government is caught between communities with increasing needs, and dwindling limited resources. "If local governments embrace partnership, innovation and a completely new operating paradigm it will spectacularly succeed."

CLGF’s conference taking place next month in Malta – CLGC2017 - will focus on these topics looking at strategies to boost local government’s resource base and capacity to improve performance, governance and service delivery.